Opening Prayer:
First: please explain to the children what the concept of Spiritist Movement is.
Resources for the Spiritist Teacher:
The Spiritist Movement is formed of people who are part of different spiritist centres. Local organizations are usually called Spiritist centres or Spiritist societies. Regional and national organizations are called "federations", as the Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB), while international organizations are termed "unions", such as the Union Spirite Française et Francophone. The International Spiritist Council is an organization resulting from the unification, on a world wide scale, of Representative Associations from each Spiritist Movement within the various countries.
Objectives:
* To promote solidarity and the fraternal union of Spiritist Institutions in all countries, as well as the unification of The World Spiritist Movement;
* To promote throughout the world the study and the dissemination of the Spiritist Doctrine in its three basic aspects: scientific, philosophical and religious;
* To promote the practice of spiritual, moral and material charity, according to the Spiritist Doctrine.
Doctrinal Basis: The objectives of the International Spiritist Council are founded upon the Spiritist Doctrine as codified by Allan Kardec and other works which, according to its directives, may be considered complementary and subsidiary.
It’s all volunteer work. All the money gathered through the sale of newspapers, books and t-shirts is used to maintain the Spiritist Movement. We could say the spiritist movement is formed of workers, lecturers who travel disseminating Spiritism and writers who disseminate it through books, magazines and newspapers. Please see the lesson called Spiritist Movement.
Second: please explain to the children that today we will get to know some of the most important spiritist workers: Chico Xavier, Raul Teixeira, Divaldo Franco, Izaias Claro, Bezerra de Menezes. We call them Spiritist Personalities, because they are very important personalities within the Spiritist Movement.
Third: please split the team into five groups. Give each group the biography of each personality; make sure each group gets a different personality from one another. Please ask them to read and prepare the text to present the personality to all colleagues. If possible, please bring some books, CDs and pictures/images of these personalities to allow the children to visualise them.
Obs.: If the group is quite big, you could split them into smaller groups and include other famous personalities such as: Jerônimo Mendonça, Sir William Crookes, Leon Denis... You can find some suggestions here:
www.spiritisteducation.net
www.espiritismogi.com.br/biografias.htm (Portuguese language).
www.explorespiritism.com/historyotherdissem.htm
Click here to find some suggested texts to be distributed to the children. The data presented was last updated in December 2008. It’ important the spiritist teacher updates these facts, in case he/she decides to use the material suggested.
Fourth: after each group presents their personalities, the spiritist techer could tell an interesting story; a curious fact about each person presented.
The children really enjoyed taking part in this activity. Each of them read a small part of the personality’s biography and showed to the rest of the group a book/CD with a picture of the person they were talking about. Some of these spiritist personalities might have already been seen by the children.
Click here to get to know stories, facts and information from the life of the personalities we are talking about in this class.
Fifth: please distribute a small text to each of the children which contains the bibliography of the personalities studied so they can attach it to their notebooks.
Click here to print the text.
Closing Prayer
Class suggested being suitable for: 2nd cycle (9 to 10 years old) and 3rd cycle (11 to 12 years old).
Translation: Carolina von Scharten, London, Sir William Crookes Spiritist Society linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.
