Dhamma Wheel Buddhist Forum

I was asked to read something of my choosing to the pupils at school. The librarian said I could choose any book I wanted. I chose Thanissaro Bhikkhu's Wings to Awakening.

The pupils generally didn't enjoy it and the librarian looked almost angry at ne for not choosing a fiction book, I suppose.

Thought I'd share to see if it induced some Dhamma conversation here

she should of been more specific

the librarian looked almost angry at me for not choosing a fiction book

Well, you could have pointed to a few passages that would have helped them with that particular problem...

Greetings,

Mawkish1983 wrote:I was asked to read something of my choosing to the pupils at school. The librarian said I could choose any book I wanted. I chose Thanissaro Bhikkhu's Wings to Awakening.

My first thoughts here are cautionary, in relation to religion being presented in school without parental permission nor the ability to "opt out".

Something like that could cause trouble if parents were to complain.

Metta,
Retro.

retrofuturist wrote:My first thoughts here are cautionary, in relation to religion being presented in school without parental permission nor the ability to "opt out".

Religious education is compulsory here, so I cannot imagine that being an issue.

Greetings,

Good to hear... even if the experiment might have failed, it shouldn't backfire on you personally.

Metta,
Retro.

retrofuturist wrote:...even if the experiment might have failed...

Hmm, it might have done, but I hope some of what I read will bury itself deep into the memories of some of the children so in the future they may be more inclined to do some Dhamma study of their own. I don't know. One of the boys did ask me later what it was I was reading, so I told him. Whether he was genuinely interested or not... I don't know.

I'm sure it's put me to sleep a time or two also (I'm technically not a child).

Goodwill
Daniel

While I'm sure your intentions were good I'm not really surprised. It's more of a study guide than something that's good to present aloud to people who don't know anything about the subject.

What are the ages of the children? If they are fairly young, there is always:

http://www.amazon.com/Prince-Siddhartha ... 0861713753" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

which has lots of pictures and is meant for a young audience.

David N. Snyder wrote:What are the ages of the children?

From 11 to 18. It's a very academic school and the pupils are generally well read.

Kenshou wrote:It's more of a study guide than something that's good to present aloud to people who don't know anything about the subject.

Yes I suppose that's right. I mainly used the book because it has some good suttas in and I explained the background a bit before reading. I can see why it wasn't well received.

I haven't read Wings to Awakening but one of the key points I think is how something is read. I mean it generally has to be a very vibrant energetic, even passionate reading to keep modern kids awake.

Dan74 wrote:...it generally has to be a very vibrant energetic, even passionate reading to keep modern kids awake.

I don't believe 'modern kids' are so different from the children of previous generations with respect to attention span. Indeed, the issue of motivation was addressed at the turn of the previous century (the 20th) in UK educational literature.

Hi Mawk,

Mawkish1983 wrote:

David N. Snyder wrote:What are the ages of the children?

From 11 to 18. It's a very academic school and the pupils are generally well read.

Every year I give a talk to our Year 10 students at the Christian school where I work. I've got a standing invitation from the school Chaplain to talk to the 16-year-olds about Buddhism. The theme is "death and dying" and fits in with a personal development unit that looks at how different religions approach death and dying. Although its also an academic school, I am very careful with how I present the Dhamma and focus on stories from the canon and the messages within those stories. One year I focused on the story of the Bodhisatta before his enlightenment and last year I focused on the story of Kisagotami. However academic the students are, I think it would be a rare student who would find a sutta reading or the reading of a scholarly work on the Dhamma of interest.
kind regards,

Ben