Christian Lesson Plans

More than Mummies: Archaeologists Bring Egypt Alive in the Classroom

School is out, but if you're looking forward to educational ideas for the summer and the coming fall, think Egypt.

It’s more than just spooky fun with mummies and hieroglyphs. Using the kid-friendly aspects of Egypt as a hook, lessons can get students asking how and why human beings developed civilization, said Lisa Schwappach-Shirriff of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE).

ARCE's  Northern California chapter , based at  UC Berkeley , has just launched a free volunteer program to send trained Egyptologists into Bay Area classrooms. The organization is eager to get the word out before fall, because teachers make their lesson plans during the summer.

In sixth grade, every student in California public schools learns about ancient Egypt. Students have fun with such tasks as learning to write their names in Egyptian, an early written language that developed from picture signs. Teachers use this as an entrée to talk about the origins of civilization.

“The kids go on to ask themselves, ‘Why do you need language? Can you have government without language?’” Schwappach-Shirriff said. “There’s just enough that’s really strange to get them interested, and just enough that’s just like us to make the Egyptians relatable." 

Schwappach-Shirriff, formerly assistant director of the  Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum   in San Jose, reinstalled that museum’s collections to help visitors better understand daily life, the afterlife and kingship in the time of the pharaohs. She also spoke to thousands of kids in school groups. Now a San Leandro mom of two small children, she volunteers her time with ARCE.

In fact, ancient Egypt is one of seven ancient civilizations studied in California sixth-grade classrooms and the only one based on the African continent (the others are Mesopotamia, Israel, India, China, Greece and Rome). But teachers say it is by far the most popular.

"What 11- or 12-year-old doesn't like mummies, pyramids, and tombs?" asked Sarah Stickle of  The Academy of Alameda , who invited ARCE-NorCal Egyptologist Vicky Jensen into her classroom last month. Stickle, like many teachers, likes ancient Egypt almost as much as her students do. She collected hieroglyphic rubber stamps and read up on archaeological discoveries. But Stickle said there's nothing like having a real archaeologist come into the classroom.

"Having Vicky come speak and show photographs of her digs in Egypt makes it all the more real for the students," Stickle said. "It's a great addition for our students to see that the history of Egypt  — and all histories, really — is still being  discovered, adjusted and questioned .

Is the Old Testament Safe for Children?

Lately I've been re-thinking the widsom of our tendency to teach Old Testament stories to children in Sunday School, Vacation Bible School and other venues for religious education. I'm afraid the stories might be doing more harm than good, and they might actually work against the end goal of encouraging children to develop a strong, personal faith in a loving God. The Noah narrative in Genesis ends with Noah planting a vineyard and getting so drunk that he collapses naked in his tent. He then curses his grandson, Canaan, setting the stage for continued enmity between the Israelites and Canaanites for generations. Of course we never teach this part of the Noah story to children--nor should we. Yet it is an essential component to the integrity of the whole narrative. So we typically just teach children about the ark, the animals, the flood and then the rainbow at the end of the flood. At least that part of the story is fairly innocuous and has some value for them, right? Except that the attentive child might reasonably draw this lesson from our beloved story of Noah: Once upon a time, God was so angry at people that he killed virtually all of them--therefore, he could do it again. The story of Joshua is another story that gets frequent mention in children's Christian literature and lesson plans. It's the thrilling story of a courageous military leader who relied completely on his faith in God for victory in battle. There's even a catchy old gospel tune that sometimes gets taught to kids: "Joshua fought the battle of Jericho...and the walls came tumbling down." The Old Testament is a rich, complex, fascinating work that shows the development of the relationship between God and his people and lays the groundwork for the ministry of Jesus. But more and more I'm thinking we simply should not be teaching it to children. Yes, Christians should read the Old Testament, but we should save it for an age when our young people can handle it and appreciate its nuances and its extremely realistic portray of life's brutality.