Hi

Gumby our Super Stretchy Hero

Block Heads are Gumby's nemesis

Dan, Linford, Bryony, Maria, Kate, Joey, James and Adam.

Confession

I’d like to kick this blog off with a confession. Guy our Chaplain makes it really clear that Spirituality Class is not about Bible Bashing, teaching Religion. It is a discussion of the students own spiritual journey. To do that we need to learn to respect each other by listening and not bagging another person’s opinion. Sure we can disagree but we don’t make fun of each other.

A student shared that his hero during primary school was Gumby. I and other students burst our laughing, not even knowing who this super hero was. Luckily the student was wearing a Tshirt of his super hero. I feel really bad about that but the student took it in good humour. So I am going to call this class Gumby in honour of this unknown super hero and the student for enlightening us.

Gumby

Ok just because I’ve never heard of this super-hero doesn’t mean I should under estimate his powers. He is a stretchy super hero that has made into other films and our language.

From Wiki:

The word "Gumby" is now used as slang to describe an act of stupidity or inexperience and is also used to refer to someone particularly uncoordinated (although this refers to Mr. Gumby, one of several characters in Monty Python's Flying Circus).

References to Gumby are made in the following shows, Smallville, Supernatural, Simpsons, The Office.

RE and other boring experiences

Honest Church calls itself boring

Straight off in our small group I asked students to share their experiences of Religion, things like being made to go to Church, Religious instruction. Basically everyone agreed it was really really boring. Mostly about Jesus and very repetitive.  I admit that was my childhood experience, a really old crusty lady taking a class that bored me nearly to death. Hopefully Spirituality Class will be stimulating and not boring.

Irrelevant

Students where asked to indicate how important religion or spirituality is to them and nearly all indicated that it was not important. I’m very interested to see if that might change as we explore just what spirituality is and how it affects the students lives. I expect because we were relating to churchy experiences that they were mostly thinking about that when they answered the question. Anyway I’ll enjoy finding out what they students actually believe rather than what they don’t believe.