Talmido

“Train me oh Lord in all the ways of Your Commandments to live in your Grace. Assign watch-guards for my body so that the treasure house of Your Grace does not get looted.” (Sh’hima Prayers, Saturday Soutoro)

Welcome to Talmido!

What does "Talmido" (ܬܰܠܡܝܼܕܳܐ) mean?

Talmido in Syriac means disciple.

When it comes to faith, every one of us is a disciple of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Talmido is a website developed by the American Dioceses of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church to provide resources for the revised Sunday School Curriculum of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Our vision is that Talmido becomes an important tool not just for teachers but for every disciple to learn more about our Orthodox Faith.

Sunday School teachers of the North-East American Diocese and the South-West American Diocese will use this site to plan for lessons. We will also encourage Sunday School children to explore Talmido and expand their knowledge base. Parents can also search through Talmido to see what your children are learning and enhance your own faith. Every faithful should make use of Talmido because here you will learn the faith, tradition, Holy Bible, and liturgy of the Orthodox Church. Therefore, welcome!

This site will provide a "one-stop shop" for the new curriculum including textbook and lessons, supplementary materials for lessons and topics, Teacher’s Guide and Training Tools, songs, liturgical resources, writings of the Fathers in connection to these resources, documents to use in lesson planning, Kahoots, Cross-words, videos, and a lot more. This site is intended to grow over time and we encourage everyone to consider themselves as contributors to this online compendium. If you come across something useful in teaching Sunday School children, please share the resource back to us!

How do I use Talmido?

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How can I navigate Talmido?

Talmido reflects an intentional change in philosophy and approach to the Academic Year 2022-2023 Curriculum. We will be intentional in advancing from a "textbook-centric" educational approach to a context-driven Sunday School education where application of learned material will help you to reach the mastery of each topic.

Using an approach modeled on Bloom's Taxonomy, our Sunday School children will grow through various phases of introduction, development, and mastery to become critical thinkers. A Sunday School Diploma holder is expected to defend their faith as well as explore the new avenues of faith through the help of the Holy Spirit. Thus, everyone grows from encountering Christ, from the conviction of faith in Christ, to becoming like Christ or theosis. Christ is the textbook of faith to live out which is taught in Sunday Schools and thus, every action and fulfilment of Tradition in the life of a faithful become meaningful and purposeful. Talmido caters to this need.

Another important aspect of Talmido is to equip everyone for the shift in intuitive Christian Education. If we compare the transition from previous Christian Education systems to the 2022 Curriculum, it is like the transition from touch-tone cellphones to responsive-display smartphones. What makes this shift possible is the Scope and Sequence and well-defined learning outcomes of the new curriculum. First you get familiarized with the Scope and Sequence of topics. Try to grasp the gradual growth in learning from introduction to development, and development to mastery of each topic. To put this in context, in Grades 1-4 is where we introduce topics. Grades 5-8 is where each already-introduced-topic gets developed and Grades 9-12 is where mastery of these topics are accomplished. You can see which grades are discussing what, and how the progression is planned in the Scope and Sequence section available in Talmido. Thus for a faithful, fasting and prayer become not a burden, but joy and happiness, and Orthodoxy becomes not a compulsion, but a conviction.

For each lesson there is a learning outcome. Each teacher shall start planning the delivery of individual lessons by familiarizing the learning outcomes, and using the lesson to accomplish them. When the learning outcomes are achieved, you will see that the children will internalize the faith and will volunteer to discover answers for themselves. Talmido therefore, becomes the repertoire for you to gather your arsenal in effective lesson delivery.

When creating this curriculum, we used “Blooms Taxonomy” system to do so. This is a time proven, ever-modern, teaching-learning environment. You will see how the children will be loving this changed learning system. Moreover, as teachers you are not just delivering the content to your children. You are the facilitators of these lessons, and are helping the children to explore and discover Christ for themselves.

Again, if you create new tools to deliver the lessons to your assigned children, or come across something really useful, please go forward with it! Use them and share your experience with the Curriculum Committee. If anything useful is found in the process of raising generations of convinced and committed Orthodox Faithful and you don’t see it here, please feel free to let us know! We can’t wait to read all your feedback!

Faith is a Family Affair

Families in Orthodox Education

Quick blurb on how and why it is important for families to be a part of Talmido and learning and how the website is a resource. Include links

Textbooks

• Download Textbooks
• Lessons by Grade
• Lessons by Topic