Talmido

“Teach me the way of Your commandments O Lord, and I will keep them. I will live in grace Lord, guard the doors of my limbs that lie open lest the treasure of Your gifts be stolen!” (Sh’hima Prayers, Saturday Soutoro)

Welcome to Talmido!

What does "Talmido" (ܬܰܠܡܝܼܕܳܐ) mean?

Talmido in Syriac means disciple.

When it comes to our Faith, we are all disciples of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Talmido was developed by the American Dioceses of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church to provide resources for the revised Sunday School Curriculum. Our vision is for Talmido to become an important tool not just for teachers but for every disciple to learn more about Orthodoxy and our rich Syrian tradition.

Sunday School teachers from the North-East American Diocese and the South-West American Diocese will use this site to get materials and resources to prepare their teaching lessons.

We also encourage everyone to explore Talmido and learn more about our Faith. Sunday School children can use Talmido to expand their knowledge base, while parents can easily see what their children are learning while enhancing their own faith. Even those not directly associated with the Sunday School program can make use of Talmido to learn the faith, tradition, Holy Bible, and liturgy of the Orthodox Church. Therefore, welcome!

This site aspires to 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?

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

Adopting 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 therefore every action and fulfilment of Tradition in the life of a faithful become meaningful and purposeful. Talmido caters to this need.

Another important goal of Talmido is to help equip everyone for the shift to a more intuitive Christian Education. If we compare the transition from previous Christian Education systems to this revised Curriculum, it is like the transition from touch-tone cellphones to responsive-display smartphones. As educators and parents understand important concepts such as learning outcomes and scope and sequence, we believe the shift from a "textbook only" approach of catechism to one that encourages educators to use a variety of resources to teach specific goals to children. The textbook therefore is not the primary focus of the curriculum but rather it is Christ and His teachings as given to the faithful.

Overall our mission is for the life of the Church which includes fasting, prayer, and worship to not become burdens but joy and happiness, and for Orthodoxy to not become a compulsion but a conviction.

Learning Outcomes

Learning outcomes are measurable statements that articulate the goals for that Grade. The Learning outcomes for the entire year is published and textbook lessons have learning outcomes mapped to them. Teachers should begin planning for their lessons by becoming familiar with the learning outcomes, and the lesson as well as additional materials can be used 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.

Scope & Sequence

A system called “Bloom's Taxonomy” was used to develop the revised curriculum. 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.

The curriculum is broken down to 53 topics, and there is a "Scope and Sequence" that begins with introduction, moves to development, and eventual mastery using learning outcomes to achieve the goal. What makes this planned shift from a "textbook centric" curriculum is is the Scope and Sequence and well-defined learning outcomes of the new curriculum.

To start, please get familiarized with the Scope and Sequence of topics and observe 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.

Lesson Resources

Talmido is structured so that each Lesson not only provides the textbook lesson but also a series of resources that are related to the lesson. Teachers can now go to the textbook lesson to download the lesson but also see the growing list of resources that can help prepare for the lesson. The learning outcomes as well are provided to remind teachers of the goals of the lessons and be creative in teaching to this goal.

Topic Resources

The revised curriculum is broken into 53 topics, and each topic will have a resource page that provides curated information and materials relevant to the topic. This set of materials can help anyone (teachers, children, parents, or those curious of our Faith) and will also continue to grow!

Share your resources!

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!

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