Hi everyone! Kurt’s traveling this week, so I’m popping back in to write this week’s article.
Kurt has been writing a series called Following Christ for Exhausted People, following The Little Way by St. Therese of Lisieux. And I’ll be honest, I’ve certainly been putting myself more and more into the “exhausted people” category lately. But I don’t want to focus on that today; rather, I want to get into something that has given me and my wife both a lot of life and has served to combat burnout and exhaustion for both of us. When we’re exhausted, as much as we’re able, it’s important to do what we can that leads us to restfulness, so we can better take on the challenges wearing us down. For my wife and I, one of those things is the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.
Most people aren’t all that familiar with Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (usually just shortened to CGS), and so I thought that this may be a good way to introduce this to others. In short, CGS is a Montessori-based religious education approach for children from the age of 3 through to the age of about 12. It seems to me like more and more religious schools and churches of varying denominations are picking up on it, so you may have heard of it once or twice before. But if you’re not familiar with Montessori education, it was developed by Maria Montessori, the first woman in Italy to ever become a medical doctor. In her early years, she was assigned to assess children in Rome’s mental institutions, and discovered that the children there needed proper tactile and sensory education rather than simply incarceration, and so developed a style of education that not only filled these needs, but presented education as a whole in ways that fit with the way a child naturally behaves based on her observations of them: episodes of deep concentration, repetition, sensitivity to order in the environment, and a draw towards practical activities over just playing with toys when given a free choice of activity.
Maria was a dedicated scientist, which is how her educational methodology took shape. But it was her devotion to Jesus Christ as a Christian that she believed underpinned her work. She thought her method reached its peak in growing relationships between children and the God who made them, and that’s what her close friend and student Gianna Gobbi set out to do. Gianna partnered with Sofia Cavalletti, an Italian Scripture and Hebrew scholar, to take what Maria had developed and apply it to the spiritual education of children.
An important element to highlight is the degree of freedom given to the kids in a CGS atrium. “Atrium,” by the way, is a term that comes from the early Church, and was the place just outside the sanctuary that those becoming Christians would prepare for baptism and full membership into the Body of Christ.
In CGS, the children choose what materials to work with, provided that the teacher (or in CGS we call them “catechists” or “guides”) has shown them how to use a material; children are often told that they can work only with what they have been shown, and they respect that. It’s also often repeated that they don’t “play” with the materials; they work with them, as what we as adults see as “play” is the work of the young child, and it ought to be treated with the same dignity. There is a correct way to use the materials, but the kids aren’t assigned to specific works or tasks at all. They have the freedom to choose what to work with and how long to work with it. I think many adults are kind of afraid of what a kid will do with that kind of freedom, but in a prepared environment like an atrium, kids very quickly develop self-discipline that would make your jaw drop.
In fact, one story I heard from one of the early training sessions talks about an incident with one of Maria Montessori’s first groups of kids. She couldn’t make it to their school on that day, and so asked another adult to fill in for her. Well, that adult was having some difficulty getting into the classroom, and when the kids arrived, they helped her out and immediately got to work doing what they were supposed to do, entirely on their own.
Something else to point out too: the catechist or guide in CGS doesn’t really lecture or impart information the way a traditional teacher does. We’ll present materials and show kids how to use them, and we’ll proclaim truth when it’s appropriate, but we don’t often tell them what the “right answer” is. Instead, we pose questions that inspire the kids to think deeply for themselves and allow the Holy Spirit to lead them to the truth.
Just to give you one example, one of the most prominent works in CGS focuses on the Parable of the Good Shepherd. The materials consist of a wooden sheepfold, a wooden figure of a shepherd, and ten wooden sheep, all two-dimensional and made by hand. When showing for the first time, the catechist will read an abbreviated version of the parable of the Good Shepherd while slowly moving the shepherd around the sheepfold with the sheep following after him. We’ll then ask questions like “Who might these sheep be? Who said ‘I am the Good Shepherd?’ What makes him good?” or other questions like this that get the kid thinking deeply whenever they take the material out to work with it. And then, they’re free to use it whenever they want to.
For years while we were still dating, my wife told me about how great CGS was, and I had never seen it, so I just took her word for it. She had done an internship in college focusing on it, but never actually received the training. Then, about two years ago, she had the opportunity to receive the training. The only wrinkle was that it was in Minnesota, and not the close-to-northeast Wisconsin part of Minnesota: it would be a 7-hour drive one way during winter to get there.
So we went. I initially just came along as the chauffeur, since I didn’t want my wife to have to drive that far by herself in potentially bad Midwest winter weather, but I didn’t really think I’d be able to follow or get much out of it myself.
Boy was I wrong.
Within the first hour of training, I was not only invested in CGS but invigorated by it. The very nature of CGS reinforces from the beginning that you are good, you are valued, and you are trusted. I think if you’re in the market for something to give you life, I would highly recommend learning more about this. I have yet to actually use my training, but my wife has been using it now for three years as of today.
If you’re interested, here’s a link to the U.S. Association of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd:
And here’s more about Maria Montessori as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori
And if you happen to be in the growing group of people who knows a thing or two about CGS and caught me saying something incorrect, please feel free to correct me; it matters more to me that people get a proper understanding of CGS and just how wonderful it really is.
Even just writing about this has picked me up some, so hopefully learning a bit about something that’s given me some edification can do the same for you.
– Wes
