Learning to Get out of the Way

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Learning to Get out of the Way

It felt surreal to have 9 familiar IPC faces in the classroom at St.Luke's on Monday morning, ready to begin our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd adventure. Two more will join us next week, and I can't wait to roll our sleeves up in the coming weeks and really delve into this method of spiritual formation for children.

One of the first things our instructor, Stephanie Diethelm, mentioned was that one of the goals of being a trained Catechist is to “get out of the way” as children learn about their faith and their own personal relationship with God, the good shepherd. What a relief, to feel like you are not there to solicit or provide “the right answer” about Scripture in a Sunday school setting, but to foster a relationship with God that is unique to each child, a relationship that they can carry with them for the rest of their lives.

We learned about MariaMontessori, the first female physician in Italy. She had to get special permission from the Pope to even attend medical school! She endured many hardships at school but persevered and finished. Upon graduation the medical community still didn't know “what to do with her”. Lucky for us, and for our children and those before, she was sent to work with children who society had deemed “damaged” with mental deficiencies. She realized through her work with them and in studying the work of two French physicians that the children might flourish with didactic materials they could touch- things that were created not only for their size but also for their age level and stage of development. It worked, and she applied this to working with children during the Industrial Revolution, children whose parents would go to work in the factories and leave them home and unattended all day! They were literally peeling the stucco off the walls in their apartments. A landlord requested that Montessori open a school (no wonder!), and she did, calling it “the Children's House.”

The Children's House was to be an extension of home- or a connection between the two. It opened on January 6th, 1907- on the feast of epiphany. Montessori wanted it to be a feast of education, guided by Christ. Again, we see the theme of getting out of the way- the children wanted to learn all about practical life, and they did. Washing hands, wiping a table, caring for their environment. It's ironic to me that the same children who were left at home while their parents were away in the factories actually wanted to care for that home... perhaps they just didn't know how. How many times in life do we “interfere” with children's work when we should let them see the process through? Of course sometimes it's necessary when safety is concerned, but the art of “hovering” has become a finely tuned skill for most of us parents.

We also learned about Sophia Cavelletti, a Biblical and Hebrew scholar at the University of Rome, who had always taught adults and had no children of her own. She had many friends who were trained Montesorians though, and after being “tricked” one afternoon by one of them to work with a few seven year olds, she found her true calling. She saw the joy and contemplation children felt from lighting a candle and reading passages from the Bible, one line at a time and then reflecting. She met Gianna Gobbi, an apprentice to Maria Montessori, and they collaborated for many years together to develop Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.

In closing, we learned that an Atrium is a place of prayer. It's a place of contemplation to grow closer to Christ. Children love “the dignity of work” and it's important to use that language because every work a child does in the Atrium is a prayer. Their prayer, not ours- again, we show them one work at a time, and then get out of the way!

Lastly, a quote from “TheReligious Potential of the Child”, by Sophia Cavalleti. This passage is actually from the book's Foreword, written by RebekahRojcewicz. 

 “Perhaps it is difficult for us to sense the fullness of life in the atrium or to recognize the particular quality of the children's joy if we have not first discovered our own joy in response to God's presence. But the children help us with this. As we listen with them, somehow the voice of the Good Shepherd becomes clearer, and it is easier to hear our own names being called.

May the children be our teachers. May the joy grow always fuller.”