Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a hands-on children’s religious education program, is taking root in Hawaii

‘The child in all of us’

By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald

On a sunny weekday morning in June, preschoolers at Mary, Star of the Sea Early Learning Center in Waialae-Kahala were busy working at their “free choice” activities out on the school lanai — scooping from a water table, playing house, building with blocks.

In a nearby classroom, a small group of preschool teachers listened intently as they learned how they could help those preschoolers better know their faith.

Half the teachers were from Star of the Sea ELC and the other half from Taiwan, and it was a milestone training week for both groups.

Once the two-week training finished, the Star of the Sea teachers would be ready to teach a hands-on religious education program known as the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd to their early learners. For the Taiwanese group, it meant the first time CGS would be coming to their diocese in Taiwan.

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a Montessori-based program for children ages 3-12, which started in Rome in the mid-1940s and has gradually spread from Italy around the globe, including across the U.S. While the program is Christian and can be tailored to various denominations, many of the existing “atriums” are Catholic.

In Hawaii, CGS is also starting to take root. Joan Hiel, a long-time Montessori teacher who oversees a preschool through first grade atrium at St. John Vianney in Kailua, is one of the local CGS catechists in Hawaii. This June, she and trainee formation leader Maile Aiu Domingo, who runs the Atrium at Hamau in Waipahu, worked together with national CGS formation leader Lynda Catalano for back-to-back training sessions covering CGS Level 1 Part A and Part B, each lasting two weeks. Level 1 teaches the essentials of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program.

A peaceful place

The space where children participate in their CGS lessons is called “the atrium.” In order to get the right dedicated space for Star of the Sea’s atrium, the teachers rearranged classrooms. The result is a light-filled corner room where preschoolers and kindergarteners can come to encounter Christ.

In opposite corners of the atrium are two fake palm trees, holdovers from the previous classroom along with a cross and portrait of Mary that Hiel thought worked well and also help tell the Holy Week story. Opposite two walls full of large windows are two cheerful oil paintings by a local artist depicting Jesus as the Good Shepherd and Jesus with children.

A low prayer table is set up in one corner and was decorated for the Easter season in mid-June. On top of a white cloth — the color of the liturgical season — is a propped open Bible, an “Alleluia” card on a small easel, a white candle, a vase with one small, red torch ginger, and a small statue of the Good Shepherd.

Simple materials are used throughout the room to avoid unnecessary distractions for children. Wooden shelves line the walls, all at child height, with trays and woven baskets containing just the right number of items to engage but not overwhelm the kids.

In Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, children learn to recognize the signs and symbols of the Catholic Church and get to the heart of Scripture readings through concrete imagery, songs, prayers and other activities.

There are biblical maps and models of the ancient city of Jerusalem with moving parts children can manipulate as the story of Jesus’ life is told: the walls of Jerusalem, a tiny rock to roll in front of a tiny tomb, the cross at Golgotha, pools of water.

Some kids may want to work with a wooden liturgical calendar wheel. Others might choose to copy out a psalm or practice setting a miniature altar while reciting the labels for each item: paten, chalice, altar cloth.

There are “practical life” activities in line with the Montessori philosophy, such as pouring water and “wine” in cruets and polishing vessels.

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd was set up through observing what activities, lessons and materials best captivated and helped children encounter Christ, Hiel told the trainee teachers. Items used should not be a distraction from the core lesson.

“There are many wonderful things that we could do with the children in the atrium that we don’t do because they are not essential,” Hiel said, giving the example of some dolls she’d added to a lesson that became too much about playing house and not enough about the religious lesson behind the visual aides. The dolls were cute but had to go.

At a child’s level

Both the Montessori method and CGS have a “follow the child” and “respect the child” approach at their core. A key part to CGS is that the teacher is only there as a guide. Christ is the true teacher with catechists facilitating a child’s encounter with him.

In demonstration of that, Catalano gave a lesson on the liturgical calendar, picking up small green, purple, white and red wooden pieces in the colors of the liturgical seasons as she moved around the calendar wheel.

“Each of these prisms represents one Sunday,” Catalano said in a soft and gentle voice as she explained the seasons at a level a young child would understand. She then invited a teacher to try the activity for herself.

After Catalano’s demo, the teachers chose their own “work,” practicing with the liturgical calendar, laying out a child-sized altar, putting a priest’s garments on a small dress model, and other hands-on activities.

Louise Roman, one of Star of the Sea’s 2- and 3-year-old-level teachers, practiced how children would work with a small, painted wooden figure of the Good Shepherd. Children can guide individual wood sheep in and out of a rock wall paddock and talk about how Jesus looked for the lost sheep and brought it home.

Roman thought this was a great initial lesson for toddlers being introduced to CGS.

“It’s the simplest way of talking about Jesus as the light and caring for the sheep, which is symbolic of the children,” she said.

Roman is among the six teachers and staff from Star of the Sea’s ELC that took Part A of the CGS Level 1 formation in summer 2018 and committed to taking Part B this summer. This past school year, in conjunction with the Diocese of Honolulu’s Office of Religious Education, Hiel helped the teachers set up their atrium and gave initial lessons to students.

After this summer’s training, Star of the Sea’s ELC teachers will be ready to incorporate the CGS program into the school’s Montessori curriculum.

A new beginning

Star of the Sea teacher Seong Won Bae has taken the lead on constructing a lot of the atrium’s materials, something that CGS encourages as further immersion into the experience. Certain CGS items can be bought online, but shipping to Hawaii makes that an expensive option.

Bae was almost done building a small “sacristy” shelf to store altar items. She showed Hiel how she thought the edge of a pillowcase could be altered to be a cloth for the child-sized altar in the atrium, and Hiel quizzed Bae on the various names of altar items.

The Taiwanese teachers going through training are also making scaled-down versions of atrium items, like the city of Jerusalem model, to take back in their suitcases.

All the Star of the Sea ELC students, including the approximately 50 percent who aren’t Catholic, will participate in the atrium. It’s a Catholic school after all, said Lisa Foster, the school’s director.

Parents were introduced to the CGS concept over the last year through newsletters, the parish bulletin, and at an open house. The Montessori-style catechetical program seemed a natural fit for Star of the Sea’s own Montessori curriculum.

Foster says that CGS is a new beginning for the school, which will use its atrium as a training site for future CGS formation courses for other schools, parishes and groups.

Star of the Sea’s previous religious curriculum was called “I Am Special” and had a more general Catholic-Christianity feel to it, according to Foster

“This is more of the bigger picture,” she said of CGS. “It’s not that we didn’t have it.

“But seeing the children’s response [to CGS] has really strengthened for me why I’m in this school … and my commitment to early childhood education.”

“This just kind of put us to a new level,” she added.

Joan Gomes, who has taught at Star of the Sea ELC for 35 years, said her students have quickly taken to the atrium environment.

“I was very surprised because you see them rambunctious,” Gomes said. “But when they walk into the atrium, they go into their quiet voices … they love to come.”

She said the previous ELC religious curriculum was good but “now I really feel this is a Catholic school.”

“Now you are actually imparting some doctrine, there’s something under every presentation that you give,” she added.

“It’s teaching the faith in a hands-on way,” Foster chimed in.

Foster went through the summer CGS training alongside her teachers and says the formation classes have deepened her own knowledge of the Catholic faith.

Hiel had the same feeling when she started training as a CGS catechist over 20 years ago.

“How can I go back to just teaching from a book?” she thought.

“It has been a privilege and a joy to be able to provide them and the wonderful staff at Mary, Star of the Sea this incredible way of helping our children fall in love with our faith and our Good Shepherd,” she said in a follow-up email.

In order to help CGS grow in Hawaii, Hiel recently quit her job as a teacher at Calvary by the Sea Montessori School in order to focus on the program. She and Domingo can now help train parishes and schools on any island in the children’s formation method. In addition, Jayne Mondoy with the Diocese of Honolulu’s Office of Religious Education, has been working with Hiel for the last five years on introducing the program in the islands.

Hiel is also helping the program grown outside of Hawaii through the visiting Taiwanese group this summer, which was arranged in part by her longtime friend Alice Liu.

Liu, who lived and worked in Hawaii for several years previously had done CGS training, saw that Hiel was doing CGS formation training this June and asked if a small group from the Diocese of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, could join in. Six people came to spend the month of June doing the training at Star of the Sea. They include Franciscan Sister Johanna Wu from Lo-Jen Kindergarten Catholic Montessori School.

“I love the program, and I see the children’s responses,” Liu said.

Children aren’t the only ones getting CGS’ benefits, Hiel said. She’s seen both teens and adults reinvigorated in their own faith formation after getting involved in teaching or having their own children attend an atrium.

“It is a program that speaks to the child in all of us,” she said. “It helps us to ponder and wonder and accept with childlike faith the love and joy of our great God.”

LEARN MORE

• Level I Catechesis of the Good Shepherd training will be offered from June 1-12, 2020. The cost is $350 a person and there is a discount for parishes and schools who send a group for the training. Joan Hiel is also willing to set up other training times and travel to the neighbor islands. For more information email Hiel at rickandjoan313@yahoo.com.
• Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is offered in conjunction with the Diocese of Honolulu’s Office of Religious Education. If you’d like more information on the program, contact Jayne Mondoy at jmondoy@rcchawaii.org or 808-203-6745.
• For more on CGS in America go to cgsusa.org.
• Take a look at the author’s own experience with her son in a local atrium over at hawaiicatholicheraldblog.wordpress.com.