The Gatekeeper
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, Level III 
October 4, 2011 - Level 3, Issue 1
In This Issue
The Plan of God
Motivation
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Dear CGS Level III Parent,  
The Good Shepherd

Welcome to the new catechetical year. Level III has an amazing mix of new and old. Very energizing! We welcome Kate Lynch, St. Teresa's new Director of Religious Education, as lead catechist on Tuesdays. We welcome back seasoned catechists Paul Gilmet and Tom Kinsella on Sundays and me (Lina Hilko) on Thursdays. And it's very exciting to add two brand new assistants: Tom Micinski on Tuesdays and Seth Anderson on Thursdays. We're so grateful to be growing our Level III catechist base. Please be sure to stop in and introduce yourself face-to-face. In Level III, we are always talking about connections, or bridges, between people.

 

The other two levels got their newsletters a couple days ago, and they included appeals for additional volunteers. I'm very pleased to update that, since those writings, we have filled all our needs for catechists in the three levels of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. We are starting a teen program this year (7th-9th grade). If you or someone you know has a passion for teen programming, please talk to Kate Lynch.

 

We hope these newsletters help you understand and connect with your child's Atrium experience. The topics covered in Level III are so rich and deep that we can never exhaust them in our short hour and a half together. We welcome parents to carry the conversations, curiosity, and learning beyond the Atrium and into the world.

Peace,

The Level III catechist team:

   Kate Lynch and Tom Micinski on Tuesday

   Lina Hilko and Seth Anderson on Thursday

   Tom Kinsella and Paul Gilmet on Sundays
The Plan of God

We start the Level III year with reflection on the Plan of God strip. This long timeline emphasizes human collaboration with God in building the Kingdom of God and is absolutely central to every other presentation. Two key messages should become clearer and clearer as children reflect on the Plan over the years:

  • A plan has always existed in the mind of God to bring all people, all things, all of creation into the full enjoyment of God in a cosmic communion of love.
  • The history of the Kingdom of God has been, and continues to be, written by people all over the world, of all types and all ages.  We are each called to contribute to this history.

In Level III, we are often (perhaps even always) talking about and thinking about history: cultures, inventions, events, great works. One of the greatest gifts of Level III is the realization that there doesn't exist - there need not exist - a barrier (or compartmentalization) between God's plan/work and humankind's. Here is a quote from History's Golden Thread by Sofia Cavalletti, the founder of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd:

 

"The peculiar nature of sacred history is implied by its very name, which seems to unite elements derived from two different worlds. When we say "sacred," we mean something pertaining to God. When we say "history," we are referring to the human world, to a series of events bound to time and space, two categories which do not pertain to the world of God. Indeed, the expression "sacred history" could appear to be a contradiction in terms. But it is precisely this apparent contradiction that constitutes the nature of the history of salvation. This entanglement of human and divine elements does not represent a contradiction any more than does the concept of the human being, a reality composed of both spirit and body. Just as the person is made up of both spirit and body - if we were to divide the two elements, we would have a cadaver - so sacred history is the indivisible combination of two factors: the work of God and the work of humanity." (pg. 7)

Motivation

I read a book summary recently for work, based on my interest in workforce management, on the topic of motivation:  Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink.

 

I have always been impressed by the way that Catechesis of the Good Shepherd provides a means by which the child, as he learns and matures, will seek to collaborate in God's Plan out of love and joy, not guilt or fear. As I read Pink's insights into motivation, I was energized to see such a strong connection between the principles of CGS and Pink's key motivators for today's complex world.

 

Drive humorously presents motivation as an "operating system" for our businesses and states that our current operating system, which is largely based on carrot-and-stick motivators, no longer works. And we can't just fix it through tweaks; we need an upgrade. Pink first presents a history of the evolution of motivation:

 

Motivation 1.0 - The original motivation version for the emerging homo sapiens was survival. Hunting, gathering, staying warm. This worked well for a very, very long time. But societies became more complex, calling for large groups to live together and for work to be specialized and distributed.

 

Motivation 2.0 - The new motivation version was based on the human characteristic that seeks reward or avoids punishment. This worked particularly well in the emerging industrial age. Work was repetitive and routine, and management was tight. This operating system has become entrenched in work environments today, but we've been seeing now, for at least the past 10 years, that Motivation 2.0 is experiencing a lot of system crashes and workarounds. It has become incompatible with how, why, and where we do things. Think about the disconnect between carrot-stick motivation and the following: Firefox web browser, Linux corporate servers, Apache web server software, and Wikipedia resource (just to give some well-known examples of open source) were all created by armies of unpaid volunteers and given away for free. Why?

 

Motivation 3.0 - Motivation 3.0 is the full-scale upgrade fueled by intrinsic desires (inherent satisfaction) rather than extrinsic (external rewards). Three forces drive Motivation 3.0:

 

Autonomy: Our desire to be self-directed.

I'm reminded of Sofia Cavalletti's depiction of the child's silent request: "Help me to come closer to God by myself." (Religious Potential of the Child, Sofia Cavalletti, pg. 62) True Montessori programs are notoriously known for offering autonomy and trusting a child to use autonomy productively. Certain adaptations are made when a child isn't used to Montessori methods daily, but CGS still offers immense autonomy as compared to more traditional methods of education.

 

Mastery: The inherent urge to get better at stuff.

I'm reminded of the Atrium environment and presentations which provide children the opportunity for repetition. Montessori programs know that people master skills and knowledge through repetition. CGS offers various opportunities for repetition, often hidden and disguised. CGS also offers a "spiral" approach to presentations which goes ever deeper as the child changes and matures.

 

Purpose: The desire to do what we do in service of something larger than ourselves.

What could be larger than being a significant and crucial contributor to the Plan of God!

 

Perhaps to some it seems like motivational operating systems for corporate America are a bit off-topic from religious education. I don't think so. In fact, I can't stop seeing connections between the book summary I read and the Level III presentations. (If you're interested in a painless synopsis of Pink's concepts, I found a neat one (just 10 minutes) on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc.) 
Please feel free to talk to Lina Hilko, editor (LHilko@aol.com)  or Kate Lynch, Director of Religious Education (kolynchdre@gmail.com) if you have questions or comments about this information.