Does your parish use The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd?

[gtsecc]

How do the children like it?
What are the long term results?

[pmcleanj]

I haven't used the Catechesis. I've read Cavaletti's book, and Berryman's adaptation of it, "Godly Play". And I have a dear friend some hours away who runs a Godly Play Sunday School class with much success. Rachel attended it when we went down to visit.

It really works. You might be surprised at how rowdy little television-educated American children can turn reverent and solemn when given the opportunity to engage the sacred. Rachel is pretty sophisticated about her notions of Sunday School: she's nine, which is pretty much at the top of the age-range the Catechesis targets, and she's used to a hands-on Bible study of the lectionary texts, using Bible and concordance notes, rather than a story-telling of a bible theme using illustrative manipulatives. But she found the session deeply engaging, despite its simplicity and despite the fact that she was the oldest child there.

There are some details of the Catechesis that don't resonate well with me. But the underlying principles are absolutely sound: respect for the children, strong control of the environment to give them a sense of security and peace (and freedom), use of manipulatives to allow them sensory experience of the Gospel stories they are learning, relevant life-long lessons rather than watered-down children's stories, direct use of Biblical texts rather than object-lessons and morals.

I doubt I would be able to run a Catechesis classroom without "tweaking" the programme. But my friend was running the programme absolutely straight, and it worked very well.

[AveMaria]

I know my parish uses Godly Play, but that's about all I know!

I don't work much with the little ones, could someone perhaps summarize a bit about the Catechesis of the Good Shepard? I'd be interested to hear.

[gtsecc]

No one else?