I’m hearing that some parishes are experimenting with a catechetical model that employs a summer intensive religious education program for K-8 (usually 3 weeks) while throughout the year, offering periodic intergenerational events and a weekly children’s liturgy of the Word. Sounds to me like an interesting alternative. This is not to be confused with a Vacation Bible School. it is the formal religious education program taking place in a 3-week intensive model. Instead of having twenty- to twenty-five weekly sessions of 75- to 90-minutes throughout the year (@ 30 hours of formal class time), the summer intensive meets 4 or 5 days a week for 2 or 3 hours, covering about the same amount of class time…about 30 hours. I’d love to hear thoughts, especially from anyone doing this model. Have a great weekend!
Catechist's Journey is where I reflect on the joys and challenges I experience as an eighth-grade catechist. It is a blog for catechists and for all those who seek to more effectively proclaim the Catholic faith to others.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Katie 06.09.08 at 8:58 am
This model is used at a lot of parishes that espouse the Whole Community Catechesis Model. It’s focus on the summer intensive is so that during the school year (when most families have a stable routine, as compared to summer) the religious education piece is done intergenerationally with a focus on the family and such. It doesn’t preclude activities for individual age groups, but suggests that these are in the larger context of the family gathering. There are a ton of great books out there on this!
Joe 06.09.08 at 9:41 am
Thanks, Katie. Please DO recommend some titles for us.
Amy 06.10.08 at 9:29 am
There are a few parishes around us that have this sort of a summer intensive program and it is very popular. The DREs that run these programs say that the kids who are in it do better on the NCEA ACRE than the kids enrolled in traditional programs. Some adapt the texts that they use in the traditional programs and others develop their own programs based on the diocesan curricula centered around a theme like the Beatitudes. I’d love to do soemthing like this, but we don’t have the facilities to support it over the summer.
Joe 06.11.08 at 12:03 pm
Thanks, Amy. I wonder if the ACRE scores are better because there is more continuity (sessions every day instead of once a week) and the kids retain more over a 3-week period rather than 8 months. Interesting.
Christina 06.17.08 at 6:37 am
My church uses both types of programs (school year and summer intensive) and my children participate in the summer program. I love it! They are learning so much more about their faith than I did at their age. We have three cycles that the children go through twice (once in grades 4-6 and then the second in grades 7-9). I teach the program as well (grade 7)and I’m always impressed at how much the children remember from year to year!
Joe 06.17.08 at 7:28 am
Christina, it sounds like your parish has a pretty solid approach to the school year/summer intensive model. How wonderful that the children are retaining knowledge of their faith from year to year. Thanks for sharing.