Apr 5, 2008 / 02:22 am
The Notre Dame Graduate School (NDGS) of Christendom College plans to launch two new programs this summer: Montessori Catechesis and a series of humanities courses on Catholic culture. Both programs intend to develop into new concentrations for the M.A. degree.
NDGS is working in conjunction with the Montessori Catechetical and Cultural Institute (MCCI) to provide courses and training in Montessori Catechesis. There will be four courses in the series, and NDGS plans to offer one each semester on a two-year cycle. The first course presents Maria Montessori’s educational and catechetical theory, and includes her research into child development and learning which confirms the Catholic and Thomistic notion of the human person. The other three courses will be training courses in the Montessori Catechesis, one course for each of the three levels.
Catholic religious education was initially an integral part of Maria Montessori’s educational program, but it was dropped from the curriculum when secular Montessori schools were established, especially in the US. This program is part of a revival of this catechesis, which is growing in popularity, especially as a parish religious education alternative.
“Catholic catechesis in the US is often based on the behaviorism of John Dewey, not on a Catholic notion of the human person,” said NDGS Dean Dr. Kristin Burns. “We may teach that man is an embodied spirit, but the educational method we use is based on a philosophy that denies this integral unity and spirituality of man. With Maria Montessori we have a method that matches the content and the truth about the human person.”
The other new program is a series of six courses on Catholic culture. Each course focuses on an historical period and aims to understand Christianity’s influence on the culture. The first two courses, The Culture of Classical Antiquity and The Culture of the Early Middle Ages, will be offered this summer at the Alexandria campus. Future courses will study the late middle ages, the Renaissance, the revolutionary period, and modernity. The graduate school plans to offer two of these courses every summer.