Worship Is Faith In Motion

 

 

Seven Orthodox Christian teachers received intensive training at Hellenic College for the following:

Orthodox Christian Spiritual Formation 


 
Sunday School/Preschool Teacher Training 
Focusing on the 3-6 Year Old Child
Is your Sunday school or Church school
a place where children experience prayer?

What is the Children's Room?


The Children's Room is a beautiful environment with many biblical and liturgical activities placed in an orderly fashion. The teacher presents each activity to the children in a timely sequenced manner that moves from the simple to the complex. The children are free to repeat the activities, to retell the bible stories, and to proceed to other connected activity for each carefully selected parable, infancy narrative, prophesy, hymn, prayer, gesture, or Liturgical procedure. The Children's Room provides an array of activity and religious experience stimulating concentration, prayer, and learning as the child interacts with the beautifully designed "hands on" materials. 
Orthodox Christian Spiritual Formation is a program based on the belief that children are able to have a relationship with God. Infant baptism is a testimony to the authenticity of the infant experience. (The Philokalia) “The spiritual faculty, the nous of the baptized infant knows God through immediate experience.”  
In the prepared environment children spontaneously acquire knowledge beyond what is generally thought possible for their age. The presentations and activities satisfy the child's natural inclination to be spiritual, leading the child to fuller participation and belonging in the House of God. 

Why is it so important to provide a planned program/prepared environment for such young children? 
Children are in a "sensitive period" of spiritual formation.  
Sensitive periods occur between the time of birth and age six. The sensitive periods represent critical points in a child's development. It is a time when a child has a natural attraction or a vital urge to interact upon the environment and learn almost effortlessly with lifelong results.
For example, an early child learns his or her mother tongue almost automatically, provided the proper exposure/environment has been present. There is no other time in life when a person can learn a second language so effortlessly, than between the ages of birth and six years. Of course, a second language can be learned later in life, usually requiring much study and practice. In addition, for the most part, that second language will not be as perfected or natural as the mother tongue.

In realizing that certain things would not be erased from the human mind, if brought to it, in the early years St john Chrysostom expresses the importance of bringing to children what is of a spiritual nature: “it is this very age that most of all needs the hearing of these things; from its tenderness readily stores up what is said; and what children hear is impressed as a seal on the wax of their minds." 

The teacher’s role is to prepare the environment that nurtures the sensitive period of spiritual formation and to present materials that encourage the children to respond to God's love. The teacher is the link to the prepared environment, as she reads the Holy Bible, asks contemplative questions, and shows the children how to use the materials.  

In the training course, the adults learned to:
• prepare the environment for 3, 4, and 5-year-old children
• make the materials for the three-year curriculum
• arrange the environment in sequence
• present each activity
•  invite and listen to the responses of the children
• prepare materials for the child’s personal response through chanting, prayer, artwork, specific activity, and expression...
• write the lesson plans for each presentation

Who should take this teacher training course?
Presbyteras
Sunday school teachers
Preschool teachers
Parents
Home schoolteachers
Elementary teachers; Level I prepares you for Level II (Elementary)

Steps to build a Children's Room in your parish:
• The preschool teachers receive the teacher training. (Training is offered by the Palm Harbor Montessori Teacher Education Center, known as PHMTEC, a nonprofit organization.)
• Acquire the necessary furnishings for the prepared environment
• The teachers make the materials with the help of a volunteer carpenter.
• Set up the prepared environment.
• Hold an orientation for the parents.
• Begin the program at the beginning of a new school year.

Endorsements:
His Eminence Metropolitan Alexios of Atlanta and His Eminence Metropolitan Methodios of Boston have offered their blessings for this program. Dr. Anton Vrame, director of the Religious Education Department for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese endorses the course and hopes to see it flourish.
Does OCSF offer programs for older children?
Yes, it begins with Level I for 3 to 6 year old children
Then Level II for 6 -9 year old children
then Level III for 9-12 year old children
Palm Harbor Montessori Teacher Education Center is a non-for profit corporation, offering a nationally accredited teacher Montessori certification course and offers training for Orthodox parish schoolteachers.
 
For more information, please contact:
Director, Catherine Varkas 
Hellenic College Alumni Board
Palm Harbor Montessori Teacher Education Center
2355 Nebraska Ave.
Palm Harbor, Florida 34683
(508)367-7254 
catherinevarkas@gmail.com
http://montessoriteachercenter.com/
http://www.orthodoxcatechesis.org/ 


Benefits to building a Children's Room in your parish:

The program is designed for fifteen to thirty children, depending on the size of the room, in a mixed group of three to five year olds. The program can be set up as a weekly (for Sunday school) or a daily program (for preschool).

Children experience and grow in their faith.
Parent interested is peaked as children share what they are learning.
Some parents, who have stopped coming to church, return in order to enroll their children in the hands on Montessori style Sunday school.
Community develops as parishioners become involved with the making of materials for the three different levels. In addition, students remain in the same room with many of the same classmates for three years.


 

About US

Orthodox Christian Spiritual Formation is an adult preparation course.  Level I is for the 3-5 year old program.

The courses offered by PHMTEC (Palm Harbor Montessori Teacher Education Center) use Montessori Methods and principles for the purpose of presenting Orthodoxy to the early child.

The presentations, the doctrinal content, the direct and indirect aims of each presentation are soundly rooted in the Orthodox Christian Faith.

*Maria Montessori's pioneering work (1917) in the field of education and the developmental and spiritual needs of the child are the foundation of The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Program. In 1954, Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi  developed the program drawing  upon Montessori's work: her religious schools, religious materials, research, and experience  as depicted in Montessori’s many books including; The Child in the Church, (1937).   Cavalletti's classic work describing her experience with children  is The Religious Potential of the Child ( 1992).
Please visit the following web site to find out about nationally accredited Montessori teacher certification programs:  http://www.montessoriteachercenter.com
*Maria Montessori's pioneering work (1917) in the field of education and the developmental and spiritual needs of the child are the foundation of The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Program. In 1954, Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi  developed the program drawing  upon Montessori's work: her religious schools, religious materials, research, and experience  as depicted in Montessori’s many books including; The Child in the Church, (1937).   Cavalletti's classic work describing her experience with children  is The Religious Potential of the Child ( 1992)

.Hly Cross chapel

Level I Teacher Certification Courses Offered

June 6 - June 17, 2011,

Hellenic College, Brookline MA