Gospel Nonviolence and the Child

Vol. I, No. 2 Summer 1996
           

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Echoes imageResponding to Violence

Confronted with violence from Kosovo to Littleton, Colorado, we may be searching our hearts to see how we encourage, and model, the shalom of the Kingdom of God to our children. Several years ago the Center for Children and Theology studied this at a conference held in conjunction with Fr. Charles Emmanuel McCarthy, a respected teacher and writer about Gospel nonviolence.

Our purpose in bringing together the themes of Gospel nonviolence and our work with children is to explore how nonviolence is communicated to children, and also how children help adults to live in nonviolent relationships with God and each other. Fr. McCarthy's role was to root us deeply in the teaching of Gospel nonviolence. Our role was to make connections between that teaching and our work with children.  Echoes, Vol. I, No. 2 was the fruit of this conference. It is dedicated to Gospel nonviolence and its presence in the atrium.

Following are excerpted articles from this issue of Echoes:

Complete copies may be ordered from the Center for Children and Theology for $3. Contact us through email at cct1680@aol.com.

  • At the Heart of Nonviolence, by Rebekah Rojcewicz
    "Young children are drawn to the greatest, richest truths....  If we adults are to take seriously Jesus' repeated call to follow the child, then we must discover what children can teach us about Christian nonviolence."
  • Excerpts from "Nonviolence and the Child", by A. M. Joosten
    If nonviolence is to become a permanent conquest of human nature and civilization, it must begin with the child.
  • Gospel Nonviolence in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, by Catherine Maresca
    Our relationship with the Good Shepherd motivates us to follow his way of nonviolent love.
  • The Nonviolent Atrium, by Lindsey McLaughlin
    Peaceful society is born in the atrium of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd through freedom that allows mutual respect, care, and interdependence to develop as children grow and learn together

Power

At the Heart of Nonviolence

By Rebekah Rojcewicz,
Maria Montessori School, Memphis, Tennessee

 

Young children are drawn to the greatest, richest truths. They understand and proclaim what is most essential. This is a primary characteristic of their religious nature. If we adults are to take seriously Jesus' repeated call to follow the child and become like children, then we must discover what  children can teach us about Christian nonviolence.

In my 22 year journey with children they have taught me that the term "nonviolence" is not part of their vocabulary. They readily absorb language; they easily acquire new words and incorporate them into their prayer. Yet, in my experience they don't take in or use the term "nonviolence." Why not? Does it mean that the concept of nonviolence is not essential for them, or is it something about the term itself?

Two words the children do absorb and use profusely are "peace" and "love". They seem to know with their whole being that God is love and that God's gift to us and the gift we are to share with others is the gift of peace, the peace of Christ. A five-year-old boy made this drawing after a simple demonstration of the gesture of peace that is done during the Eucharist. His own reflection on the gesture seems to have brought him to the realization that the gesture is far more than a superficial act of friendliness. He understood that the peace we share in word and gesture is connected to (and made possible by?) a gift for all, first proclaimed by angels to shepherds on the night of Jesus' birth.

The 6-9 year old children are very aware of the reality of evil and violence at work around them. They readily pray for peace in troubled places. They are also aware of their own sin. In their examination of conscience they usually see very clearly their own acts of violence, when they kicked their sister under the dinner table or excluded someone from their play. From hearing their own names called so clearly ("The Good Shepherd call his own sheep by name"), they also hear His call to "love one another as I have loved you."

Their great wisdom and simplicity of heart in this matter was never clearer to me than when several years ago I was reflecting with some eight and nine year olds on Jesus' maxim concerning love. They had each chosen a maxim to read for us all. One nine-year-old boy read "Love your enemies." He pondered it a moment, broke into a strange sort of smile and said, "This isn't possible." As the catechist, I jumped in too quickly and said, "It certainly is difficult, but Jesus is telling us we must try to do it." "No," he responded, "that's not what I meant. It isn't possible because, if we love, then we don't have enemies." He then humbly submitted his own version of the maxim: "Love your enemies until they become your friends."

I've come to believe that the term "nonviolence" is an adult term reflecting the tragic state of much of our world and corresponding struggles with violence within ourselves. Though they don't use the term, the children have taught me the absolute essence of the concept and its true meaning: to welcome the gift of Christ's peace and to share it with others in loving as He loved.

The prayer of Catherine Doherty, foundress of Madonna House and author or Soul of My Soul, has become my own and has particular significance for me trying to live out the call to Christian nonviolence:

Give me the heart of a child and the awesome courage to live it out.

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Excerpts from "Nonviolence and the Child"

Love

by A.M. Joosten

Mr. Joosten was director of training programs for Montessori Teachers in India, and wrote this after the successful nonviolent struggle for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi.

Are we adults nonviolent in our behavior in the child's immediate environment and, especially, in our behavior towards the child...not only when we approach the child consciously, with a deliberate educational intention, but above all in our elements towards the child? A frank and honest answer to these questions can be only negative...the child is educated and surrounded by violence. If violence is one of the elements the child absorbs from the environment while constructing its personality, the principle of nonviolence can never be but a superficial acquisition....There will be perpetual warfare between the conscious aspirations for nonviolence and the unconscious tendencies to violence within.

If nonviolence is to become a permanent conquest of human nature and civilization...it must become the very foundation of our relations with the child from birth onwards. The work of Dr. Maria Montessori should be recognized as a substantial contribution towards this aim. In it we find a scientific monument to nonviolence as the basis of education as a help to life from birth to adulthood. Nonviolence, that is to say, positive and constructive respect, and selfless, unprejudiced service to realization of the human potential according to the laws of psychic growth, determines its orientation and all the details of its techniques and practical application.

Not only does the child need us so that she may use nonviolence as a means of development and base her personality on it, but we need the child to help us to strengthen, develop and stabilize nonviolence in ourselves.

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Gospel Nonviolence

in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd

The Good Shepherd by Andrea

by Catherine Maresca

Our relationship with Jesus, the Good Shepherd, motivates us to follow his way of nonviolent love. The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd strives always to nurture the child's relationship with God. Only from this firm foundation can we begin to follow the commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.

Jesus is introduced to young children (3-6) as one who:

  • was a baby born to a humble family in Bethlehem
  • used the power of the kingdom of God: a power of growth and life and love, rather than destruction of death or hatred
  • laid down his life for the sheep, in order to feed them with himself
  • shares the power of risen life in Baptism

In addition, the older children (6-12) know Jesus as the one who:

  • taught nonviolence with parables and maxims (ex. The Good Samaritan)
  • taught and modeled forgiveness, and mercy (Maxims form the Sermon on the Mount, the healing of soldiers' ear at the arrest of Jesus).
  • is united and unites us all to people of all times (True Vine, Eucharistic Presence, Breaking of the Bread)
  • invites us to join him in bringing forth the fullness of the Kingdom of God (Parousia), a time of universal peace and communion

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The Nonviolent Atrium

by Lindsey McLaughlin

 

Pale afternoon sunlight filters through the atrium windows, casting a warm glow over the children at work. Two girls are seated at small tables, intently tracing images of the Good Shepherd and the altar. One child has placed the set for the Annunciation on a mat and is opening it and placing the figures in Mary's house. Other children are polishing the small paten and chalice, while two more are coloring the map of Israel.

The room is not silent: there are the sounds of children in motion, walking, pushing in chairs, gathering materials, talking, asking question. Nor is it still: children are sweeping the carpet, carrying work materials, rolling mats, dusting the altar. Yet amid the motion and hum, contentment hangs in the air. The children are working in harmony with themselves, with their environment, and with the adults present.

Maria Montessori, whose method of education is followed in the atrium, observed that young children have within them the seeds of their own fullest potential. In her method, the role of the adult is to facilitate each child's growth by allowing her to unfold according to her own inner plan. The adult must connect each child to an enriching environment and then remove all obstacles to the child's growth, including adult agendas or preconceptions of what should be learned at any given moment. It's rather like providing the soil, water, and sunlight as needed for each seed to grow, but not attempting to control how the plant develops.

The result is an atrium in which children are free to choose the work that most appeals to them, to work at it as long as they wish, and to end the work when they consider themselves finished. No adult imposes a schedule, let alone dictates the "knowledge" to be assimilated each day. The whole idea is to cooperate with the child so that she can develop, learn, and grow following her own nature.

Montessori felt that only by observing, knowing and trusting the child could adults become helpful to young children. Respect is the hallmark of this attitude. Because we think we know what is best for a child, we sometimes force a child to conform to our own expectations, with great expense of effort. Montessori wrote, "The adult has not understood the child or the adolescent and is therefore in continual strife with him. The remedy is not that the adult should learn something intellectually....He must find a different starting point. The adult must find in himself the hitherto unknown error that prevents him form seeing the child as he is."

The major error adults make lies in assuming that each child needs to be filled up with knowledge and experience (which we are all too eager to hand out), rather than seeing that each child is a person who must develop in his own unique path. Montessori continues, "It is this point of view that leads to a consideration of the child as an empty being, which the adult must fill by his own endeavors, as an inert and incapable being for who everything must be done.... Finally, that adult acts as through he were the child's creator.... And in adopting such an attitude, which unconsciously cancels the child's personality, the adult feels a conviction of zeal, love and sacrifice."

In the atrium we hope to work in harmony with the child's inner guide, setting aside all our assumptions and agendas. We attempt to introduce the child to each material of the Catechesis as we observe the child is asking for it and ready to use it in the next unfolding of her self. Thus the atrium is a place of cooperation, where the adults allow the child to lead.

Within the atrium, a community of adults and children is created. It had rules and expectations, chief of which is to show respect toward one another in all aspects of our work. The children are careful not to disturb one another, just as the adults try not to interrupt a child at work. Interdependence develops readily as the children take responsibility for the care of the atrium and each other, particularly as the older children in the mixed-aged group respond to the younger ones. Montessori writes, "There is a communication and harmony between the two that one seldom finds between the adult and the small child....It is hard to believe how deep this atmosphere of protection and admiration become in practice."

Peaceful society is not created by regimentation: everyone responding to an ordered agenda at the same time. Rather, it is born with the freedom that allows mutual respect, care, and interdependence to develop as children grow and learn together.

At the end of the session, the catechist rings a tiny bell.  The children pause in their work. The catechist softly tells them that it is time to put away their work to be ready for a brief gathering at the prayer table before leaving. This quiet bell may be the only interruption the group has had for almost two hours. During that time, the children have worked either alone, with partner or in a small group. Few direction were given. They grouped themselves and worked as each child chose. The adults assisted as unobtrusively as possible, connecting the children to the environment and allowing the children to explore and manipulate materials themselves.

Now the children put all their work back on the shelves and come together for prayer. It has not always been a quiet session, and definitely not a still one, but the hours have reflected the peace that comes when all the parts of a system are cooperating toward growth. That is life, and it is at the heart of the nonviolent Montessori environment in the atrium.

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