BY KATHI STEARNS

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--As parishes begin to use the Benziger Family Life program, different models of implementation have surfaced throughout the archdiocese.

Recognizing the role of parents as the primary educators, St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Alpharetta is encouraging parents of students in kindergarten through fifth grade to use the Benziger program at home.

At All Saints Parish in Dunwoody, monthly family nights are being held beginning in January. At Holy Trinity Parish in Peachtree City, a pilot project using the Benziger curriculum for family life education is highly popular.

Archbishop John F. Donoghue has asked parishes, missions and Catholic schools of the archdiocese to implement the Benziger family life curriculum by September 1996. It is designed to give consistent Catholic teaching on family life to all children and youth in the archdiocese.

At the same time the archbishop emphasized the parents' role as primary educators of their children.

"If for any reason parents find the material objectionable or too explicit for their children they may opt out of some or all of the program," he said. "Parents are the primary educators of their children. It is our responsibility to assist with their child's formation, not take over. We cannot and will not force this program on anyone."

According to the archbishop, parents have a number of options concerning their child's involvement in the program.

Students may attend family life classes at their parish, but preparation and review is done with their parents at home. Parents may use the materials and teach their child completely at home, or they may choose not to have their child participate.

At St. Thomas Aquinas Parish "we are basically using a home-schooling approach," said Cathy Marbury, elementary religious education coordinator. "It is a parent's right and responsibility to be the primary communicator of Catholic values. We form the parents so they can form their children. We believe the best thing we can do for the parents is to open up the lines of communication and let them discuss these issues with their own children."

Last September Mrs. Marbury held four information sessions for parents in which the Benziger program was explained. The first week Annette Kulasa, consultant for children's catechesis for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, addressed parents about the importance of major church documents in their family life.

The following week Mrs. Marbury gave an overview of the Benziger program. The third week parents were instructed in the most effective ways to teach the material and the final week parents participated in a forum to ask questions and express concerns. Parents could then check out the text, teacher's edition, resource book and "family connection" book relevant to their child's grade level.

"We train our parents so they can share the material with their kids," Mrs. Marbury said. "Parents seem to really like the opportunity to take this material and approach it with their own children."

She also likes the fact that parents know exactly what their children are being taught. "Since the parents are doing the teaching, they know exactly what their child has been told," Mrs. Marbury said. With 112 volunteer teachers in her religious education program she said it is difficult to ensure each one has been formed with a complete and accurate theoretical knowledge of Church teachings.

"An inaccurate inference about a Church teaching can be very misleading to a child," she said. "It is also very difficult to ask people who have already donated an incredible amount of time to the Church to go through more formation to teach this program."

She realizes that a small percentage of children may fall through the cracks, but believes that the ultimate responsibility lies with the family. "If the program is not supported at home, I don't know if it does much good anyway," she said. "If they hear it from their parents, and it is supported and reinforced at home, then it will really have meaning to them. I plan to evaluate our process after a year and see how we are doing. If we are losing too many people, we may have to readjust our approach."

In grades six through eight, the Benziger Family Life program is used at St. Thomas as a supplement to the school of religion textbook and integrated into classroom discussion.

"In middle school the kids need a forum away from their parents," Mrs. Marbury said. "We're reinforcing what we hope has already been taught at home."

Msgr. Donald Kiernan, pastor of All Saints Church, Dunwoody, appointed Mary Lynn Lowery as family life coordinator to implement the Benziger program.

Beginning Jan. 18 the parish will have monthly family nights based on the five themes of the Benziger series. They are: God's gift of family, God's gift of self, God's gift of life, God's gift of sexuality and God's gift of community.

Students and parents will gather in the social hall for a call to worship. The children will then be dismissed to their classrooms where two chapters of the text geared for their particular grade level will be presented. Parents will remain in the social hall for a presentation from an expert on the theme of the evening. Children will be reunited with their parents for dessert at the conclusion of the evening. This five-week program will be held annually.

"We may change that order around a bit," said Mrs. Lowery, who also serves as the religious education secretary at All Saints. "Some night we may have a potluck supper before the children go to classes; then we will close with a prayer. Since this is our first time we are going to experiment and see what is most beneficial to the participants. The last night, when we celebrate community, we will have a big party celebrating the community we have here at All Saints."

According to Mrs. Lowery there were several reasons they decided on this approach. "We set the program up this way because we did not want to deprive our parishioners of the small amount of family time people already have," Mrs. Lowery said. "We didn't feel it would be beneficial to combine it with our existing CCD program because there are already 125 volunteers teaching over 650 kids on a weekly basis. We thought it was too much to ask our CCD volunteers to learn a new curriculum in addition to the one they are already teaching."

Mrs. Lowery has trained 25 volunteers whose sole responsibility will be to teach family life. "That way no volunteer gets overwhelmed," she said.

To date over 90 families have registered for the program and due to space limitations, a waiting list has been developed. "It is hard to know what to expect," she said. "The first time we held registration, over 50 families showed up. We couldn't have asked for a better response for our first time. It may be a little crowded, but we are going to have a good time."

At Holy Trinity Parish, Peachtree City, one section of each grade from kindergarten through fifth used the Benziger Family Life program as part of a pilot study. The family life program was implemented in conjunction with the Benziger religious education text used for CCD.

"When parents found out we were doing this, they wanted to find out which class would be the pilot program and which ones wouldn't because they wanted their kids in the Benziger program," said Nancy Jurchenko, the parish elementary religious education coordinator and nurse. "There was such a demand at the fifth-grade level that I went ahead and formed another Benziger pilot class. They didn't care that it was only a pilot program. Some of the parents who couldn't get their children into the pilot program are teaching the Benziger Family Life program at home."

According to Mrs. Jurchenko she picked her seven best catechists to teach the Benziger Family Life program. "I let them preview the material at the archdiocesan formation days. We talked about it, and everyone felt very comfortable with the material that needed to be covered."

Students in the fifth-grade pilot programs will have a registered nurse and a doctor teach the sections on human sexuality.

Holy Trinity decided to try this pilot program because they wanted to see if they could fit the family life program into the 30 hours the archbishop mandates as necessary for a child's religious formation.

"We were concerned about it with the second-graders because of all the sacramental material we need to cover that year and on the fifth-grade level because of the time involved in teaching the content of the Benziger Family Life program," Mrs. Jurchenko said. "For both grades that is a lot of material to cover in 30 hours."

For the Peachtree City parish Mrs. Jurchenko believes this is the best approach. "We felt that we had to put it in the program to reach the most students," she said. "Implementing it in a vacation bible or some type of summer school would not enable us to reach all the students. This is material that everyone needs to have."

In February the Department of Catholic Education will host networking sessions for coordinators of children's ministry in parishes and Catholic schools.

"The meetings will allow us to share a common vision while adapting the presentation of the program material to meet the needs of each particular parish," said Annette Kulasa. "Just because a model of implementation works in one local parish doesn't mean it will work in a rural parish; we have to be ready to address the needs of all our parishes."

The next network meetings will be held Feb. 3 at St. Francis of Assisi, Cartersville, for the northwest region; Feb. 13 at the Catholic Center, Atlanta, for the central region; Feb. 6 at St. Patrick, Norcross, for the northeast region and Feb. 10 at St. George, Newnan, for the southern region.

For information contact Annette Kulasa at the Office of Religious Education at (404) 888-7835.