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Local News
Sept. 21, 2006
Kino cohorts foster learning, community
By Andrew Junker
The Catholic Sun
The classroom at the Diocesan Pastoral Center filled up early Sept. 12. Twenty minutes before an introduction to the Catholic faith class was scheduled to begin, students chatted, compared notes and furiously skimmed the assigned reading.
A typical scene at any university to be sure, but this was not a typical class.
The group of 36 students beginning a two-year Kino Institute program this fall range in ages from the early 20s to the mid-60s. They come from different parts of the Valley and fulfill different lay ministries throughout the Phoenix Diocese.
What they have in common is their commitment to remain together as a cohort for the next two years, studying and learning about the Catholic faith.
Barry Sargent, director of the Kino Institute, described the school as a two-year program of theological study and pastoral ministry formation built around a core curriculum.
Two years ago, the institute began organizing the students into cohorts, groups of about 30 who take all their classes together. He said the effects of this system on education and growth have been “incredible.”
“We’re just finding that the cohort is the ideal way to develop adult learning communities,” he said. “It really does form kind of a base Christian community.”
Sargent said the first cohort the institute graduated in June proves the success of the program. Beyond merely learning together, the group coalesced into a “genuine friendship and collaboration in ministry,” he said.
The graduation ceremony was “both a time of great joy,” Sargent said, and also of “genuine sadness.”
“The people that we’ve come to know and see almost every week for two years won’t be together anymore,” he said, noting that graduating the first cohort was the most exciting thing he had seen in his time as an educator.
“And I’ve been around in education for a good number of years,” he laughed.
The diversity of each cohort — filled with men and women of different ages, jobs and experience — helps foster the prayerful and spiritual aspect of the group.
“We’re all journeying towards greater fidelity to Christ, and we do that in a dialogue of love and education, working together and sharing ideas,” Sargent explained.
Leighton Drake, a youth minister in Cave Creek, has found the dialectical method of instruction beneficial already.
“I love the fact that we get to discuss things and ask questions and offer our views,” he said. “We get a good dialogue going, and you learn better that way.”
Cheryl Qaheri, also a first-year student, said the cohort system reminded her of attending a small university. She minored in anthropology and shared nearly all of her classes with the same group of students.
“It was terrific,” she said. “We could see each other grow, and we learned to feed off of each other. We worked well together. I’m expecting the same type of experience.”
Qaheri’s enthusiasm characterizes the class.
Even before Sargent began his lecture, students posed penetrating questions on the reading assignment, the Catholic faith in general and material that is not supposed to be covered for weeks in advance.
Sargent answered some of the questions. Then, other students joined the fray, offering their own insights and clarifying the positions of their colleagues.
The discussion quickly got off track, but this pleased Sargent even as he brought the cohort back to the topic at hand.
Sargent described the caliber of this year’s cohorts as “exceptional.”
“I think the word is getting out, because we’re still getting phone calls from people asking if they can get in or be put on a waiting list,” he said. “I think they’re hearing that good things are happening.”
The group took a break an hour into the three-hour class. This was only the cohort’s third meeting together, but they were already feeling comfortable with each other.
During the pause, many continued the class discussion about biblical exegesis, a topic many of them knew little or nothing about three weeks ago.
Sargent summed up the journey that these students are embarking on as a “real sense of transformation that is happening in their lives.”
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