What do you think? How should I structure this? What would work best in a low-income, rural area?
Dream on…
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Thoughts from my Big Green Chair
Psalm 95
“Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord: Let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.”
Doesn’t this make you want to celebrate life? Dance! Sing! Smile and hug your children!
“Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”
We have a Good Shepherd. We can worship Him in spirit and in action.
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…”
Ah! To remain in worship, we have to remember Him in our coming and going. We have to humble ourselves before Him and listen to His calling us to do what pleases Him. We need to set aside our agendas and do His bidding. We cannot run or turn our backs on what we are called to do—you know that little voice that says, “I know, I know! I’ll get to that as soon as I take care of this task that I must do now!” Sigh. Thankfully, he just picks us up, dusts us off and sets us on our feet again as soon as we call out to Him, realizing we have lost our way.
Does this dialog make sense to anyone else?
Blessings.
The melting snow creates rushing waters that are
churning through the tube under the road that connects
two pastures. Spring equinox will soon be here!
5 comments:
One idea for your school is to hire a guy who is ready to say "adios" to the public school system in California. He can teach history and any additional literature/language arts needs you have. And, they (we (-:) can sell our California humble abode for way too much and live off the earnings in Wisconsin.
Seriously, it is my husband's dream to work at a classical school. Just so hard to eek a living on the salary. We'll keep dreaming with you, though.
Diane
Your dream is my dream too! I've got less than 2 years to begin fulfilling it. We live in a rural area too, and there's only one small Christian school (not classical) and one out-growing 7000 student public high school for the whole county.
We'll have to swap ideas! I'm currently filling out a very protracted application for this Christian school for part time next year, going to full time the next. We'll see what happens.
Btw, I loved the picture of the hay-covered black angus the other day. He looked like he'd been into some mischief!
Janie
Oh, Janie, you'll have to keep me posted. Have you worked with ACCS? (Association of Classical and Christian Schools), or who. I hear Christian Schools International provides insurance coverage amongst other things.
By the way, you need to know that our animals are not Angus but Simmental. Simmental breeders will tell you that Angus are the "big shots" on the block but are NOT the better breed...:-)
Jean
My dream is not to have a school (although a classical school is interesting) but to teach math in a high school setting. I could go back to college for 1 year to get a master's in education to teach math in the public schools. But I don't really want to teach in a public school setting. We have one Catholic school in our area but they also want teacher certification (which would require the one year of college mentioned above) and then pay much less. Hmmm. We're also in a rural area and I can't quite see getting enough homeschool students to tutor in math to make it worthwhile. I'm still dreaming on this one. For now, I teach my own dc math and latin and oversee their other studies (taken at co-op). And I'm teaching a math SAT review at our co-op and loving it. I really really enjoy teaching math! I might also tutor students at the local junior college in math. I have a friend who tutors in science and they always need math tutors......
Go for your dream.......
Sandy
Starting a classical school is a topic I ADORE, but I have no intention of actually doing it. We were involved with a startup classical school, and it is immense amounts of work...but what a mission! It can really grab you.
I have some ideas that I'm just going to bullet-point here. If we do engage on this, we can use my blog to do it, as it has gone into hibernation.
1. School per se, what we all expect. No big mystery. Need a site, teachers, investment, energy. ACCS has *very* helpful info on this. This is the hardest to do if you want to keep expenses low, and frankly, to keep the benefits of homeschooling.
2. Cottage school, where you hold school one or two days a week, and have personalized instruction, mano a mano with each student. Or as a "class". Moms at home guide homework but do not have to do the planning. Memoria Press school comes to mind.
3. Half day school in your home. I know a lady who does this, combining Charlotte Mason and TWTM methods and goals. Students do homework at home; programs are individualized per kid.
4. Classical co-op with 8-10 week enrollments based per subject. Or traditional.
5. Completely individualized program for each child 2 days per week, with tutoring and labs available. There is a program in town that does this for families with kids who are onto something else (think: ballerina) that means school per se won't work. However, it is also one of the more expensive "schools" in town. I might be interested in it, if we can afford it, and if it has a classical focus, at the high school years.
6. Look also at the Great Books idea, as that is less expensive to implement (no labs) and have the kids do science at the local school.
When we enrolled in the school my son went to, K, 1 and 2 were all three day programs (T, W, F); kids did school at home on the other 2 days. I LOVED this for the flexibility and the direction it gave, but they gave it up for 1&2 and that was a takeaway.
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