Beautiful Things Are Hard
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] I love food. I am not talking about a casserole or a fast food hamburger. I am talking about beautiful food. I mean an artfully crafted feast. I delight in a table loaded with baskets of bread, and too many cheeses to pronounce. Give me a landscape of bowls, stemware, and utensils of every […]
Matters of the Heart Matter Most
“I am running out of time.” Anyone else feel the daily time crunch? Maybe you scramble to do that “one more thing” before picking up your kids from school. Or you’re in the perpetual race to fit in one more work task between meetings, only to realize that your to do list grew as the […]
Academy Culture: Cultivating Mind, Body, and Spirit
My favorite short film is called “The Butterfly Circus.” This film, set during the Great Depression, is a story of a renowned circus troupe traveling around America to lift the spirits of audiences along the way. The plot centers particularly on one man – a limbless man named Will. He meets the ringmaster of The […]
Why Classical Christian Education?
“Why don’t my students have basic facts memorized?” As a sixth-grade teacher, year after year I was asking myself this question and the answer was coming up short. I wanted them to know the building blocks — basic history, parts of speech, and math facts to name a few — but many didn’t have these facts […]
Classical Christian Education: Standing the Test of Time
I found myself in a class entitled simply “Aristotle” in my first year of graduate school. I didn’t want to be there; I had looked for ANY other class that might tie into my master’s program. But, I was studying rhetoric – the art of persuasion, and Aristotle had literally written the book “On […]
Renewed Beginnings: Drawn Back to the Joy of Learning
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Welcome to the new year! As I began writing this article, I considered the traditional “new year” themes, and I realized they may not fit within the school year context. I recognize this is simply a point in time, but the new year is often a time of reflection and a setting of new goals […]
The Profound Simplicity of Helping – When the Body of Christ Shows Up
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The month of November was perhaps the most difficult time we have experienced since Covid began ruling our lives back in March 2020. We, in the weekday Children’s programs, had been relatively sheltered from the many positive test results and
Profound Simplicity: Lessons from Logic
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I am privileged to teach our 7th grade logic class. These students are entering a new developmental stage where their brains can process information more conceptually. They are learning to take what they know and apply it. These seventh graders are itching to discuss their ideas and opinions. (The last time I was in a […]
Poetry in Kindergarten
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If you stop by the kindergarten room after lunch, you will hear a poem read to the students and a discussion about that poem. Currently we are working our way through an anthology called “Sing A Song of Popcorn.” Later in the year we will go through the book “Animals, Animals,” a collection of poems […]
Cultivating a Purposeful Perspective
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]November is National Gratitude Month – an invitation to be more intentional in dwelling on that which we are grateful for in our lives. Does your family practice any gratitude traditions, either during the month of November or year-round? Perhaps it’s sharing highs and lows of the day over dinner. Or, having a gratitude jar […]
