Teacher's Gathering Ruminations

Yesterday's Midwinter Teacher's Gathering focused on an idea that has become a formative educational concept for me--the concept of creating a homelike atmosphere in classrooms. I helped on the planning committee this year. Hence the intersection of my conviction and the theme of this year's event.

Several decades ago, in my first stint of teaching--in Ohio--I heard Verna Birky talk about John 14, and the significance of Jesus having prepared a place for us and how that provides a model for homemakers who share their living space with others. Later, during my years of homeschooling I saw clearly that the "contrived" environment of a classroom had little to recommend it except for its convenience. Instead of making our homes school-like, I determined that it would improve schools if they were to become more home-like.

Yesterday Wes S. talked first about "Heaven: A Prepared Place," reminding us all that heaven is a place of activity, discovery, and relationship. It was wonderfully well-thought out and engagingly presented and inspiring. I usually interact with him when we have school business to see to, and don't often have a chance to hear him speak to other adults, so this was a treat.

Next, Matt. P., who drove here all the way from Iowa, spoke on "Preparing a Place for Students." He drew from his experience in working with troubled young men at Bald Eagle Wilderness Camp as well as his classroom experience. He highlighted important elements of a welcoming classroom atmosphere, focusing especially on relationship issues.

In the last keynote address, Nevin N. spoke on "Preparing for Joyful Relationships." When we asked him to speak, we were thinking of his many years as an educator in Christian schools--not realizing that he and his wife have begun a counseling ministry with a focus on relationships. Nevin was a classmate of mine all the way through grade school and high school. Only this year, he has moved back to this community, and was available to us. He too spoke meaningfully from a wealth of experience and insight.

Without anyone having coordinated this part of it, a secondary theme of "relationships" emerged from what each speaker emphasized.

Besides the keynote addresses, people could choose from eight different workshops in two different sessions. I attended one on "Mentoring" by Matt P. and another on "Art" by Hilda I., our daughter-in-law. Both of these were really good. I think many of the others were good too, based on the evaluation forms people turned in.

Hilda amazes me. She has a natural and engaging way of communicating with people and has substantive things to say. I learned a lot from her presentation, almost enough to make me feel like campaigning to add art as an option to our high school curriculum. (Technically, it's an option as an ACE course, but I can't remember anyone having taken it during the whole time I've been there.) I can think of a few students who struggle a good bit with other course work but would shine in art. It's a shame they don't have that opportunity at school.

After the meeting we had a debriefing session over pizza, chips, and pop (and salad--my attempt to save the meal from total decadence). One major point of discussion was on how to make the finances come out right. Sigh. This year fewer people from other communities attended, but we had a good representation from the Amish and Mennonite schools in this county. We wonder if there's something we could do to make some of this year's absent groups feel more welcome--or are there philosophical differences that don't have much to do with what kind of welcome we convey? Who knows? I think some of the Oklahoma people stayed home because of really nasty roads.

We ended the debriefing after having compiled a bunch of notes and suggestions to be handed to the next committee. We also plotted and planned who should be asked to serve on this committee. The grade school staff will contact some of these people when the time gets a little closer--but not as close as it was this time. We've had the meetings every two years of late.

One planned workshop on Curriculum Choices didn't run, for lack of interest. We included the subject because someone suggested it on the evaluation forms from the last meeting.

In retrospect, I think the lack of interest in this subject points out a vacuum in our mechanism for bringing about change in our school curricula. Board members don't usually initiate it, depending instead on input from teachers who suggest it. Teachers realize they don't have the authority to bring about change on their own, so they leave it to someone else to figure out, unless they are unusually dissatisfied with what is being used. Parents of classroom schooled students include curriculum choices in the package of work they have chosen to delegate to others. Homeschoolers think about it all the time, and aren't likely to change what is already working well for them. So. Who is going to do the hard thinking about curriculum for classroom schools? I nominate all of us.

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On the school board meeting minutes I noticed with some amusement that one of the possibilities they discussed was asking parents to provide financial compensation for teachers who have extra work from dealing with their children's discretionary absences. That would be amazing.

I am in two minds about this. On the one hand, I feel that maybe if regular school attendance can't be managed because of family priorities that regularly interfere, maybe the family needs a new title: homeschooler. Yet, I'm sure that many good learning opportunities exist outside of our classrooms, and school staff can act a little too much like they have a turf to defend and a standing army to maintain if they get too inflexible on school attendance. This is an unbecoming stance, in my opinion.

Maybe the extra financial compensation is actually not too bad an idea. It IS extra work for a teacher to help absent students catch up. While I usually do it gladly enough when I know the absence was due to illness or to a wonderful learning opportunity elsewhere, I remember one semester in the past when I felt like I was being exploited--when uncalled-for absences (my opinion, obviously) left me to go to extra trouble to catch up a student because the family didn't want to go to extra trouble to make attendance possible.

I do think that when parents opt to delegate their children's education to others in a classroom setting, they ought to understand that this choice involves sacrifices they must be prepared to live with. Group schooling is an imperfect option (as is every other option), and ought to be chosen with full understanding that the convenience for parents comes with more limited schedule choices for parents. In other words, it's not possible to have both the convenience of group schooling and the schedule flexibility of homeschooling.

Most of the time things go along very smoothly in this regard, and I'm not sure if we need a policy or not. Fortunately I don't have to decide.