Luxurious Exhale

It's over for this year.  School, that is.  All the seniors "made" graduation, and all the teachers "made" grade cards.

At the awards assembly today, all the teachers who terminated their Pilgrim careers either last year or this year were rewarded with gifts from their students' families--varying according to their years of service:  fancy "31" handbags (Sara), gift certificates for dining room chairs (Lyle), a gift certificate for an industrial jointer--Will (I hope I got this machine name right.),  a garden tiller (Darrell), and a bicycle and decorative water fountain (Janice).

Next year's new staff members were also announced--all at the grade school:  Gideon Yutzy--grades 7 & 8, Glenda Miller--grades 1 & 2, Crystal Struhbar--grades 5 & 6, Sheila Ropp--resource teacher.  A music teacher is still being sought for all grades.  Only Glenda is currently living here.  Gideon comes from Poland, Crystal from Oklahoma, and Sheila will come home from Virginia, where she has been serving at Faith Mission Home.

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Something rather astounding happened this year with the typing speeds.  With exactly the same program (Mavis Beacon) we have used ever since I've first taught the class at Pilgrim, the average speed for the entire class was 73 adjusted words per minute (awpm), and the median score was 72.  That means there were three scores in the class higher than 72 and three scores lower.  Actually, all except two scores (the highest and lowest) lay between 67 and 86.  Every student had good typing skills (read:  had learned to keep their eyes on the screen and not on the keyboard).

The adjusted words per minute score takes into account both speed and accuracy.  That's what the "adjusted" in the term refers to.  The speed score is lowered slightly for each error.

All this was astounding only by comparison with previous years.  I looked back into two old typing class records and found that instead of 72 and 73, the numbers there were between 45 and 49.  I really can't account for this difference, although I'm pondering several possibilities.

One student was typing very well before the class began this year, due to her mother having started her at home with Mavis Beacon when she was about in fourth grade.  No one else had particularly notable skills, although it's possible that a few had pecked around on a keyboard fairly randomly before this year.  So maybe slightly greater familiarity with computers made a small difference.

Another factor this year is that the computers did not lock up repeatedly, as was the case some years.  Also, we avoided triggering some of the bugs in the Mavis Beacon program by leaving all the settings in the default mode.  Last year we had tried some variations and finally figured out that this is what was causing mega amounts of grief, necessitating frequent start-overs.  All this simply boils down to people being able to work efficiently when their equipment functions optimally.   That was the case this year, for the most part.

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The typing class' final assignments provided material for my little speech at the awards assembly today.  In a composing-at-the-computer assignment, I asked them to take on the role of an advice columnist.  The first day was devoted to imagining and recording questions students might ask of such a person.  In the second day's assignment, they were to answer a handful of questions created by another student, and I also asked them to answer their own questions.  I told them they could be as serious as they wanted to be.  (It turned out that was not very serious.)  I was fairly evasive any time one of them inquired about what I was planning to do with the assignment.

I didn't read all the questions and answers out loud--especially the most controversial ones, but the ones I did read aloud proved to be quite entertaining.  Some of the answers were wise, and others were just silly.  My favorite  question asked what can be done about the epidemic of chronic "flirtosis" at the high school.  The question was complete with diacritical marks to make the pronunciation clear, and a definition was provided.


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Fifteen eighth graders and 12 twelfth graders graduated last evening.  Sixteen of those 27 graduates were homeschoolers.  Dwight Miller had the commencement address.  I especially enjoyed his references to the way migratory animals follow invisible signals to find the same spots their "ancestors" left several generations earlier.  He suggested that perhaps God Himself guides them with His eye, and Dwight likened that to the way God guides His people if they don't take their own way instead.

At the party afterward, where each graduate had prepared a display highlighting their interests and accomplishments, I was "blown away" by some of the outstanding artwork the graduates had produced. Most of them were homeschoolers who had either learned by self-study or by taking art classes from a lady who lives directly across the road from the high school.  The student and graduate, Clarissa Miller, who won the Kansas state Junior Duck Stamp competition this year was her student.  One was a student enrolled at our high school.  The sad thing is that we, at our high school, offer no art classes except through paces--which everyone agrees is not an ideal way to learn art.  Last night this class void struck me as a serious shortcoming.  I wonder what can be done about this.  None of our current staff members would be able to teach art, but surely someone could.  I'm thoughtful especially about the fact that some who are less successful academically are among those with outstanding artistic talent.

Anja did something I've never seen before at a similar event.  She had written and then framed--all in one document--short tributes to all the teachers and mentors who had aided in her education.  Despite never having been enrolled full time in any classroom school, she had quite a list of teachers--perhaps 10 or 12.  Her parents were her primary teachers.


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Today is Hiromi's 68th birthday.  We've spent the whole day going different directions, which is not the way I idealize celebrating it.  He went to the Hutchinson Art Fair this morning, an annual event he is very fond of.  This afternoon and evening he had to work.  I was at the school picnic and awards day and then spent the evening at home.

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I will still need to spend a bit of time at school next week, but then we'll be turning our efforts to getting ourselves moved so that Shane and Dorcas can start working on preparing this house as their home.   It looks daunting, but it's a relief to be ready to start, with minimal interference from other obligations.