SS Class Fail, Tragedy, and School
Have you ever taught an entire Sunday School lesson to adults and learned at the end of the class period that you were holding forth on the wrong lesson? I did that this morning--after I had taken some pains early in the week to make sure that I was studying the right lesson. The tittering at the beginning of class should have tipped me off, but a bit of fast thinking on the part of a few class members resulted in the conclusion that it was better to talk about what I had studied than what they had studied--possibly with less time investment. So they just went with the flow and waited till the end of class to reveal what the merriment was about.
I still wish I had learned something though about the vine and the branches (John 15a), although the Shepherd seeking the lost sheep and the woman searching for the lost coin (Luke 15a) proved to be an interesting study as well. I think my brain did a switch between reading my announcements sheet on the fridge where the lesson was listed (from John) and my devotions chair where I began to read the portion (from Luke). Silly old brain.
In my own defense, I'll say that the way this lesson was chosen and assigned was highly unusual, so the confusion happened easily. It was a fill-in lesson between finishing up the NT General Epistles and beginning the study of the three OT minor prophets who proclaimed truth to the nation of Israel.
****************
This morning's service included news and prayers about an unusual number of tragedies involving friends and family of people in our congregation. Julian told about the 41-year-old friend of Bertha's who died of a stroke, the 21-year-old young married woman who died in an accident on winter-hazardous roads (from Floyd and Dorcas' church--but also an inlaw to Bertha's brother), and he mentioned the death of a 61-year-old cousin to Marvin and Judy--both married to one of my siblings. Norman (the cousin) was an age-mate and dear friend of Marvin's when they lived near each other from birth to age 9. Marvin also mentioned Sam Swarey who is very ill with cancer in TN. We heard about the death this morning of Daniel Yutzy and his wife, who were traveling to her grandmother's funeral in OH and died in an accident on the way there. They lived in Iowa and had five children ages 5-21. Apparently this Amish couple, presumably traveling in a vehicle with a hired driver, collided with a semi sitting crosswise in the road under very foggy conditions. Then Lorne K. told us about the young man from IL who died when their home exploded from an apparent gas leak. His sister is hospitalized in critical condition. A young man on his way home to IL from working in Hutchinson on Interfaith Housing Projects with CASP aborted his planned trip home (via a wedding in GA) because his parents--who planned to pick him up at an airport en route--needed to return to IL. The parents of the young people involved in the explosion were passengers in the vehicle originally headed to GA. Kathy Garrett (local) is in hospice care, with a short life expectancy. Oh my! Lord, have mercy.
****************
"School" seems to be a recurring theme in my world recently. It's a very different school world, however, than the one that consumed nearly all my energies during the past several school years.
Today's local newspaper had three "school" stories. One was an opinion piece urging caution about charter schools. Another was a news story about Christian schools. I'm afraid this article is more accurate than I wish it were in some ways--particularly the ways that indoctrination there can promote political polarization. When they talk, however, about leaving kids "vulnerable on all kinds of levels" because of too-limited exposure, etc. I think they are revealing values that have too little in common with Christian values for their concern to be taken very seriously. I take some comfort in what I heard several weeks ago from Wendy S., the Hutch News staffer who ended up in my carpool to Hesston for the LRC retreat. She spoke of the Pilgrim students as their "favorite student group to work with by far" on the student-written section of the newspaper that is published once a month by one of the high schools in the area--with a lot of help offered by News staffers.
The front page had an article about how public schools in Reno County fared in recent testing on math, language arts, and science. There's not a lot to brag about here, but scores weren't dismal either.
Several days ago I saw the name and picture of one of my college classmates, Fred Dierksen, who was just appointed as a co-chair of a Governor's Council on Education. He was the well-loved superintendent of the Sterling school district until recently when he transferred to Dodge City. Fred is a good level-headed Christian guy (I remember him helping push my little Opel out of a snowy, slippery parking spot on campus one day), and I'm pleased to see him in a state education position.
In January, I attended the Haven district school board meeting. Doing so was a requirement for the Leadership Reno County class. During the executive session in which the Superintendent's performance was being discussed, I mingled with him and the other excluded attendees and got acquainted with everyone and enjoyed a chat together. At the beginning of the meeting I had hoped to sneak in quietly, but right after I entered, I was asked if I hoped to address the board. "No," I said quickly. Horrors.
On Thursday of this past week, I showed up at Lincoln School in Hutch at 7:00 AM for a meeting with the principal and several other LRC class members. Darla Fisher (wife of Ron) is the principal. I was blown away by what is being attempted and accomplished in this school where 75% of the students qualify for free lunches, and 40% qualify for breakfasts and weekend meals. Before I left I connected with Angeleise, the sister of my daughter-in-law Clare. Angeleise is a paraprofessional in the special ed classroom at Lincoln.
Darla knows the language of the LRC class (her husband--Shane's former employee and current consultant--helps facilitate the class), and she acknowledges that her job, where being hit and kicked is a workplace hazard, involves huge adaptive challenges. For example, the students' issues are often linked to poor home situations, poverty, poor health, and even crime. But inside the walls of the school, every child is shown love and offered help and taught skills. Every school day begins with an all-school assembly, which is led by the principal, with students sitting on the gym floor. This is part routine and part pep talk and part calming activity. While there I observed on hallway charts, etc. a handful of ever-so-sensible "school culture language" ways of describing things like voice volume (mouse to lion), apathy/alertness/agitation/violence levels (white? to red--green is good), and ways of defusing conflict by self-management (turn away or walk away before speaking angrily or fighting back). Darla shines with the love of Jesus and praises her staff and the students highly for the effort they put forth to live well and make things better for others.
Another recent conversation was with a homeschooling mom that I had met only once before, briefly. This time we talked for several hours. I admire so very much about how she approaches homeschooling. When I asked her about how she got started with homeschooling, she told about having grown up in the home of a Christian school teacher, and having attended Christian schools herself. This was the kind of school environment she pictured for her children--until something changed after they lost their first child to a miscarriage. In the grief and searching that followed, she promised the Lord that she would do anything He asked her to do in mothering any children He gave them. Then, inexplicably, exposure to homeschooling began to come at her in waves, and the conviction grew that this was one thing the Lord was showing her that He wanted her to do. All this happened before they had children.
When the children began to arrive, the family quickly grew to include six children under the age of six. She was privileged to be able to hire help with domestic chores, and the children's grandparents were close by and offered help. Also, at some point, her husband began to work from a home office (in a separate building, however), and one school desk is there for times when being with Dad is called for. She is very aware that homeschooling can be an incredibly daunting undertaking, and she has been busy trying to offer connection and help to other homeschooling moms in the area. Lots of warm fuzzies followed this conversation.
Another upcoming LRC project shoved me in a surprising direction while I was trying to formulate in my mind what might be done to meet one of my personal adaptive challenges. I think I've written before here about desiring to see expanded options in the space between all-homeschooling and all-classroom schooling. From this desire a one-room-school picture has gradually emerged--a de-consolidation model that stops short of one-family-alone education approaches . No, not exactly the historical version of one-room schools. What I envision is a space where all the school-age children of several homeschooling neighborhood families could gather one or more days a week. Group size would have a predetermined upper limit, roughly coinciding with the size of one large family. All the children would bring their schoolbooks from home and the teacher for the day would simply offer guidance and supervision for lessons planned by the parents. The teacher would presumably be one of the moms (taking turns), or it could be a hired teacher. On the day that a mom of preschoolers is the teacher, her own preschoolers could come along. Defending the rationale for this approach will have to wait for another time.
I had always pictured starting very small by providing such a space in a little classroom on our property, in hopes that it might prove duplicatable elsewhere. However, when I tried to frame that desire in the language of an adaptive challenge that an LRC group of peer consultants could help with, I soon saw that my vision was too limited. I still don't remember how it all came together in my mind, but quite suddenly, I saw that many stakeholders in this community could benefit in multiple ways if they had access to the fairly-new, now-vacant Partridge Grade School facility 2 1/2 miles from our home. One classroom could serve as my one-room school, and so very many other needed services could fit into other areas of the building and in the park/playground adjacent to it.
Sigh. Now my vision feels out of control--except that I know it's safe with the Lord, and He can dole out tasks in doable measures. People around me have helped with astonishing understanding, encouragement, and generosity, and showed willingness to make connections and come together to explore options. Timing of various encounters seems providential.
I'm OK with being a listener-to-and-recorder-of-ideas, and LRC class tells us that this is always the first step in working through an adaptive challenge, so that's what I'm doing now. Looming large in everyone's mind, of course, is the challenge of establishing secure funding for ongoing operations. Utility bills alone are staggering. Even on that matter though, some surprising options are showing promise. Part of me is awed at the possibilities. Another part of me wants to scurry into a hidey hole, waiting to emerge till after everything calms down. I'd be very happy to know that others are willing to pray about the future of the PGS building, and I'd be happy as well to hear from anyone who has insights or help to offer.
I still wish I had learned something though about the vine and the branches (John 15a), although the Shepherd seeking the lost sheep and the woman searching for the lost coin (Luke 15a) proved to be an interesting study as well. I think my brain did a switch between reading my announcements sheet on the fridge where the lesson was listed (from John) and my devotions chair where I began to read the portion (from Luke). Silly old brain.
In my own defense, I'll say that the way this lesson was chosen and assigned was highly unusual, so the confusion happened easily. It was a fill-in lesson between finishing up the NT General Epistles and beginning the study of the three OT minor prophets who proclaimed truth to the nation of Israel.
****************
This morning's service included news and prayers about an unusual number of tragedies involving friends and family of people in our congregation. Julian told about the 41-year-old friend of Bertha's who died of a stroke, the 21-year-old young married woman who died in an accident on winter-hazardous roads (from Floyd and Dorcas' church--but also an inlaw to Bertha's brother), and he mentioned the death of a 61-year-old cousin to Marvin and Judy--both married to one of my siblings. Norman (the cousin) was an age-mate and dear friend of Marvin's when they lived near each other from birth to age 9. Marvin also mentioned Sam Swarey who is very ill with cancer in TN. We heard about the death this morning of Daniel Yutzy and his wife, who were traveling to her grandmother's funeral in OH and died in an accident on the way there. They lived in Iowa and had five children ages 5-21. Apparently this Amish couple, presumably traveling in a vehicle with a hired driver, collided with a semi sitting crosswise in the road under very foggy conditions. Then Lorne K. told us about the young man from IL who died when their home exploded from an apparent gas leak. His sister is hospitalized in critical condition. A young man on his way home to IL from working in Hutchinson on Interfaith Housing Projects with CASP aborted his planned trip home (via a wedding in GA) because his parents--who planned to pick him up at an airport en route--needed to return to IL. The parents of the young people involved in the explosion were passengers in the vehicle originally headed to GA. Kathy Garrett (local) is in hospice care, with a short life expectancy. Oh my! Lord, have mercy.
****************
"School" seems to be a recurring theme in my world recently. It's a very different school world, however, than the one that consumed nearly all my energies during the past several school years.
Today's local newspaper had three "school" stories. One was an opinion piece urging caution about charter schools. Another was a news story about Christian schools. I'm afraid this article is more accurate than I wish it were in some ways--particularly the ways that indoctrination there can promote political polarization. When they talk, however, about leaving kids "vulnerable on all kinds of levels" because of too-limited exposure, etc. I think they are revealing values that have too little in common with Christian values for their concern to be taken very seriously. I take some comfort in what I heard several weeks ago from Wendy S., the Hutch News staffer who ended up in my carpool to Hesston for the LRC retreat. She spoke of the Pilgrim students as their "favorite student group to work with by far" on the student-written section of the newspaper that is published once a month by one of the high schools in the area--with a lot of help offered by News staffers.
The front page had an article about how public schools in Reno County fared in recent testing on math, language arts, and science. There's not a lot to brag about here, but scores weren't dismal either.
Several days ago I saw the name and picture of one of my college classmates, Fred Dierksen, who was just appointed as a co-chair of a Governor's Council on Education. He was the well-loved superintendent of the Sterling school district until recently when he transferred to Dodge City. Fred is a good level-headed Christian guy (I remember him helping push my little Opel out of a snowy, slippery parking spot on campus one day), and I'm pleased to see him in a state education position.
In January, I attended the Haven district school board meeting. Doing so was a requirement for the Leadership Reno County class. During the executive session in which the Superintendent's performance was being discussed, I mingled with him and the other excluded attendees and got acquainted with everyone and enjoyed a chat together. At the beginning of the meeting I had hoped to sneak in quietly, but right after I entered, I was asked if I hoped to address the board. "No," I said quickly. Horrors.
On Thursday of this past week, I showed up at Lincoln School in Hutch at 7:00 AM for a meeting with the principal and several other LRC class members. Darla Fisher (wife of Ron) is the principal. I was blown away by what is being attempted and accomplished in this school where 75% of the students qualify for free lunches, and 40% qualify for breakfasts and weekend meals. Before I left I connected with Angeleise, the sister of my daughter-in-law Clare. Angeleise is a paraprofessional in the special ed classroom at Lincoln.
Darla knows the language of the LRC class (her husband--Shane's former employee and current consultant--helps facilitate the class), and she acknowledges that her job, where being hit and kicked is a workplace hazard, involves huge adaptive challenges. For example, the students' issues are often linked to poor home situations, poverty, poor health, and even crime. But inside the walls of the school, every child is shown love and offered help and taught skills. Every school day begins with an all-school assembly, which is led by the principal, with students sitting on the gym floor. This is part routine and part pep talk and part calming activity. While there I observed on hallway charts, etc. a handful of ever-so-sensible "school culture language" ways of describing things like voice volume (mouse to lion), apathy/alertness/agitation/violence levels (white? to red--green is good), and ways of defusing conflict by self-management (turn away or walk away before speaking angrily or fighting back). Darla shines with the love of Jesus and praises her staff and the students highly for the effort they put forth to live well and make things better for others.
Another recent conversation was with a homeschooling mom that I had met only once before, briefly. This time we talked for several hours. I admire so very much about how she approaches homeschooling. When I asked her about how she got started with homeschooling, she told about having grown up in the home of a Christian school teacher, and having attended Christian schools herself. This was the kind of school environment she pictured for her children--until something changed after they lost their first child to a miscarriage. In the grief and searching that followed, she promised the Lord that she would do anything He asked her to do in mothering any children He gave them. Then, inexplicably, exposure to homeschooling began to come at her in waves, and the conviction grew that this was one thing the Lord was showing her that He wanted her to do. All this happened before they had children.
When the children began to arrive, the family quickly grew to include six children under the age of six. She was privileged to be able to hire help with domestic chores, and the children's grandparents were close by and offered help. Also, at some point, her husband began to work from a home office (in a separate building, however), and one school desk is there for times when being with Dad is called for. She is very aware that homeschooling can be an incredibly daunting undertaking, and she has been busy trying to offer connection and help to other homeschooling moms in the area. Lots of warm fuzzies followed this conversation.
Another upcoming LRC project shoved me in a surprising direction while I was trying to formulate in my mind what might be done to meet one of my personal adaptive challenges. I think I've written before here about desiring to see expanded options in the space between all-homeschooling and all-classroom schooling. From this desire a one-room-school picture has gradually emerged--a de-consolidation model that stops short of one-family-alone education approaches . No, not exactly the historical version of one-room schools. What I envision is a space where all the school-age children of several homeschooling neighborhood families could gather one or more days a week. Group size would have a predetermined upper limit, roughly coinciding with the size of one large family. All the children would bring their schoolbooks from home and the teacher for the day would simply offer guidance and supervision for lessons planned by the parents. The teacher would presumably be one of the moms (taking turns), or it could be a hired teacher. On the day that a mom of preschoolers is the teacher, her own preschoolers could come along. Defending the rationale for this approach will have to wait for another time.
I had always pictured starting very small by providing such a space in a little classroom on our property, in hopes that it might prove duplicatable elsewhere. However, when I tried to frame that desire in the language of an adaptive challenge that an LRC group of peer consultants could help with, I soon saw that my vision was too limited. I still don't remember how it all came together in my mind, but quite suddenly, I saw that many stakeholders in this community could benefit in multiple ways if they had access to the fairly-new, now-vacant Partridge Grade School facility 2 1/2 miles from our home. One classroom could serve as my one-room school, and so very many other needed services could fit into other areas of the building and in the park/playground adjacent to it.
Sigh. Now my vision feels out of control--except that I know it's safe with the Lord, and He can dole out tasks in doable measures. People around me have helped with astonishing understanding, encouragement, and generosity, and showed willingness to make connections and come together to explore options. Timing of various encounters seems providential.
I'm OK with being a listener-to-and-recorder-of-ideas, and LRC class tells us that this is always the first step in working through an adaptive challenge, so that's what I'm doing now. Looming large in everyone's mind, of course, is the challenge of establishing secure funding for ongoing operations. Utility bills alone are staggering. Even on that matter though, some surprising options are showing promise. Part of me is awed at the possibilities. Another part of me wants to scurry into a hidey hole, waiting to emerge till after everything calms down. I'd be very happy to know that others are willing to pray about the future of the PGS building, and I'd be happy as well to hear from anyone who has insights or help to offer.
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