Here at AI, our days are strewn with more than our fair share of lovely, picturesque moments. Every day I feel grateful to arrive here in the morning on this parcel of wooded land God has given us, working side by side with women and men who pour out their hearts in prayer before we start our day, and watching the children stretch and grow, stumble and soar. They are funny, smart, kind, engaging, and lovable.
(Rumor on the street: everyone just wants to eat these two on a spoon!)
But they are also sinful humans. So are we. So am I. We all fail each other -- fail to live up to our covenants, fail, in my case, to fully lean on Jesus' name. Selfishness and complaining rear their ugly heads -- in all of us. Every single day, I find myself wondering how to deal with situation X or Y wisely, often not praying enough, often looking back later and repenting for not being slower to speak or act.
Here's one of the moments from this past week that you wouldn't normally write to the grandparents about.
We're working hard to set a high standard for care of our school environment. This means holding the line on a simple rule: Project Time, a.k.a. Major Mess Time, is over and Free Time begins WHEN YOU HAVE CLEANED UP. On Tuesday, the above photo shows what happened. No names were called out for unacceptable work -- only for "above and beyond" work. (My goal is to give much more attention to their positive choices than to their mistakes.) I simply posted that sign in the studio at the end of the day and silently let it do its work. One girl approached the poster, recognized her role in the mess, and said, "Oh. That was me. I should have done a better job cleaning up my work." I just smiled at her and told her I agreed. Again, they're smart kids!
(Note to self: Try this at home???)
Someone suggested giving you a brief list of topics we discussed here at school during the week so that you can follow up on them at home if you wish. So, in case that's helpful to you, here a few conversations my diminishing memory has cobbled together from the past several days:
- Stonehenge took probably hundreds of years to construct, given their equipment limitations. Would you start a project if you knew it probably wouldn't be finished in your lifetime?
- When you were working on your marble mazes, what did you learn from the times when you tried something and it didn't work?
- What's the difference between reading and skimming?
- If God asks us to love Him with one hundred percent of our mind, heart, soul and strength, what does that say about how we do everything else we do, like working on core skills or doing a project?
- What is the most disgusting part of mummification?
- How are the Egyptian and Christian views of what happens after we die alike? How are they different? How do we take treasure with us after we die?
- If someone says something teasing to you in fun ("drops a grape") and it bothers you ("feels like a watermelon'), how do you politely let them know? When does teasing become rude?
- What's up with the Lost City of Atlantis?
