A Thanksgiving Memorial

“In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22 tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’23 For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea[b]when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. 24 He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” Joshua 4:21-24

In our history readings recently, both Middle School and Elementary School have covered the story of Joshua leading the Israelites across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land. In that story, Joshua directed the people to take twelve stones from the river and to make a permanent, mobile memorial of God's provision, power and faithfulness to them during their years in the wilderness. 

On the day before Thanksgiving break began, the whole school gathered during lunchtime in the parking circle. Each person brought a stone, collected from the beautiful wooded land God has provided for us. We took it in turns to share one thing God has done for us that we're thankful for, and then piled up our stones as a memorial. 

Many of the kids and staff expressed thankfulness for the community God has given us, and how He's using it to shape our hearts and help us grow up into Him. Of course, one person thanked God that UT's football team beat OU this fall. Gotta love the way kids can keep it real! 

Are You a Good Pit Crew?

During Morning Launch this week, I shared with the children my personal highlight from attending the Formula One World Championship race a couple weeks ago. I'm not at all oriented toward cars and car racing, but I sure do love me a good metaphor, so when I saw those pit crews in action, and then watched three-time champion Lewis Hamilton catapult himself into his crew's arms immediately after his photo finish, I knew I had a great moment to share.

The point was, I hope clear: Behind every world champion auto racer is a flawless crew working the pit stop, each member highly fit, trained, focused and strong -- oh, and willing to be anonymous to the cheering crowd.

I commented to the children that although each of them is on their own journey -- we could look at a day at school as a few bracing laps around the track -- each of them also has daily opportunities to be a good "pit crew" to each other. How can they quietly and diligently support one another in being and doing their best?

Their ideas included minimizing distractions during Core Skills and offering words of encouragement for successes and consolation or advice for disappointing moments. The question "Are you being a good pit crew?" became a quick way for them to recalibrate themselves during the week. (Maybe I should also use this question when the room gets stinky after P.E.?;-))

Hopefully over the weekend, at home with their families (or coming to race a few laps at the schoolhouse workday!) they'll have plenty of opportunities to practice stellar pit-crewmanship. (New word. You read it here first.)

The Physics Quest Begins

 (The Launch Padders inspire with their water balloon slingshot.)

Besides the agonizing decision of whether to hold school when the forecast called for torrential rains and flash flooding (Kids: "I hope we get stranded at school! It would be SO FUN!") and then the weather said, "Oh really? I didn't get that memo," the biggest challenge we faced at school this past week was ...

... well, I'm not sure. Was it the porting of all the Chromebooks onto the new Google Education accounts, which caused all of us to exercise that perseverance muscle yet again? Weren't we all done with perseverance? (Answer: Never!)

... or was it the new skill of learning to work in groups? We launched our Session 2 Physics Quest on Tuesday, splitting the kids into six groups of five in a mix of ages and genders. They're having to tackle some challenging "Learn-to-Know" and "Learn-to-Do" material, but along the way they're learning soft skills like:

• Taking ownership of the quest paperwork, including putting your name on the paper, answering the questions, and keeping track of the packet and flashcards instead of leaving them for the studio maintenance crew.
• Reading the instructions to figure out what the day's deliverables are. 
• Prioritizing deliverables. Oh my stars, it is so fun to spend an hour coming up with a team name and T-shirt-worthy logo, but what if that means that you have only ten minutes to research, make your flashcards, and answer the big challenge question of the day?
• Including everyone in the learning. As I walked around observing the groups, I noticed that some of the kids were engaged in what was going on, and some were checked out. Some were trying to drive the bus, while others were meeting their designated leader's questions with blank stares. Nearly every group was struggling at some point and in some way with communication. 

While it was tempting to get a bit discouraged by this, I remembered (and reminded my class during Wednesday's closing group) that the art of working with a group is something that many adults still find challenging to master. How often does God yoke us together with one or more persons whose temperament, learning style and speed, and experience differ from our own, and then ask us to plow together? 

(Coaching Ben through his Physics Quiz during "Rain School" day.)

We, the staff, are a great example of that. Just like the children, we've spent the past several years in an environment (full-time homeschooling) that didn't demand too much of that particular skill. We've spent the past six months starting a school together, and every single day God is tempering us with one another. I'm grateful that He is infinitely more patient and undaunted than I am. And when I see the kids stretching to accommodate one another, cheering over each other's quiz results, or, in the aftermath of the recent 360 surveys, going out on a limb to ask each other for help, prayer, and feedback so they can grow in character, I think I taste some of His joy as well. 

Chatting Through History

Here's how we "do" history these days in the AI Elementary School: after an all-too-brief lunch and recess period, we scramble into our places, the kids with sketchbooks or Thinking Putty in hand, and I read aloud to them from the Mystery of History, Volume 1.

It may sound a bit dry, and I've considered, a time or two, whether to chop it in favor of one of the other things that we'd love to squeeze into our day. But in reality, this short block of our day seems to yield so many delightful rabbit trails. Usually one of the kids volunteers to be the Researcher, which means that he or she has their Chromebook open and ready to Google any photos or definitions we need. (What does the Great Pyramid at Giza actually look like? What are the other Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? What is the official definition of a desert?)

We almost never stay strictly on topic, and I'm seeing the kids become increasingly comfortable with that. They look at me when a discussion strays, to gauge whether this is a valuable tangent or whether we've been sidetracked into silliness. As time goes on, I hope their own internal meter registers that kind of discernment.

This week we got only a few paragraphs into our chapter on the Ten Commandments and the Tabernacle when we had to stop to discuss what the Ten Commandments tell us about God and why He would give His people a bunch of standards He knew they wouldn't be able to live up to. (Can we in our class even live to our 4-item Covenant one hundred percent of the time?)

In the course of the discussion, during which Camryn pointed out that God wanted His people to figure out that they needed Him, I asked why God didn't just tell them that they weren't capable of keeping the law. Why did He make them find out for themselves? Aliya remarked that that was "very Acton" of God.

Maybe we're all getting to be Acton students after all.