DOCENDO DISCIMUS

To Whom Shall Educators Go?

Wednesday was a bad news day.

From the morning edition of The Oklahoman to that night's national and local newscasts, there was a lot I (Craig) found myself sighing over: a middle schooler in Enid gets beaten unconscious at school; a teacher aide (who actually worked with a friend of mine) at Southmoore high school is caught sexting photos of herself to sophomores.

To top it off, I got an email from a colleague at my former school telling me about a senior prank gone wrong. Apparently, the Head of School's email was hacked and the following message sent to the entire parent community:

"We would like to inform you of some small changes that will take place, this year, regarding Junior/Senior Banquet. As servants of God, we strive to protect our community. For this reason, we have arranged for condoms to be available at this event. Every male student attending will have the option of taking a complementary condom at the door. This is to encourage our students to practice safe sex. We hope that by doing this, we can set a positive example, so that other schools may recognize our efforts and take action against sexually transmitted diseases. Thank you, and have a blessed day."

Sometimes it's hard to see God at work, particularly in our schools and especially despite our human capability to really mess things up. And yet I read a quote on Wednesday from United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon that was particularly helpful in the midst of trying to do some good in the midst of that bad news day. Willimon wrote: "Scripture teaches that time and again, God refuses to be stumped by our inadequacies. Therein is our hope."

Indeed, therein is our hope. "Whom have I in heaven but you?," wrote the psalmist, "And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you" (Psalm 73:25). John records that, "Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69).

With four weeks to go, I take comfort that any hope we have cannot be in ourselves - which of us this time of year has anything left to hope in? In the face of what's ahead, let's confess to God, each other, and ourselves where our true and only hope is: in Christ, his love, and his grace. Pray this for yourself, your students, and our families.

This is what I'm praying for all of us these next four weeks.

Good News on the Oklahoma Admissions Front

Back on Good Friday, The Oklahoman published this article on the University of Oklahoma's desire to revamp their admissions process and make it more holistic in its consideration of potential OU students.

This public announcement lines up with what OU Admissions Director Mark McMasters alluded to me (Craig) privately last fall - namely that OU was working on admission changes from which non-accredited schools like Veritas would benefit. Mark told me that OU measures success in terms of admitted students actually graduating, and colleges and universities can't deny the positive numbers when it comes to homeschool students who successfully start and finish their collegiate studies.

Seeing an opportunity to affirm what Mark and OU's Board of Regents are doing, I wrote a letter to The Oklahoman affirming OU's decision and urging the Oklahoma State Board of Regents to follow their lead. To my surprise, the paper published my Letter to the Editor in full earlier this week.

Veritas Video Goodness

Really proud of these videos produced for our Constructing the Vision banquet in March. Thanks to Veritas parent Jody Wickersham and all our parents, faculty, staff, and students for their good thoughts and inspiring examples.

Parents as Teachers

I (Megan) dipped my toes into the waters of substitute teaching on Tuesday this week, but then got pushed in full on Thursday. You know what? The water isn't nearly as scary as I was thinking it would be. In fact, I wouldn't mind going swimming again.

At Veritas, we have the unique privilege of partnering with professional teachers in the eduction of our children. Of course, I'm already teaching our own kids at home two days a week, but occasionally agreeing to partner in the education of other kids in our community can be very affirming, for you AND  the school.

Now then, group teaching isn't for everyone; there are plenty of reasons some people are called to be teachers and some are not. But I think, particularly in a blended model of education, there are more of us capable of subbing than we might think. This post is for those people.

Here are six reasons I think parents should consider being on the substitute list:

1) It's a great way to get to know other kids in our VCA community. Believe it or not, even as the wife of the Head of School, sometimes I feel a little on the fringe of what we're doing. Craig takes the girls to school in the morning and he brings them home in the afternoon on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. I'm really not on campus very much.

Substituting this week gave me a small sense of connectedness to the school as a whole. I chatted with more teachers than I ever have before (not a ton, but even three is more than none), and I got to know eleven new kids and, by extention, a little bit about our different families through them. I loved it.

2) We have great kids in our VCA community. Most of us think our OWN kids are pretty great (most of the time), but some might be surprised to learn we have a ton of great kids within our VCA community. They are funny; they are smart; they are respectful; they are lively; they are witty; they are awesome. I really enjoyed getting to know a new set of kids and I was encouraged in our decision to be part of this community. These are kids I want my kids hanging around!

3) It's not as scary as it sounds. Really. It isn't. I was nervous all the way to school on Tuesday, but once I got there and saw the schedule and the plans, I relaxed a lot. I could do this. Y'all, I've BEEN doing this at home all-year long! Sure, it's different doing it with a classroom of kids all the same age, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I loved getting up close and into what the kids are really doing on their school days.

4) You don't have to teach SWR (Spell to Write and Read) to the class. There is help for the hopeless (me). Really, if you know this program well and are comfortable doing it, you can, but if you need help, help is there to be found. Whew!

5) You can earn a little spending money. No, it's not a lot, but it's not nothing, either! And you don't have to do it one day just because your name is on the list.

6) We have great teachers in our VCA community. I mentioned our GREAT kids and it's true! But we have GREAT teachers, too. Unfortunately, sometimes our great teachers get sick, or (because many of them are parents of Veritas students themselves), sometimes their own kids get sick. Honestly, sometimes they need a break, and sometimes they need us to help them.

Our substitute list for all campuses is short, and we really need parents on it. If you're part of our commuity (or if you're at a different but similar kind of school somewhere else), please consider this a plea to sign up to substitute teach.

Really. You can do this.

Survey Reminds Us That We're in This Together

Back in early September, our Parent Partnership Association conducted a short survey asking how our parents were feeling about the start of the year. Here are a few results from the 32 parents who answered the survey (a 20% response rate):

Please choose which description best encompasses your feelings about Home Days with your children these first two weeks?
Weeping and gnashing of teeth and about to give up	0%	0
Some tears, but I see glimmers of hope	15.6%	5
It's going okay, but not as well as I had hoped	12.5%	4
It's going well, although we have challenges	56.3%	18
Challenges? What challenges?	15.6%	5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What topic would be most helpful for additional parent training?
Schedule management with school work	24.1%	7
Schedule management with extra commitments	6.9%	2
Food and household management	13.8%	4
Parenting tips for character/discipline challenges	31%	9
Grade specific homework assistance	24.1%	7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One open-ended question we asked on the survey was, "How would you define Home Day success?" The answers varied:

• "If my student finishes homework by 1 or 2 p.m."
• "Every assignment completed."
• "Children connect with God in midst of their problems and enjoyable times."
• "Finishing our work with everyone happy and having good attitudes."
• "My student taking responsibility for knowing what needs to be accomplished and the best way to accomplish it with parental support."

In case you were wondering, we have good and bad days at the Dunham home. The blended model is work - for students, for parents, for the Head of School and his spouse.

Home|School Redefined

We are in the process of re-branding Veritas Classical Academy, leveraging more the blended model aspect of the classical Christian education we provide, while (honestly) combatting stigmas sometimes associated with homeschoolers.

One way to accomplish this is through language; another is through visuals. With this in mind, here's my (Craig's) Head of School letter, along with the cover to our new Veritas brochure, which is going to print later this week. (Note: Rather than open right to left, the cover and rest of the brochure actually opens down the middle; thus, the "split" idea between home | school.)

For those so inclined (particularly any not associated with Veritas), I'd be interested in your initial response/reaction to what you read/see. In evaluating the cover and copy below, what do you discern about our school? How would you verbalize it? What responses (if any) do either elicit from you?

Dear Friend,

At Veritas Classical Academy, our goals for our students are much bigger than just educating them; in a world as complicated as ours, they have to be. 

Education without moral formation is insufficient. Students may learn many things, but unless these form and transform them, even the best ideas are little more than a chasing after the wind.

At Veritas, “homeschool redefined” means:

• Qualified, professional teachers instructing covenant children through classical means
• Committed, intentional parents partnering with teachers on a set curriculum in a blended school model
• Engaged, eager students learning to love and pursue Knowledge, Wisdom, Goodness, and Beauty in accordance with biblical truth for the glory of God

College prep is not preparation enough; we’re a Kingdom-preparatory school. By way of our classical Christian curriculum, students learn that competency requires character, that virtues trump values, and that faithfully pursuing vocation – and not just a career – is key to a fruitful life.

Regardless of next steps – apprenticeship, college, gap year travel, military service, workforce – we endeavor to prepare students intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and physically to be about God’s work and Word in the world. 

We invite you to join us in this experience of “homeschool redefined.” Visit our website, give us a call, or talk with one of our many families in the Oklahoma City metro about why they love Veritas.

Craig Dunham
Head of School

Thanks for your thoughtful and honest feedback.

What Home Day REALLY Looks Like

We showed you what the home portion of our blended model classical education model looks like in our dreams.

Here's a glimpse into reality:

This is our second grader, scrolling through all of her jingles and chants, still in her pajamas, and hanging out with our dog, Peaches.

She then used Peaches as her excuse not to sit up to do the writing portion I asked her to do because she would disturb the dog.

There you go: a bit of reality into our classical homeschool utopia.

The Well-Blown Mind: An Introduction

In spring of 2005, Craig and I and our four little girls were in the midst of a major life transition. We were moving from Colorado Springs, where we'd lived for a dozen years while Craig was on staff with The Navigators, to St. Louis, where Craig was was about to begin seminary. In the two-month interim (intentional for the sake of decompressing from the former and preparing for the latter), we lived in a farm house in rural Illinois. During this time we read a lot of books and watched a lot of corn grow. And Craig shot a lot of raccoons.

It was during this stint that we spent a week in Oklahoma, visiting my parents in Owasso and also seeing some old friends in Norman. These friends had recently helped start an interesting school called Veritas Classical Academy. The school was finishing up its first year, and we arrived just in time for the end-of-year roller skating party.

With kids who were then 6, 4, 3, and 18 months, we didn’t really enjoy the skating so much (even today, roller skating comes in at a very strong 2 on a fun scale of 0-10 for our family), but we did enjoy finding out more about the school - a blended model classical Christian school in which the kids only attended twice each week and were homeschooled the rest of the week. To a mom planning to homeschool her four daughters, this sounded pretty awesome to me.

I remember drilling my friend, Julie, about the school the rest of our time in Norman. I think my questions included (but were not limited to):

• Help me understand what you mean by classical education?
• Douglas who?
• Dorothy who?
• Veritas Press what?
• And you just gathered a group of people together to start reading books together and suddenly you had a school?

Apparently it wasn’t quite as easy as that. Still, I was curious. When we left Oklahoma at the end of that week, I was sure of two things: 1) I wanted to know more about classical education; but 2) there was no way on the planet I was going to attempt to start something similar in St. Louis.

Instead, we returned to the farm and I hopped on Amazon and ordered what, at the time, I thought was the Bible of classical education: The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer. I also got a copy of Susan's book for parents called The Well-Educated Mind. The epic volumes arrived. I began reading the former; Craig, the latter.

We might as well have been reading The Well-Blown Mind. Craig became depressed by all the books he felt he should have read but never had; I became depressed that what I was doing with our 6-year-old wasn’t cutting the classical education mustard.

It was a watershed moment for both of us, but neither Craig nor I had any idea at the time of how it might shape our family's future - either generally in educating our girls at the time or specifically in moving to Oklahoma six years later to lead the very school we had just visited.

A lot can happen in six years, and a lot did...

(Picture: Megan and girls on the farm in May 2005.)