The Privilege of Teaching

I didn't post yesterday because we had Kingdom Builders Homeschool Co-op all day, and then when we got home it was time to cook supper and spend time together as a family. My day today looked like this: get up, eat breakfast, make up a grocery list, go grocery shopping, come home and bring in all the stuff, put it all away, eat lunch, do several loads of laundry, deep clean both bathrooms, sweep and mop the dining room and kitchen, vacuum everywhere else, sweep the front entry and walk, clean up the back patio, bleach-clean our four white plastic patio chairs (they were nasty from sitting around all winter,) re-do the peanut-butter-and-birdseed pine cone that I have hanging outside my kitchen window, (the nuthatches are thrilled!) cook supper, (chicken pot pie and a tossed salad,) and now I'm on here for a few minutes before I have to go direct the troops in the kitchen cleanup, and fold more laundry. Whew! This was a good, productive day. But that isn't what I want to write about today.

At Kingdom Builders Co-op I teach two classes of Spanish: Spanish 1 and Spanish 2. I have ten students in the first and fourteen in the latter. I love teaching them. I have always loved teaching. Even when I was little I liked helping out other students, explaining things to them and enjoying that moment when understanding lit up their faces. From 1989 to 1997 I taught high school English and Spanish, and although it was difficult to juggle having children and working full-time, I always enjoyed my time in the classroom with the students. In 1997 I quit teaching just before having Mary, our second daughter. A few years later I began teaching piano lessons from our home, and since then I have taught piano for all but two years, and I love doing that, but it isn't the same thing. There is something dynamic and energizing for me about classroom teaching with a group of students, and being able to teach one day a week at co-op is a real blessing. This is our fifth year in the co-op, and over the years I've taught Biology, AP British Literature, Expository Writing, Spanish, and Sign Language. It has been lots of fun. It is a privilege to take part in the students' lives.  I pray for my students every day, and have seen the Lord at work in their lives.

I plan to continue teaching at the co-op for at least four more years after this, until Bobby graduates from high school.  After that, who knows?  I still haven't decided what I want to do when I grow up my kids are all grown up.

On How Our School Year is Going...

It has been an eventful August and September, and October is already shaping up to be busy as well.  I love the new planner I bought.  It has helped Mary and Bobby be a lot more self-directed in their work.  We've (I've) also done a lot better staying organized this year, and keeping up with all the corrections and grading I need to do.  Here is our each of us are doing:


I am still teaching all three kids at home.  I also teach piano two afternoons a week, and have more people interested, so that may increase to three afternoons a week.  In addition, I'm teaching two classes on Fridays at our home school co-operative, Kingdom Builders.  The two classes are Expository Writing and Biology; I have a dozen students in each class.   I challenge anyone who thinks home schooling isn't a full-time job to come spend a week with us!


Caroline is working about 15 hours a week now (Chick-Fil-A) in addition to doing her Senior year. At home she's taking Pre-Calculus, Advanced Chemistry, Health, and Literature/Language Arts/Grammar.  Through the co-op she's taking my writing class to supplement her language arts at home, Art, and Yearbook/Advanced Photography.  She is a very busy girl!  She will graduate from high school next May, and is already in the process of college applications.


Mary is an 8th grader this year.  At home she's studying Algebra I, Sonlight Core 7 World History and Literature, Human Anatomy, BJU Grammar & Writing;  through the co-op she's taking Geography, Cooking, and Art.  She's also teaching herself to write left-handed this year by using an elementary-level handwriting book to make herself write left-handed every day.  She draws ALL the time, too.  She has also just joined a local American Heritage Girls troop, and will begin to work on badges for that.


Bobby is in the 6th grade, and he's realizing that school doesn't get any easier as you get older.  He's taking Geography, American History, and Art through the co-op; at home he's doing Math 7, Zoology (Land Animals,) Handwriting, BJU Grammar & Writing, and for Literature (the pièce de résistance) he is doing Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings.  It's a great curriculum that incorporates Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Shakespeare as well as the LOTR trilogy.  Right up his alley.  He is also a Tenderfoot rank scout in Troop 47 and is working on merit badges for scouts.


Obviously, we are all pretty busy.  Our other current events:


#1    My sweet husband will be stepping down as pastor of our current church at the end of October.  He has explained this over at his blog, in the post I linked and in another called "Reasons for Resigning."  We love the people at Chevis Oaks!  We will continue to be friends with them and I hope we'll continue to sharpen and edify one another as Christians.


#2   We were able to buy a nice four-year-old van a couple of weeks ago, thanks to the incredible generosity of my in-laws as well as the dogged efforts of our friend Rickey Tyre, who found the van for us at an auction.  It's such a relief to have an newer vehicle and not be worried about breakdowns, A/C not cooling well, etc. The van is a Dodge Grand Caravan SXT.  Nice.


#3    Bobby is the Honored Hero for the Savannah Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Light the Night Walk on October 15th.  Our family has a team, creatively named Team Carpenter, and we'll be walking that night along with hundreds of other Savannahians who are trying to raise money for people with various blood cancers.  Our team page is here.


#4    A month ago we bought a Wii, with Wii Fit Plus.  I'll write a longer post about it later, but we are all loving getting off the couch and playing sports as well as other fitness games together.  I have started to lose weight and tone up, and I feel so much better.  More soon on that.

What a difference a tuning makes....

Yesterday we had our piano tuned.  YAY!  It had gotten to the point where I didn't want to sit down and play anything because it had gotten so out of tune.  One key in particular, the F just below middle C, sounded flatter than a board-book, and in the lower register there was a whole octave that wasn't playing right--all the keys were moving downward when you pressed just one.  But when the piano tuner was done yesterday, it sounded like a wholly different instrument, and playing was once again pleasurable.  Now, it took about two hours of painstaking work for the tuner to bring the piano back into tune.  It isn't an easy thing to do.  I watched and listened as he carefully tested each note, comparing it to the electronic tuner he had, twisting the pin to tighten the string or loosen it until the key played the note perfectly.  If even one note is off, an entire song can be ruined.  So he tested them, tuned them, and played them individually and then together to make sure the sound was right.  He fixed the F that was out of tune.  He found a pencil that had rolled into the piano in the bass section and, voila, those keys began playing correctly again.

So....this morning I'm ruminating on the piano tuning, and thinking that God does a lot of similar things in our lives as Christians.  He sometimes twists and turns us, tightening things in our lives to bring us in tune with Him.  He shows us "pencils in the works," things that have rolled into our lives (or we've invited in) that are keeping us from functioning correctly.  He removes those things from our lives when we ask Him to, and carefully aligns us with Him.  What a loving and gracious God!