...and this is why I love classical education.

"True virtue, my dear Mrs. Graham, consists in a conscious resistance to temptation, not ignorance of it."

-- from The Tenant of Wildford Hall, BBC adaptation

Books, Thunderstorms, End of the School Year, and Other Miscellaneous Musings

Last night I went browsing at a couple of bookstores to try to find the Anne of Green Gables series in box set. The school has a few of them, and I've been reading (or, devouring) them this last week. Have you ever thought of books as friends? The Anne books are that for me -- dear old well-beloved friends. Monday night, when I was finishing up Anne of Green Gables, I sobbed -- sobbed! -- through the last four chapters, and laughed at myself for crying so hard, and then cried some more. If you've read it, you probably understand. It's been wonderfully restful to come home from school and sit in my comfy chair and just read for hours. I haven't done that in far too long.

On my way home from the bookstore, I got caught out in the worst thunderstorm of the year so far. Rain was coming down, hammer and tongs, with lightning streaking across the sky and downbursts of wind from the edge of the storm. When it started hailing, I pulled over in front of the Lyndon fire station, got in the rain shadow of the building, and prayed that the doors wouldn't suddenly open and a fire engine come roaring out! I listened in dismay as the hail pelted the back end of my car, and when it subsided, I pulled around to the side of the building just in case and waited for the rain to let up. It was wild! The hail turned out to be in the half-inch to two-inch range -- definitely the largest hail I've seen since I've been here.

I have two more academic days left at school, and then three fun days which will involve a baseball game, a field day, a talent show, an awards ceremony, and a picnic! And then three glorious months of Summer stretching out in front of me, waiting to be filled with cook-outs and visits from family and afternoons when it's too hot to leave the house and days by the pool and sunburns and hot, muggy air, and melty ice cream and all manner of other delights.

Do all teachers get a panicky feeling about how much hard-fought learning their students will inevitably forget between now and next year? Ooh. That reminds me. I need to get my hands on a couple copies of the books I'm assigning my 8th graders (almost 9th graders! Imagine!) over the Summer... Mwahahaha...

Yes, But the Real Question is, Can She Survive The First Day?

7:30 - Doors open
8:00 - Recitation
8:20 - Planning time
9:00 - Bible
9:30 - History
10:00 - Recess
10:15 - Literature (third grade)
11:00 - Literature (fourth grade)
11:45 - Mid-Day Prayer
12:00 - Lunch
12:45 - Omnibus (eighth grade literature, theology, history)
1:45 - Latin I
2:30 - P.E. (Monday and Friday), Chorus (Tuesday and Thursday) or Study Hall (Wednesday)
3:00 - End of Day

I HAD to link to this one

I recently, by God's miraculous provision and grace, was hired as the third and fourth grade teacher at Covenant Classical Academy. I'd been applying for teaching positions at private schools since the spring -- private schools were the only option for me because I didn't get an education degree in college and I'm not certified to teach in Kentucky.

State certification is a pretty arduous process. Education degrees can be pretty tiresome, too, which is why I dropped mine in favor of English. I don't regret it for a second. I don't think having an education degree or a teaching certificate would make me one iota more qualified for the job I've got. Letters and certificates don't make good teachers; teachers are born, and great teachers are shaped through the blood, sweat, and tears they shed in the classroom.

Turns out I'm not the only one who feels this way. Anthony Lombardi, the NYC public school principal whose heavy-handed methods rankled many teachers but turned around the once-dismal performer P.S. 48, seems to think that our entire system of certification allows too many mediocre teachers to keep floundering away at the blackboard while their students languish, all because they have union protection from the first day on the job. He sees child development classes at college and intense, subject-specific board tests as a waste of time -- straight A's in your Ed classes and high marks on your practicum simply do not translate to excellence as an educator.

So what's the solution? Lombardi says it's time to junk certification tests, forget about looking for education degrees on resumes, and implement the millenia-old method of preparing a greenhorn for a man's work: apprenticeship. According to Ray Fisman, writing for Slate.com, "new recruits would have a couple of years of in-school training. There would then come a day of reckoning, when teachers-to-be would face a serious evaluation before securing union membership and a job for life."

Good call.