One of the joys of Christianity is that we are always growing in our relationship with the Lord and becoming more like Christ. The fact that tomorrow we will be different and better than we are today through God’s grace is not an indictment or a criticism of who we are today. It is exciting that we will always be growing. Some have even argued that we will eternally grow from the fact that for all eternity we will search the unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus. Healthy people and organizations are always growing in one way or another. Another way of describing all of that is “change.”
The pursuit of greatness requires a constant reassessment and striving after excellence, and the journey toward excellence is exciting. One of the paradigm changes that we are going through at Fortis Academy is an assessment of the roles of co-teachers throughout the educational process. The university model was birthed out of both a desire to leverage the benefits of a traditional and homeschool model. It is a powerful model that I believe has the potential to outperform any other because of the cooperation between home and campus.
According to UMSI (NAUMS) the primary roles for parents are:
- The primary role for parents with children in elementary (grammar) courses is Assistant Teacher. Parents also have the main responsibility for direct instruction in some aspects of the course (such as spelling, reading, multiplication tables) and for monitoring their child’s academic progress including the timely submission of all assignments.
- The primary role for parents with junior high (logic) students is Supervisor. Since, at this level, more responsibility is placed on the student, parents have limited and fewer academic tasks assigned to them.
- The primary role for parents with students in high school (rhetoric) courses is Mentor. At this stage, parents reduce but do not eliminate their roles as academic teachers and supervisors as they become more responsible for the child’s moral and spiritual training.
While this model is very helpful, it can paint a picture of a lot of academic work during the grammar stage that develops into a very minimal role by the time of Rhetoric. There are two responses to the changing roles from relief as parental responsibilities lighten to a sense of loss as children become more independent. Being a classical UMS school (Christian is granted with UMS schools) that is focusing on active learning, Socratic dialogue and analytical reasoning, the Logic and Rhetoric years can develop into the most fruitful and satisfying facilitation not only of moral and spiritual training, but also of academics.
This week Karen Reynolds, our academic administrator, will be hosting Grammar school moms on Wednesday and Logic & Rhetoric moms on Friday and will discuss the exciting development of our partnership. I encourage you to attend if you are able.
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