October Newsletter

Hi again! We've already been in school for a whole month! We have had a wonderful start to the school year, and I'd like to share some of the highlights of September with you all.


In art class the students have completed their study of the Lascaux cave paintings. They did a wonderful job making their own paint and paintbrushes from primitive supplies such as bones, horse hair, and ground minerals.

 

I have been bringing Fezzik, my Great Pyrenees dog to school quite a bit. Although he is too young to be a certified therapy dog, he meets all of the qualifications for a therapy dog and the students love him! He makes his rounds from student to student in each class and is always ready to be petted and hugged. Dogs are wonderful for lowering blood pressure and stress levels, and having Fezzik around definitely brings happiness to the classroom.

Last week the entire upper school took a field trip to see a Casa Manana performance of To Kill a Mockingbird. We read this book last year as it corresponded with our study of modern history, so the majority of the upper school students were very familiar with the story. The performance was amazing and the students were wonderfully behaved!

This week in writing class the students are learning a brainstorming technique from The Lost Tools of Writing, called the ANI column. The students take an issue and then write arguments for and against the issue (Affirmative and Negative) and also facts (Interesting) about the issue. This is a good way to think of lots of ideas before we even begin writing, and a wonderful way to start thinking logically beyond their own personal opinions. The students are creating an ANI column on the issue "Whether David Copperfield should have bitten Mr. Murdstone" which is drawn from our reading!

Earlier in the month we discussed foreshadowing in literature, and the students wrote the stories of their own births, imitating the account that David Copperfield gave of his birth. The students also explored possible foreshadowing in their birth stories. Here is a sample essay by seventh grader Brett Oatridge:

I was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1998. The day I was born my mom woke up immediately in labor. She was in labor for twenty-one hours. Then she had to have a C-section. My dad held me in his hands while my mom was unconscious. My dad said I looked like Mister Magoo, which is funny,  because I still love to make people laugh.  I had a red face and every nurse in the room wanted me as their son, and even asked my mom, but she said, "No, he's mine."

We are looking forward to some exciting upcoming events in October, including the start of the Flint Falcons basketball season, our Barnes and Noble fundraiser, and Fall Fest!

Welcome Back!

       Hello everyone! It's almost time for school to begin! The Flint staff has been in inservice all week and we're getting really excited, anticipating the coming school year. This year I will be conducting morning devotions with my homeroom class, teaching literature and writing to all of the upper school students, and teaching the art elective. All of my favorite subjects! I will pass out my syllabi for these classes on the first day of school, but I thought I'd post them here, just in case the paper copies never make it home.

Devotions Syllabus

2011-2012

Course Description

          We will begin each day with a twenty minute devotions class, which will help everyone start their day on a positive, uplifting note. For devotions the students will have daily copy work from the book of Proverbs, which we will also discuss. In their copy books, the students will also list things they are grateful for. As we progress in the year, we will discuss ways to find gratitude and good even in things that do not initially seem positive. We will also read and discuss books filled with Christian purpose and meaning, such as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis and the allegorical writings of George MacDonald.

Classroom Expectations

          Students are expected to have a positive and questioning attitude for devotions, as well as practicing their habits of attention, self-control, perfect execution, and sweet temper.

Literature and Writing Syllabus

2011-2012

Course Description

We will read classical literature in class, following the Charlotte Mason method of narration, where the teacher reads aloud as the students follow along in their own copies of the book, then the teacher calls on individual students to narrate and discuss what was read. This year we will study David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, a selection of Greek mythology and philosophy including The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, as well as a selection of poetry by poets such as Tennyson, Longfellow, Dickinson, Stevenson, and Henley. Poems will be memorized via choral recitation at the beginning of each class.

            Writing assignments will be drawn from our literature studies and discussions, and will incorporate concepts and strategies from The Lost Tools of Writing curriculum. This includes methods for gathering and classifying ideas, use of a traditional outline format, and elements of classical rhetoric such as exordium, amplification, refutation, parallelism, antithesis, alliteration, assonance, anaphora, and epistrophe. We will also touch on common verb and subject errors and nominalizations in writing.

Classroom Expectations

Students are expected to practice character-building habits at all times. Our classroom habits include the habit of attention, the habit of self-control, the habit of perfect execution, and the habit of sweet temper. We also strive to cultivate an atmosphere of joy in the classroom.

Although the majority of our writing work will be done in-class, work will be sent home occasionally. This work is assigned solely to the students, not their parents! If a student is unable to independently complete a homework assignment, we will find time during the next day to work one-on-one. I am available before school, during breaks throughout the day, and after school to answer questions and help students write their papers.

Assessments

            We will have midterm and final assessments each semester, which will involve written summaries of our book so far, brief essay questions, and definition questions regarding terms and concepts from our study of classic rhetoric.

Art Syllabus

2011-2012

Course Description

            We will study art for a two and a half month block before rotating electives. The art elective this year will cover artistic expression of ancient civilizations, to coincide with the historical period that the students are studying. This will include:

• The Lascaux Cave Paintings
• Sumerian sculpture
• Egyptian tomb wall frescoes
• The Bust of Nefertiti
• Minoan frescoes
• Greek red-figure and black-figure pottery
• Progression of Greek sculpture
• Nike of Samothrace
• Aphrodite of Melos
• Roman busts
• Roman mosaic

We will use a variety of approaches when studying these works of art, including the Charlotte Mason picture study strategy, sketching sculptures and artwork, and recreating through imitation. When we study the Lascaux Cave Paintings, for example, students will study the paintings, learn their history, and sketch various samples. They will then make their own paintbrushes and paints from Paleolithic materials such as horsehair, crushed minerals, and animal fats, and then recreate a portion of the cave paintings on individual chalkboards. In addition to studying the techniques and compositions of ancient art, we will also discuss the way various works of art reflect the cultures that produced them, the purposes that ancient art served, and ways that the visual arts influence other arts.

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I can't wait to see everyone on Tuesday morning and dive into all of this!

~Nicole Hallford

Important Lessons From The Hiding Place

After we finished reading The Hiding Place, I asked the students to write about the lessons that they carried away from the book. Everyone did a wonderful job with this assignment, and I would like to share a paper that struck me as particularly insightful. This paper is by a student who often questions the Christian belief system at Flint Academy:

IMPORTANT LESSONS FROM THE HIDING PLACE

"I will admit that at the beginning of this book I found both Corrie and Betsie to be your typical sheltered religious fanatics. However as the story progressed I learned to respect them. Even from my agnostic point of view I could easily respect them for their undying loyalty to their faith. I also learned to respect them for being so kind and righteous.

I have no trouble admitting that I could never have done half of the things they did. I'm selfish, I'm aggressive, and even at times cold hearted. Never in my whole life could I have not only forgiven the Nazis, but actually have the desire to heal my own tormentors.

The thing that I have learned is to forgive and have the desire to do so as well. The fact that people can be like this shocked me to no end.

I'm a pessimist by nature; very rarely do I have a positive view on the world. And like every other pessimist, once I am proven wrong I'm happy. They showed me that the world can be a wonderful place, no matter how much evil there is.

I couldn't believe that all this good happened in such an evil place. Yet why would she lie? That thought was what sparked the entire realization that they truly were saintly people."

To compliment our study of The Hiding Place, the upper school went on a field trip this week to the Dallas Holocaust Museum. The students were very interested in all of the information presented there and I was proud of their behavior. The museum staff told Dr. Flint that we were one of the best-behaved and engaged groups that has been there in a long time!

Sacrificial Love

In our English class we have been reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. This is a firsthand account of Ms. Ten Boom's experiences hiding Jews and working with the Dutch underground during World War II. It has really brought the realities of the Holocaust to the students' attention and given us a lot of food for thought. Primarily we have been discussing what we would do if we were placed in a similar situation - if we would risk our lives over and over to help strangers.

One of the most striking examples of this is a part of the book where the Ten Boom family is trying to find a safe hiding place for a mother and her newborn baby. They asked a minister to help, and he refused on the grounds that the baby posed too great a risk. Casper Ten Boom, Corrie's elderly father, responded by saying:

"You say that we could lose our lives for this child. I would consider that to be the greatest honor that could come to my family."

We discussed his response as a group, and then the students were assigned response papers, detailing how they would react in the same situation - if they thought they would be willing to risk their lives for a stranger's baby. All of the papers were wonderful! Here is a paper by Zola Wilson, as an example:

"My family and I will do the same. It will be worth it, because the baby will have a chance in life. That way when he's older he will know what my family and I have done for him. Hopefully he will be grateful. Life is too short and I wanted him to live. I am glad to give my life up for him. I just hope that when I'm gone, his life is peaceful and kind to him. I pray and hope that God will be with him through out his days. Whoever takes my life and my families lives well, may God have mercy on their souls. My family and I will forgive them. We may not be perfect but at least our lives were worth it for the baby. I'm glad that we did this for the baby. I think there is good in people, its just that fear kind of over shadows that. It makes you wonder if other people would do the same.