Dawn Renee Stephens's Blog, page 16

From the Principal's Office: Why do I have to attend church?

Lately, I've been meeting with parents who want their child to be in a Christian school, but have no desire at all to attend a Christian Church. While this confuses me, I've been searching for the best way to explain to them why it is important for them to be in church.

This isn't about completing an additional form for their child's file to be complete. Parents are their children's biggest influence and if we truly desire our children to grow up having a relationship with Christ and know who He is, they first must model it in their own home. (I'm not just referring to just church attendance.)  The parents of our students need to be actively seeking their own relationship with Christ and from that they should desire to be in church themselves. The Bible refers to the church as Christ's bride and I've heard the illustration used before that if you wanted to be-friend someone but never wanted to see or spend time with their spouse, what type of friendship would you truly have with them? We can't expect to know Christ, and be in a growing relationship with Him, if we allow ourselves to ignore the church. Unfortunately, many of our "churches" probably don't do enough to demonstrate that being involved should be an outpouring of our relationship with Christ. I am lucky enough to be a part of one that does.

It does amaze me that parents choose a Christian school for their children and do not want to be a part of a church themselves. I can't believe that they are truly choosing a Christian school for the right reason. I realize that a private education with small class size and a Biblically based curriculum has a lot to offer even to the non-church going family. However, our mission:

"The mission of Central Christian Academy is to assist parents in developing godly character in the lives of their children that will challenge them to reach their fullest spiritual, academic, and physical potential and thus transform them into good citizens to impact our community for today, tomorrow, and eternity."

. . . cannot be accomplished unless the parents feel it necessary to first work at developing that character through their home. And church attendance should result from that.

I spent several years teaching in inner city schools where students lived in homes where many of their parents took and sold drugs. We spent a lot of money as a school teaching kids about why they should not do drugs. However, if their parents were not supporting our teachings with their life style, we made no impact what-so-ever. The same is true when we attempt to provide a Biblical based education where we teach your children the importance of knowing Christ. If our parents do not support that in their lifestyle, we are wasting our time. I know no other way to express this to our parents, except to share with them my heart. Church has made all the difference in raising my own children. The school you choose isn't as important as deciding that you and your family will attend a Bible believing church and will make it a part of your life forever.

What we can learn from our pets.

At Central Christian Academy, (the school that I am principal of), we had a very special visitor in our third grade class today. Our third graders recently finished their first literacy unit, "Mr Popper's Penguins" by Richard Atwater. In the book, Mr Popper has to train his many penguins. He learned a lot from having penguins for pets. Today we asked a local boy to come share with them about his pet, a service dog. The boy explained how the dog is trained to tell him when he needs to take his medicine. The students were fascinated by the story and I thought it would be a good opportunity to share another book. "My Invisible World" is a book written by Morosha Winokur, an eleven year old girl. The book is about her life with her brother and his service dog. Here is an interview I did with Morosha's mom at Book Expo America in New York City last year.



Click on this link to purchase a copy of the book.

From the Principal's Desk: Determine Reading Levels

How do we determine reading levels for students and choose literature books for our curriculum?

At Central Christian Academy, we have adopted a literature based curriculum. Being an author and an educator, I am firm believer that children learn through reading and that the literature used to teach with should be good literature in how it is written and its contents. In choosing the literature for our curriculum, we were faced with the difficult decision of selecting from many pieces of literature. Our goal was to find four books for each grade level that would be the basis for the things we would teach in Bible, language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, art and music. These book also need to show ways our students could learn the specific characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit that we assigned each grade level. We used the help of different literature based curriculum companies and also a measurement of each books reading level.  One measurement used for this is called a Lexile score. This video explains the basic concepts of The Lexile Framework.



Our students are given a Lexile score each year when they take the Stanford. The challenge for the typical teacher facing a heterogeneous classroom of readers is that there is often a gap between the abilities of the students and the required text. We look closely at the student's level and the levels of the literature being used to make sure it fits within a range that challenges them. If the literature we are using is too easy we make note of that and challenge the child with additional reading material. If it is too difficult, we give them the needed support to help them enjoy the material. To learn more about how the Lexiles are used click here.

If you are curious to know the score of our literature books and how they match up to your student contact me at ccaprincipal@discovercentral.org

Learning from a skating lamb

In this interview Barbarann Fitzgerald tells how Lambie Annie teaches children about the ups and downs in skating and LIFE itself. Any child in any sport will benefit from reading about Lambie Annie.

Learning History with Owney the Dog

I interviewed Dirk Wales at the book expo. Listen in as he tells us about his books and all that the teach children.

Choosing Honor

In this interview with Mary Ficalora, she shares with us how Mom's can make a difference in our world today. Although I don't totally agree with Mary's opinions, I do agree that it is important to know and be aware of what others believe and are pushing on our children especially in schools.

From The Principal's Office: What is more American – Public or Christian Schools?

Want to share this video from Stoplight® with you today. You won't believe what California school officials found on a classroom wall. In his Stoplight® commentary, Stuart Shepard shows you what they ordered a teacher to take down.

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From the Principal's Office: What is "Platooning" and is it good for Education?

Today in my office I saw a new debate rising among educators. – PLATOONING

You need to be aware of it and what it means.

Here is where I stand.

Platooning is the next big discussion happening in public schools. It is all about departmentalizing subject matter and teachers in the elem. grades. Children as young as 6 years of age could be changing classes with teachers in specific subject matter. It's all for the purpose of meeting test scores. I have huge concerns about this method of teaching...

Update on the Haiti Coloring Book Project.

If you've followed my blog this past year,  you know that one wonderful fruit bearing opportunity I've had this past year is to work with JAMSBooks and on a coloring book project for the children in Haiti. I got the assignment the day after I obeyed God and left a position with a book company that I knew wasn't allowing me to be in His will. It was a big step of Faith for me then. When I got asked to do this I had confirmation from God that He had plans to use me in other w...

In the Principal's Office: The Value of Education

Today I spent a good part of my day in the principal's office looking at the school budget for next year. It is hard to determine the value of a good education and then exactly what value that holds in each of our lives.

 The value we place on it is different for each child and each family. Many people argue that some families or children need to be in a Christian school more than others.

 

Whether or not we choose it for our own children is usually based on many variables that effect just our o...