The following is a guest post by Chuck Weinberg. He is one of our secondary parents and the chairman of our school board. He has agreed to offer his thoughts after our recent Christmas assembly. Enjoy.
It seems like it would be the farthest thing from my mind to be the chairman- “Cheer-man” of the board of a school. Of all the people who are possible candidates I see myself at the bottom of the list, but I guess God has a sense of humor.
With that role there are certain responsibilities and joys that come with the territory. Assemblies are one of those times.
The Christmas season brings lots of appointments on the calendar, lots of feasting, lots of gift giving and lots of events that can bring joy and sometimes sadness.
The Weinberg family has a unique place at ECS with John, our adopted son from China, learning English as a second language while learning Latin and logic, among many other things.
Recently we had the opportunity to go to the ECS Christmas Assembly and you never know what will come up in one of these kinds of events. To say that I am proud to be associated with the school is an understatement.
We arrived at the school and all the kids were lined up and excitedly ready to give us all the things they had been working on and learning. The material is probably way over the heads of the younger kids, just as “schoolhouse rock” didn’t make total sense until the day when, in school, I thought, “Oh yeah, I know what that means.”
The kids stood in a neat little row and as their turn came up they stepped forward and, often with excitement and some sheepishly, delivered the information they had been so studiously working on.
Invertebrates Sound-Off from Evangel Classical School on Vimeo.
John doesn’t participate in the “sound-off” portion of the program (which is for the elementary age kids) and so we, as a family, are not learning the parts of cells or all the forms of life along the way.
The program went by faster than the clock showed and to the kids I’m sure it was over before they knew it but the memory will last a long time.
I love that these kids get to stand up and speak in front of a “crowd” of people at such an early age. I can’t wait until the day when they are speaking to a room of 500 or 5000 and are so confident in their learning that it is a delight for them to share.
Today so many people have never had the opportunity to speak in front of a group and so they are afraid- not these kids. We are training future generations to be prepared for whatever life brings their way.
As a school and as parents our job is to train the next generation to be ready for what’s coming and to be sure there is much coming their way, but we pray and labor towards the day when these kids will be ready.
What a privilege to have the opportunity to be involved with the school at this time of its life. What a privilege to play a very small part in shaping future generations.
None of this could be done without huge sacrifices on the part of the teachers and staff of ECS. Being a pastor while learning and teaching Latin at the same time is not the norm, especially to 4-10 graders. Being a contractor and teaching art are not normally connected. Being a housewife and teaching other people’s kids math, music or reading is not what you normally see, but many are doing something abnormal today so that the outcome will be abnormally great in the future. Great things have small beginnings.
We would love to have all of you come to the next assembly. I am confident that you will be impressed with the work the kids are doing and be excited about what is happening in the lives of these future leaders.