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One of the things that makes school difficult for the students is… well… all the classes. (I might add this is a challenge for the teachers as well). In an effort to produce well rounded students and give the individual student a voice in what they would like to learn, we have complied a list of certificate based activities. These activities are taught by the staff, but they’re not classes they are either skill or art based and they give the students a chance to learn a skill beyond the classroom.
Our Tuesday Activities are for this semester: Jewelry Making, Book Club, Business Club, Swimming Class, Carpentry and Woodworking, Speech & Debate, Photograph and Art Design, Drama, Dancing, Home Economics and Cooking, and Agriculture. After two months of meeting, we’ve got some good results from the children, but there’s still more we’d like to see.
One of the goals of this program was to offer the children a skill they can take with them beyond the classroom. I have been working with the children in Photography and Art Design. It is a really good group of kids. We’ve already moved beyond the Basics of Photography and we’re entering into the Intermediate level. All the kids in my program have either bought or borrowed DSLR cameras and we are going through the full functionality so they can become proficient in photography. They’re even asking me to continue the class into next semester and expand my instruction to Advanced Photography. Most of this is beyond they’re skill level, but they’re having fun taking pictures and for the most part they’re getting pretty good at it.
Emily is teaching the Jewelry making class, and all of her kids are loving it. She has all girls and one boy taking the class and they meet in our house, making some beautiful creations. Mr. Schrag is teaching the Carpentry class and we were blessed to have all 7 of the local hardware stores donate the lumber we need to have each boy in the program build their very own picnic table. We are going to replace the campus tables with the new ones and donate the leftovers to the community park.
All in all our Tuesday program offers students at Windermere something that no other children have access to. Along with excellence in eduction we are working to produce well rounded students who garner experience in both the classroom and in life skills.