Say anything...

It has been a couple of days and I just wanted to write something. There will be no funny stories or deep thoughts today, but there is more good news. Next Thursday I get to go teach an art lesson to 23 students at the private school I will be teaching at next year. It will be based on the Louis and Clark Study they are working on. I love that I get to do this, and I will actually get paid for it too. It is a wonderful opportunity to show the teachers how to integrate art into the curriculum too. I am firmly convinced that you can teach any subject through art and that that is the answer to cutting art out of schools. You can pretty much teach any subject from the point of view of any other subject as well. Unit study is an awesome tool that really helps kids to see how so many things are interrelated which is hopefully the answer to the age old question asked by students, "How will I use this in real life?". I am not saying that unit study is the only way to go. I pretty much consider myself an eclectic home schooler. I love the classical methods as well. Whatever you can make work and keep kids interested in and enthusiastic about is a useful tool if it viewed as such by the teacher. We should never become slaves to a particular method or to the ever changing currents and whims of children's curiosity. We need to learn how to harness the power and use it to guide kids through education, life, and their relationship with God. Standards are not evil either, if we see them as the tools they are.