Discovering Fatherhood
Reflections on everyday daddy stuff
The Last Few Months: Pt. 1 – Another New School
The last few months have been filled with tons of discernment, choices, and changes. Our family has been moving at the speed of light, or at least it seems that way. Claire is now going to first grade and Cecilia turned two.
This past year Claire was having an amazing time at a small (3 student) Montessori school based in a private 20-acre farmhouse. The teacher has over 30 years of teaching experience and is an incredible and Godly woman. Claire fell in love with the place and in a short year had learned to read, write, and do pretty complex math for a 6-year-old. Claire picked up a plethora of other advanced learning like anatomy, science, rhetoric, and logic. I’m not sure if the logic stuck. Unfortunately, her teacher had some health complications and ended the school year early. The real kicker came when she told us she would no longer be able to do full-time school. We were crushed. Claire cried a lot.
In Claire’s 6 short years of life, she had switched school three times. She was not pleased.
After lots of praying, research and back and forth we narrowed our school search to two. One school was right at our price point and the second was not going to happen money wise, but we still wanted to check it out. We visited both schools. The more expensive choice was a Montessori school. If you don’t know about Montessori schools they are pretty amazing. Check them out here.
We applied to both schools and asked for much needed financial aid. We expected the Montessori school to call and ask if the amount we wrote down was a joke. Actually, we were so convinced that we were not going to be able to send Claire there that we submitted all the paperwork for the other school we first visited. After a few days, we heard back from the Montessori school and they accepted our proposal for financial aid.
I was stunned.
I asked my wife if she had written the numbers right. We called and clarified. We spoke really slowly, and loudly to make sure there was no misunderstanding. The secretary confirmed that they had accepted our amount. I literally placed my hand behind my back to catch myself as I sat down on the couch. I could not believe it. The school has a barter system built into it, so the school uses the skill set of the parents to get school business done. The landscape business owner cuts grass and weeds and gets a discounted rate. Part of the application asked what skill sets we had. I imagine my wife will get a chance to use her nurse powers and I’ll do something as well.
We are pretty pumped about this school and so is Claire. Since Montessori learning is very hands-on and has specific physical elements they use for teaching students, Claire was really excited to see that most of those elements were present in the new school. We are excited to know that since this school goes all the way to high school level Claire may not need to ever switch schools again. Mom and Dad just need to keep increasing their incomes to make that happen, which will lead to our next post. Stay tuned.
Discovering Fatherhood 
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