“My child is curious by nature! I feel like in public school her learning is limited. She comes home with more questions and I feel like her teachers don’t have time to satisfy her curiosity. I feel like she is only getting the ‘bare-bones’”. –WonderHere Mom of daughter, age 9
This is the voice of just one mom that shared her feelings during WonderHere’s very first Informational Meeting/ Focus Group held last Saturday; and she was definitely heard. It was such an honor and privilege sitting among such passionate parents and Lakeland community members. Listening to each of them share about their dreams and visions for their child’s education.
Although we did not expect this meeting to be large in number; we knew that the conversation started that day would serve as a runway leading up to the launch of this innovative, God-breathed business… so it would be of “GREAT” importance to us.
And though there were many of you who hoped to be there but were unable to attend, you have been voicing your support of WonderHere through your Facebook likes, shares, and comments and through email. There is a great and mighty voice being raised throughout Lakeland demanding better for our children and WonderHere hopes to answer the call. We hear you!
As a teacher in Polk County- I have heard parent after parent share their discontent and concern about over-testing and lack of recess and unstructured free-play. I’ve listened to parents talk about their frustration with the politics of education and developmentally inappropriate skills their small children are expected to master. Fear that their child will grow to hate reading and hate learning rings in the background of many parent/teacher conferences I have held with the parent of a child struggling or disinterested in class. The sound of these frustrations are mounting.
The goal of our meeting last week was to first share information about the goals and mission of WonderHere. Secondly, we had prepared a few questions to encourage discussion that would fuel how we structured our programs to best meet the needs of our community.
Stretching the legs of our dialogue, we opened the floor with an engaging question: “What are the most memorable experiences you remember about school growing up?”
- Teachers being silly
- Teachers acting out books instead of just reading them and giving worksheets
- Teacher sharing her passion for sign language and making learning more about such passions and making learning into a game/competition
- Drawing during upper-level science courses
What is this I am hearing? The thing that we as parents remember about school is the FUN? This is exactly what I hope students remember about me. That I taught them things that mattered and applied to their life and they even had FUN doing it.
The group was then asked what they noticed about their child when they ended a school day. In this the discussion was divided.
For families of students that were traditionally schooled, their children returned home:
- Tired
- Hungry
- Frustrated
- Bored
- Still with unanswered questions
- One mom said she felt like her child was CAGED while in school
Parents of homeschool families, however, spoke much differently. After school, their children were:
- More or less the same at the beginning of their learning day and at its conclusion
- They lacked frustration
- Were relaxed because they had as much time as they might require to learn what interested them at a pace that was “them-centered”
Our children have an insatiable curiosity about life and our world. Their curiosity should not be extinguished by a standard’s depth limitation or time restricted pacing guides. When looking at my dear son Jeremiah, I could not imagine meeting him after a school day and seeing him come home with learning “scars” because the things he experienced in school wore him down and did not ignite in him a desire to learn more.
When asked what is concerning about how their children were currently being schooled, parents shared:
- In traditional school their children were only being taught “bare bones”
- They felt that there was no true depth of information to match their child’s curiosity
- Often, their children would come home with more questions than the teachers had time to discuss or explore with their children
This truth in school today strikes a chord with me as a 2nd grade teacher in public school. In trying to comply with district mandated “x” minutes of reading and “x” minutes of math; all of my time is scheduled out for me before I have even met my students and before I am introduced to their specific needs or interests. I, too, have been guilty of telling students to “research at home” and share back with the class or telling them “We will get back to that” and never circling back around to hearing that child’s thought. It pains me when we are bated in our reading curriculum by high–interest articles about things like volcanoes or tsunamis and my students want to have in-depth discussions about their text-to-self connections or the background knowledge on interest rich topic introduced through the literature, but we don’t have the time to dedicate to just hearing from them. At WonderHere we are so excited to cultivate a community of learning where children are afforded the opportunity to strip away the ticking clock mandates and dive full into discussion and debate and exploration of topics and ideas our students are interested in.
After the conversation was closed, I had time to reflect on all that I heard. Many different people from different backgrounds and different walks of life gathered with one common interest: our children’s education improvement. It doesn’t matter if you currently homeschool and hope to enrich what you are already doing at home or if your child is in a more traditional school setting (public or private) and you wonder if there could be something better to offer them. Families expressed an interest in hands-on learning, parent/teacher partnership and trust, unlimited learning, student centered, creativity (artsy), and lots of science. These sentiments are at the core of what WonderHere strives to become.
Mulling over the words spoken, the mama bears represented, the dreams of a better educational choice for their children being poured out in that meeting room- I was stirred. I was motivated. Jessica and I were inspired- to say the least. So we have rolled up our sleeves and are hard at work on your behalf to put some action behind the words spoken and are still speaking. This merging of the voice of the parents and the heart of a teacher meeting under a homeschool umbrella will no doubt impact our Lakeland community in a great and powerful way. WonderHere WILL honor the spark of the curious by taking time to let them WONDER and point that WONDER towards discovery. Your voice has been heard and we are letting your voices be the drum that we march to as we battle for our children’s right for better school choice centered around who our children are and the better versions of themselves that they hope to become while under our care.
Don’t let the fire fizzle. Join in the talk. Share. And let’s keep the conversation going. Answer some of the questions discussed during our informational meeting/focus group and let your voice join ours. You can find the poll questions by visiting our homepage at www.WonderHere.com. You can also let your voice be heard by responding to our Facebook poll at www.facebook.com/wonderherellc.
We hear you. We agree with you. We stand with you and want to be a part of the solution! Be a part of our next time together. We will be hosting a FREE pop-up class Saturday, March 12th from 12- 2 at The Way Community Church 2438 Commerce Point Drive, Lakeland, FL, 33801.
Families can look forward to an exciting, engaging, and FUN time experiencing what a day at WonderHere is all about. We will read, build, snack, play, and enjoy our time learning together. We hope to see you and your little ones there.
