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Detroit School Offers Alternative Education
By Craig Pinley
DETROIT, MI (October 20, 2003) - A pastor's wife, a kid from the neighborhood, a
walking partner and woman from England are all big reasons why Messiah
Church, a Covenant congregation in Detroit, houses Ambleside Community
School in its neighborhood.
The pastor's wife, Evelyn Hoey, is directing the two-year-old Christian
school, which had 31 children in grades K-8 at the beginning of the
academic year. The kid from the neighborhood, Therese Racklyeft, and the
walking partner, Anna Marie Pedersen, are two former public school teachers
who have provided support and quality instruction for the school. The woman
from England, Charlotte Mason, many years ago provided an alternative
teaching philosophy that Hoey and the school's four teachers hope to share
with the 31 students in grades K-8.
"I really believe that the kind of education we're offering is based on
biblical truth and I'm very excited about it," Hoey said. "There are not a
lot of good (educational) alternatives in this neighborhood. It's kind of
scary in some ways - we've hit a lot of walls - but God knows what we need.
It's his work and He really has blessed us in a lot of ways."
While home schooling two of her children, Hoey was introduced to the
teaching philosophy of Mason, a Christian educator in England who died in
1923. Mason founded a teachers college called Ambleside. She also advocated
for lower class children who had been denied the same educational
opportunities as the wealthier class children, stating that all children
were born with the capacity to learn and to create. Mason started the
Parents National Education Union and created curriculum for parents wishing
to educate their children. She is considered by many to be the mother of
home schooling and her passion about teaching is evident on her gravestone,
which reads: "...Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life. I am, I
can, I ought, I will. For the children's sake."
Hoey attended a conference at Ambleside to learn more about Mason's
teaching philosophy. When she returned, she approached Therese Racklyeft
about starting the school. Racklyeft had desired to start a Christian
school in southwest Detroit and was waiting until her children grew up and
she could invest her time in it. Hoey said Pedersen appreciated the idea of
a Christian school because "she had seen a lot of people in the
neighborhood who had done ministry and had left the neighborhood because
they were concerned about the educational opportunities for their
children."
Along with Racklyeft and Pedersen (pictured with one of her students),
Ambleside Community School teachers include Bonnie Schow, Rachel Sanowski
and Jackie Weidman, a teaching assistant. About a dozen other volunteers
help during the week. The goal is to foster a sense that learning is a
lifelong task that doesn't have to occur only in a classroom setting.
"We don't use a lot of textbooks or workbooks," said Hoey. "We want
children to take in learning and put it in their own words and give it back
- Mason called it narration. They don't just do math problems, they're
asked to tell teachers and one another what they're doing and why they're
doing it. If they are being read to, they are asked to retell the story in
their own words. It allows them to put things in order. It's a known fact
in teaching that a person retains only about 10 percent of what they hear
and a much higher percentage of what they teach."
Ambleside has also supplemented its in-school education with a variety of
field trips, including visits to the local museum and lunchtime concerts.
Children often travel to the University of Michigan's Dearborn
environmental interpretive center in order to see the progression of nature
in a contained area, writing about the changes in their journals. The trips
give children a chance to learn in alternative environments and be with
kids of other ages and grade levels.
"The way our public school systems are set up, our children are segregated
by age. I think that creates a lot of peer dependence or peer pressure.
We're small enough that all of our children eat lunch together, so our
eighth graders are with the first graders. The older kids helped in the
kindergarten classroom and we have mixed grades because we feel it gives
children more leeway to work at their own level.
"We still have struggles, but I'm so blessed every day when I see the kids
and the enthusiasm they have for learning," Hoey added.
For more information about Ambleside Community School, call 313-841-6848.
An Internet article about the key teaching principles of Charlotte Mason
can be found at www.christianity.com/cmason.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
