The standards at James Way Academy have really gone downhill recently. Though we began our fifteenth year last Monday, there were no signs (or banners or balloons) to show for it. As I have stated in previous posts, I am no boy scout and therefore never prepared. One look in the school room proves this to be true. Scattered throughout is all the detritus of a room posing as an educational domicile. Like a cubism painting where you have to shift all the disjointed parts ever so slightly in your mind’s eye to see the scene as a natural whole, you have to tidy the caddies, sharpen the pencils, put away the toys, and ready the school books to see the room as an academic space. What I’m trying to say is that the room is a mess and I didn’t do much to prepare it for our first day!

While we didn’t celebrate with a special breakfast or have clean desk space, we also didn’t take first day of school photos. But we did come in our school uniforms (read: pajamas) and we seamlessly went from one math problem to the closet for a snack to five more math problems to second breakfast to a paragraph in a read-aloud to a piece of candy to lunch, so we haven’t lost our touch there.

Our extremely abbreviated first day of school was followed immediately on the second day by a field trip to the beach. Before you complain that going to the beach couldn’t possibly be counted as a field trip, we went with friends, meaning there was a group of us, so it counts. 🙂 Experiments were performed with buckets and the tide, a waist-deep touch tank with sand dollars and hermit crabs was enjoyed by almost everyone, and a really fun game was played called “How Much SunScreen is Not Enough?” The only reason this sounds remotely like a regular outing to the beach is because we also got sunburns, stuffed empty shells in our bags, and will never recover a particular green bucket and yellow shovel this side of the Atlantic.  

The last three days were fairly routine. By routine, I mean that the teens tried to sleep in as long as they could, many moans of “do we have to do school?” were uttered, music practice was avoided in the same way an introvert evades making phone calls, kids couldn’t walk into the school room for lessons because the “floor is lava”, and we ran out of snacks by Thursday.

Jake’s first week had its fair share of ups and downs as well. His very first class let out after ten minutes because the professor was stuck in Paris. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that excuse, I’d be poor, but Jake was happy for the unexpected break. He, too, went on a field trip to the beach on his second day of classes, but he didn’t learn the same lessons we did. His area of study was gravity and how waves interfere with that. Some things just can’t be learned in a classroom.

To further the idea that some education happens outdoors, he learned an expensive, yet invaluable lesson about space and how not to park in the blue one. Charm and logic were on his side and the tickets were later reduced to warnings. Thankfully, he is not color blind and shouldn’t repeat the same mistake again. 

Our newest college attendee also had highs and lows in his first week of school. The ‘highs’ being the moments he could leave school and the ‘lows’ were when he attended his courses. Though I am only slightly kidding about Isaac’s outlook of school, he sure was exuberant when detailing what went on in each class. Monday’s Mobile Computing coding challenge gave Isaac the opportunity to explain a work-around in the system to the whole group, professor included. I knew the day was coming when he would school the class, I just didn’t expect it to happen on the first day! 

Based on Isaac’s first-hand account and reviews on a rating site with tales of bizarre professorial behavior, it became clear that he will need our prayers every Tuesday evening. Isaac’s educational challenge there won’t be knowing when to help the class as a whole but how to deal with a difficult teacher. Maybe his academic lessons are free, but the life lessons will be priceless.  

An empty gas tank, sparse cupboards, vibrant red skin, and sand everywhere is all I have to show for our first week of school. Even though I haven’t gotten around to taking back-to-school photos of the kids at home, I did ask Jake to take one. It’s not from an angle I was expecting, but surprisingly, he obliged.  

And now James Way Academy is moving south. 🙂 

Just kidding. Although things tend to “go south” quite often, we aren’t going anywhere — because we have school tomorrow.