The Messenger 2011

TheMessengerA p u b l i c At i o n o f S t. pAu l c h r i S t i A n A c A d e m y 2 011

Distinctively St. Paul

C.S. Lewis for Twenty-FirstCentury Learners

find usonlineIt’s so easy to stayconnected and keep in touch. Visit us at www.stpaulchristianacademy.org

Head of ScHoolKen Cheeseman

edItorIal teamNancy CrowellLisa SchlachterDudley Selinger

Heather Sisemore

contrIbutIng WrIterJonathan Rogers

PHotograPHerHeather Sisemore

graPHIc deSIgnerBecca Hadzor

PrIntIngProfessional Design &

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The Messenger is published annually by St. Paul Christian Academy.

Web version: www.stpaulchristianacademy.org/messenger

Please send address corrections to St. Paul Christian Academy,

5035 Hillsboro Road, Nashville, TN 37215 or e-mail [email protected].

St. Paul is proud to print The Messenger on recycled paper.

o u r m i S S i o n

St. Paul Christian Academyintegrates academic excellence

with a passion for Christto develop a strong foundation

for young leaderswho uniquely shape

the world in which they live.

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St. Paul Christian Academy

In one of our Wednesday chapels back in January, I talked to the students about our new track and why it will be named for Eric Liddell. Eric Liddell, I explained, was a missionary to China who was also a great athlete. I showed them a clip from the movie Chariots of Fire, in which Liddell shocked the world by winning the 400-meter final in the Olympics.

After chapel, second-grade teacher Donna Roseberry saw that some of her boys had found a meter stick and, inspired by Eric Liddell’s story, were trying to figure out the length of 400 meters. She took the class outside with the meter stick, and together they measured the perimeter of the playground—about fifty meters. Then she helped them figure out how many laps would total 400 meters.

Then they ran. Somebody suggested that they time the run, and Mrs. Roseberry obliged. They ran 400 meters in two and a half minutes. They were amazed to learn that Eric Liddell had done it in 47 seconds.

“Interactive learning” has become something of a buzz-phrase in recent years. People are usually talking about technology when they speak of interactivity. We have made huge investments ourselves in technology. But it’s

not the laptops and iPads themselves that make St. Paul a place of interactive learning. It’s our teachers’ commitment to creating an environment in which children can truly interact with the things they are learning. Sometimes we do

that through technology, but the real heart of interactivity at St. Paul is a creativity on the teachers’ part—sometimes in the moment, as in Mrs. Roseberry’s case—that engenders and honors creativity on our students’ part.

When we speak of creating a “learning environment” at St. Paul, we mean that very literally. This is an environment—an ecosystem, you might say—where every part works with every other part to sustain and encourage learning and wholeness in our children. In the pages of this magazine you will get a glimpse of just how creative

our teachers, students, and administrators are, but only a glimpse. The kind of moment experienced in Mrs. Roseberry’s class happens every day here. St. Paul is that kind of place. It’s an honor and a joy to be a part of it. I am

Yours in Christ,

Kenneth C. Cheeseman

from the Head of School

But it’s not the laptops and iPads themselves that make St. Paul a place of interactive

learning. It’s our teachers’ commitment to creating an environment in which children can truly interact with the

things they are learning.

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The Messenger 2011

the power of imagination

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29Schaeffer hall

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A conversation with bobby huff

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flavor brings freshness to the dining hall

on thecoverc.S. lewis didn’t really have an ipad,but this self-described “dinosaur” has a lot to say to twenty-first century learners.

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from the head of School

board of trust & Annual Giving

pillar parents

the power of imagination

A conversation with bobby huff

teachers’ passions

faces

Setting media boundaries

dekodiphukan

ipads in Kindergarten

no excuse Words

big buddies little buddies

iband

math mayhem

language Ambassadors

disease books

the Gift of Struggle

the Gift of play

Schaeffer hall

events

book reviews

c.S. lewis library

flavor brings freshness to the dining hall

A holiday Adventure

you Are beautiful

my SpcA

2011 Summer camps

Alumni

partnering with the St. paul Senior living center

Athletics

Student corner Activity page

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www.stpaulchristianacademy.org

The Messenger 2011

2010-2011 board of truSt

Hal AndrewsMark BacurinKristin Clark

Joe CookGary Dean

Stephanie DickinsonBump ElliottJeff GardnerTodd GlissonBill Kenny

Renee KovickDon LoganGreg Pease

Mike PowellMolly PowellBen SensingByron Smith

Danny Wamble

2010-2011 annual gIVIng cHaIrS

Grandparent ChairsSusie and Fred Bess

Faculty ChairAmy Nickels

Parent ChairsJeanie and John Dayani

2010-2011 Parent grade leVel cHaIrS

Junior Kindergarten GirlsCarole and John Peterson

Junior Kindergarten BoysLeeann and Jeff Hays

Kindergarten GirlsJennifer Ann and Jim ClarkKindergarten BoysAmy and Lane Wallace

First Grade GirlsDarby and Chad FollisFirst Grade BoysLara and Nathan Green

Second Grade Girls

Nancy and Huck MuldowneySecond Grade Boys

Mary Catherine and Drew Healy

Third Grade GirlsShelley and Ward Cammack

Third Grade BoysMurray and Pryor Smartt

Fourth GradeMary and Paul Wilson

Fifth Grade

Mary Ann and Mark Bacurin

Sixth GradeNatalie and Mark Ryman

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if you would like to make a gift to support the mission of the Academy, please visit usat www.stpaulchristianacademy.org, then click on the “Support” tab at the top or contact

lisa Schlachter, director of development, at (615) 269-4751 or [email protected].

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St. pAul chriStiAn AcAdemy

Pillar ParentsWe ask all parents to help in supporting the mission of the

academy and building community by doing these six things:

PraY pray for our students, faculty, and staff.

InVeSt Support the Annual fund with an amount that is comfortable for your family. participation is key.

learn learn the mission statement and be able to share it with others.

luncH eat in the dining hall with your child(ren). enjoy flavor’s fabulous food while spending quality time with your child(ren).

attend make an effort to attend school events and cheer on our students.

read read with your children daily and read the my SpcA page regularly.

Your role as a Pillar Parent will help to strengthen our mission andwill directly and positively impact the lives of our students.

be a PIllar Parent

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The Messenger 2011

the power ofImagination

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Imaginationone Sunday afternoon before christmas, St. Paul hosted a trip to the movies. St. Paul families packed out a theater at Regal Green Hills and watched the film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. There we saw a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, a boy so perfectly awful that, according to Lewis, “he almost deserved” his name.

Eustace attends a school called “Experiment House,” an institution fully committed to filling young minds with facts and information—and only facts and information. At home and at school, imagination is quite out of the question for Eustace.

At the beginning of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace and his cousins are literally thrown into a whole new world. The cousins, who enjoy a rich imaginative life, are delighted. They jump right in, strengthened and invigorated by the challenges of life in Narnia. But Eustace doesn’t fare very well at all. He lacks both the mental flexibility and the self-awareness to function in a new and unfamiliar environment.

In his day, C.S. Lewis was concerned about what he perceived as a modern tendency to put excessive faith

in facts and figures, in technology, in reason, in the myth of progress. It’s not that he didn’t value reason or scientific inquiry; rather, he insisted that the truths gleaned by those means don’t have their full impact unless they are kept in context of a greater meaning. And that context, he argued, is accessible by way of the imagination. “Reason is the natural order of truth,” he wrote, “but imagination is the organ of meaning.”

C.S. Lewis is near and dear to our hearts at St. Paul. Our students read the Chronicles of Narnia together from third grade through sixth. Our new library is called the C.S. Lewis Library. In the twenty-first century, that may seem old-fashioned. Lewis called himself a pre-modern dinosaur—and that was seventy years ago! But it’s not simple nostalgia that draws so many of us to Lewis. As it turns out, the tweedy old professor’s vision of imagination, creativity, and play is a vision for our post-modern, fragmented world.

OOO

Our children, like Eustace, are being thrown into a whole new world. Globalization, changing technology, and any number of forces that we can’t foresee all add

c . S . l e W i S f o r t W e n t y - f i r S t c e n t u r y l e A r n e r S

by Ken Cheeseman and Jonathan Rogers

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The Messenger 2011

up to a world that doesn’t look very much like the one we grew up in.

How do we as parents and educators prepare our children to lead in a world that changes so rapidly? To be sure, facts and figures and information are a part of the answer. We still educate our children in the basics. But more and more the answer comes down to problem-solving, collaboration, creativity, and imagination.

Our all-faculty read this year was The Global Achievement Gap, by Tony Wagner. It’s a book about helping American students regain their competitive edge in what Wagner calls the “New World of Work.” He identifies seven survival skills for a changing world—skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving, collaboration, agility and adaptability, and effective oral and written communication. The seventh of those skills—the capstone—is Curiosity of Imagination. Wagner writes,

Employees must…know how to use analytical skills in ways that are often more “out of the box” than in the past, come up with creative solutions to problems, and be able to design products and services that stand out from the competition. In other words, they have to be new and improved knowledge workers—those who can think in disciplined ways, but also have a burning curiosity, a lively imagination, and can engage others empathetically.

It seems counterintuitive, but the more technology and science seem to carry the day, the more imagination and creativity come to the fore.

We all want our students to achieve. We want excellence and measurable results. At St. Paul, we are constantly seeking the surest path to academic excellence, just as we nurture leadership and a passion for Christ. And we are succeeding. When our students graduate from St. Paul and go on to their next-level schools, they are getting into the best schools in Nashville.

Our standardized test scores, a reflection of excellence in thinking and achievement, are very high. Our stu-dents stack up extremely well against students from the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) and the very best public schools in the country. Our upper school average rank is 84% in reading compre-hension, 91% in writing, and 92% in math achieve-ment. Again, these numbers don’t reflect our students’ performance compared to average students, but to the students at very selective schools.

We are proud of these scores because they represent well the significant and meaningful work that occurs everyday between our students and our faculty. Elsewhere in this magazine you will read about the creative and forward-looking things we’re doing at St. Paul. Those experiences aren’t peripheral to our students’ educational experience or tagged onto an otherwise conventional curriculum. Creative teaching and imaginative learning are the very core of what we do here at St. Paul. And we’re getting real, measurable results.

As C.S. Lewis said, “Imagination is the organ of meaning.” Our teachers are putting real imagination in their work, and they’re nurturing imagination in our students. That’s not just touchy-feely talk. That imagination puts our students at a real advantage and is preparing them to lead in a rapidly changing world.

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The Messenger 2011

a conversation with

Bobby Huff

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the newest member of the St. Paul christian academy leadership team is bobby Huff. he came to serve as head of the lower School in the fall of 2010. A native of mississippi, mr. huff came to St. paul from the covenant School in nashville, where he was headmaster. he recently spoke with The Messenger about mission-driven education, asking the ‘Why’ question, and helping students know who they are.

the messenger: You’ve been in some great schools in the past. What sets St. Paul apart from the other places you’ve been?

bobby Huff: One of the most impressive things about St Paul is the intentionality with which we pursue our purpose. Everybody—faculty, administrators, students, even a surprising number of parents—knows the three pillars of the mission statement: Academic Excellence, Passion for Christ, and Leadership Development. But knowing the mission statement is one thing. The amazing thing to me is the consistency with which everything around here relates to those three pillars.

One of the things that our leaders have done is to build in time for teachers and administrators to dream and plan—to figure out how to live out our mission. A lot of it just comes down to built-in face time. The Administrative team meets every other week to be sure we’re all on the same page. The other weeks, the Division Heads meet for the same purpose.

We schedule co-curriculars—P.E., languages, library, music, art—so that, as much as possible, the teachers for a particular grade have at least half an hour at the same time without students. The idea is that teachers will be able to seek each other out to compare notes or ask each other questions or solve problems together. And they make great use of that time.

We’re trying to teach our students the skills of working collaboratively; our teachers definitely model that in the way they work with each other. Every week I’m seeing teachers work with students who are struggling. I’m seeing them having tough conversations with parents. They’re doing really hard work that could easily drain the energy out of a person, but the way they work together to build each other up and bear one another’s burdens is really beautiful. And it comes down in large part to a shared sense of mission.

the messenger: You’ve worked in Christian schools, and you’ve also taught in public school settings. What are the main differences?

I guess the biggest difference is the way you answer the question, “Why do I have to learn this?” In a secular setting, the answer is, “You have to learn this so you can graduate. So you can go to a good college. So you can get a good job. So you can afford to buy lots of stuff.” Obviously that’s a gross oversimplification. There are lots of great teachers and administrators and students and parents in public schools who see more purpose than that in education.

But when you leave God out of the equation, the “Why” question is pretty hard to answer.

I taught science; I still do, actually, as of this semester when one of our science teachers moved away mid-year. Every semester I teach science, the first lesson starts with the same five words: “In the beginning, God created…” We learn these things because we’re learning what God has done. Our purpose in learning science is to learn to love and care for God’s creation. Why do I have to learn this stuff? Because you never know how God is going to use this later on. Because you don’t know who you are yet.

the messenger: “You don’t know who you are yet.” What a great summary of what it’s like to be an elementary-age student.

bobby Huff: It’s an important thing to remember. It keeps things in perspective when you’re dealing with young children. It makes it a little easier to deal graciously with them when they mess up. Grace isn’t about letting people off the hook. When it comes to discipline, grace is about helping children see who they are—who they’re becoming.

Earlier this year, a couple of boys drew all over the new library’s stone fireplace with crayons. It didn’t take a police detective to catch them, since they had written their names on the stones.

Discipline in a situation like that comes down to giving children a “life moment.” To extend grace is to help them own what they’ve done wrong and yet help them see that they aren’t defined by what they’ve done wrong. So I sat the two boys down, and we talked about the importance of taking care of the things God has given us; we talked about the fact that somebody has to clean up when we make messes like that. The real aim of the conversation was to help the boys see that they aren’t vandals and that they don’t want to be vandals.

Then we went to the library with a bucket of cleaning supplies. I let them clean the crayon off the fireplace, which was a slow go. But we took our time, and we talked about how hard it was, and eventually they got it. Then I took them to apologize to Mrs. Rogers, the librarian. So the boys got the chance to own up, to clean up, and to apologize. And in the end, they felt a real sense of accomplishment for making things right.

Every moment is a chance to extend grace. I love that I’m in a place where I get to do that.

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The Messenger 2011

K.C. CarrawayFirst-grade teacher K.C. Carraway’s passion for the performing arts began when her sixth-grade math teacher cast her in a play at her Murray, Kentucky elementary school. “I found out rather quickly that acting was not to be my calling, but my teacher was lovely and supportive and he made what could have been a traumatic situation a positive, safe experience to take a risk and learn more about myself.”

Ms. Carraway’s interest in drama then moved from awkward actress to behind-the-scenes, where she learned more about the producing and writing of plays. The experience has served her well at St. Paul; she has written and directed the third-grade play for most of her 17 years at the school.

“I started writing the third-grade plays out of necessity,” she said. “The third-grade play is a rite of passage at St. Paul. Almost everybody participates. And I want everybody to have at least two spoken lines. But there aren’t that many scripts for a cast of fifty. So I started writing the scripts myself.”

“I start with a setting that requires a lot of characters,” she said. “This year it was the circus. Another year it was a barnyard. The story grows from there.” Ms. Carraway’s method has the added benefit of allowing her to write with her performers’ personalities in mind. “I already know most of the children who are going to be in the play,” she said. “So it is fun to do some friendly typecasting!”

Ms. Carraway sees the third-grade play as an opportunity to do for her students what her sixth-grade math teacher did for her. “I have students who struggle with their academic work or don’t do well athletically, but they come to play practice and really blossom. I tell them that they are bringing joy into people’s lives through the arts. They’re shining God’s light. It’s great to see the confidence they draw from experience.”

Teachers’ PassionsEnrich the ClassroomSome jobs are just jobs. You punch the clock. You put in your hours. You go home and get back to the “real life” you put on hold for the eight hours you were at work.

Teaching isn’t one of those jobs. Teachers don’t just bring their skills to the classroom, but themselves—their curiosity, their hopes, their passions. Great teachers have a passion for education, of course, but the very best teachers are also motivated by passions that reach well beyond the classroom.

From marathon-running to overseas missions to blogging, St. Paul classrooms are energized by the passions of teachers who bring their whole selves to their work. Here are the stories of three of them.

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Scott RadbillSixth-grade teacher Scott Radbill has been on staff at North Carolina’s Camp Rockmont for twelve years, seven of those years as a camp director. “I love the camp environment,” he says. “Kids get out in the woods, and they get some independence. They find out more about who they are and what they can do.”

Summer camp, like school, can be a kind of controlled chaos. A counselor or program director or teacher prepares as much as he or she can, but there are so many variables, flexibility is of paramount importance for the person in charge. At Rockmont and St. Paul alike, Mr. Radbill has found that some of the best things happen when he’s willing to put the program on hold and respond to what students or campers are bringing to a given situation. “Camp has taught me to look at the whole person,” he says. “I try to be a master of my subject matter, but so much of teaching comes down to responding to the questions that students ask, meeting them where they are. In a camp environment, where the adults have to be both teacher and parent, I get a lot of opportunities to practice those skills.”

One of the most important skills Mr. Radbill practices at Camp Rockmont is community-building. “We’re taking boys who are used to living in big houses, with their own rooms and their own electronics, and we take all that away, cram ten or twelve of them into a cabin with no air conditioning and make them live together. And the amazing thing is that they do live together—quite well. It’s messy, it’s hard, but they do it.

Spending my summers with campers has made me see that there’s a lot more to kids than you realize. They have a huge capacity for empathy and relationship. There’s a lot going on inside of them, and if you’re willing to listen, you can get it out of them.”

Enrich the Classroom

“Camp has taught me to look at the whole person,” he says. “I try to be a master of my subject matter, but so much of teaching comes down to responding to the questions that students ask, meeting them where they are. In a camp environment, where the adults have to be both teacher

and parent, I get a lot of opportunities to practice those skills.”

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The Messenger 2011

Jenny MayberryKindergarten teacher Jenny Mayberry has seen genuine poverty. For three months she lived in Managua, Nicaragua, where she worked with the residents of La Chureca, the massive trash dump for that city of almost two million people. She lived with a missionary family that was devoted to giving Churequeros access to education and skills to help them get out of the dump. The things Mrs. Mayberry experienced there—and still experiences on her regular visits back—have changed her way of looking at everything.

She recalls the first time she saw La Chureca. “We were on a bus with the windows down, and there were flies everywhere, mountains of garbage, and the stench was just awful. Hundreds of families were living in that. Hundreds of children. I looked out the bus window and saw little kids picking stuff up off the ground that they might be able to sell somewhere, and I just started crying for what these children didn’t have.”

“But the missionary I was with reminded me that we’re all living in a kind of poverty. She said, ‘Yes, it’s sad that these people don’t have the things we have, but their deeper need is a spiritual need—and we have the same need ourselves.’”

Mrs. Mayberry’s passion for the people of La Chureca has had an impact on her kindergarten class. “I always look for ways to help my students have a bigger view of the world,” she says. “We pull out the globe and look at different parts of the world; we talk about how people live differently in other countries. I show them pictures of Nicaraguan children and tell them stories to help them make a connection. I work in a few Spanish words when I can. Spiritually, my kindergarteners are no different from the children in La Chureca,” she says. “I want the same thing for both. I want them to know that Jesus loves them.”

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Academic Excellence • Passion for Christ • Leadership Development

St. Paul Christian Academy integrates academic excellence with a passion for Christ to develop a strong foundation

for young leaders who uniquely shape the world in which they live.

If you know prospective families who might be interested in learning more about St. Paul,please encourage them to visit our website at www.stpaulchristianacademy.org and contactJulie Dilworth, Director of Admission, at [email protected] or (615) 269-4751.

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FacesThe Messenger 2011


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The Messenger 2011

Setting Media Boundaries

as therapists, we’ve heard a parent report one of the above statements over a thousand times. The art of parenting a preteen now requires a specialty degree in navigating, negotiating, and understanding media opportunities. As much as media can be an invaluable resource to your child’s growing mind, it can be one of the more harmful means of debilitating it.

Visual stimulants (television, video games, movies, internet and social networking sites), when used appropriately, have the power to provide early readiness for learning, educational enrichment, opportunities for relational connectedness, and broadened exposure to the arts, entertainment, and social issues. In addition to these advantages, media can also be a useful tool in teaching, training, and engaging your child. On the other hand, the harmful effects of visual stimulants can range from poor school performance to violent and aggressive behavior, and from diminished physical activity to distorted notions of body image. We have long known that children’s brains need to interact with the external environment in order to grow tissue fully. It’s possible that many of our children may be suffering attention and other learning difficulties because their brains aren’t experiencing enough fine and gross motor development that comes from physical movement. Kids who spend too many hours of a day camped out in front of a television or computer screen are denying their brains the valuable nourishment that only comes from movement and

engaging with the environment around them. i

In addition to all of that, these technologies can debilitate children’s social development in terms of learning to interact with others in real relationships. Anonymous conversations breed a freedom and often recklessness that wouldn’t exist in face to face encounters. Children lose many of the basics of social niceties such as the “Hi’s” and “How are you’s” that are the foundation for conversations for children, teens, and adults.

There’s also clear evidence that the more visual media a child takes in the worse off his sleep, learning, and memory are. The results of a study at the Sport University, Cologne, Germany discovered that television and computer game exposure ( just one hour a day of gaming or two of television) affect children’s sleep and deteriorate verbal and cognitive performance. Both television-watching and video game-playing affected children’s sleep negatively, but video games were portrayed as having an even more negative effect.ii

Early in life, visual stimulants begin competing for the developing mind. The media-savvy parent discovers how to use stimulants to his or her advantage. For example, I (David) always recommend that parents never allow their kids to see movies when they haven’t read the book. I can remember racing to finish reading Prince Caspian with my own daughter to make the May release of the film. She would discipline herself to finish homework quickly so that

b y d A v i d t h o m A S A n d S i S S y G o f f

“Just five more minutes?” “I am the only person in my grade without a facebook page!”

“but, if I’m not online, I won’t know what’s happening. It’s how everyone talks to each other these days!”

“can’t it wait until the next commercial?” “that is such an invasion of my privacy!”

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Setting Media Boundariesb y d A v i d t h o m A S A n d S i S S y G o f f

we could get an extra half hour to finish another chapter or two. We devoured those pages and couldn’t wait to compare and contrast the book and film. The visual of the film helped reinforce the content and message of the story.

Equally so, we have family Wii nights at my (David’s) house where family members compete in anything from Olympic Track and Field events to baseball. It has become a way for us to engage with one another and to be active (have you tried the 100-meter with the Wii remote lately?). We use video games as a means of staying connected, experiencing enjoyment, and spending time together after dinner.

I (Sissy) have connected with many middle school boys and girls simply because I know who Zelda is or have played a variety of video games. Technology and media are here to stay. And they have been and will increasingly become one of the most utilized and powerful components of your child’s life. It truly is a different world from the one we grew up in.

There’s no doubt that media can be harmful, physically, emotionally, and socially. There’s also no arguing that media can be useful. The key to navigating this complicated maze is for parents to stay educated, informed, engaged, and aware. Use media and technology to your advantage. Make them work for you rather than simply fearing their impact. If you as a parent are strategic, you can use this powerful force as a powerful tool.

David Thomas and Sissy Goff are counselors at Nashville’s Daystar Counseling Ministries and long-time friends of St. Paul Christian Academy. Their parenting seminars have been a key component of the ongoing effort at St. Paul to equip and educate parents. Find out more about David and Sissy and Daystar Ministries at www.daystarcounseling.com.

i Dimitri A. Christakis. “Early Television Exposure and Subsequent Attention Problems in Children.” Pediatrics, 2004, 113(4), 708-713.

ii Dworak, M., DiplSportwiss, Schierl, T., Bruns, T., & Strüder, H. K. (2007, November). Impact of singular excessive computer game and television exposure on sleep patterns and memory performance of school-aged children. Pediatrics 120(5). 978-985.

1. monitor input. A good rule of thumb is that kids should never spend more time in the virtual world than in reality. that simply means that they should never spend more time playing video or computer games than engaging in active play. they should never spend more time watching sports than playing them (that goes for you, too, dad!). they should never spend more time talking to their friends on facebook than having real conversations.

2. get online. parents of preteens should have access to any social networking sites they choose to let their kids participate in or explore. you should know their passwords at all times and let them know that you can and will check it.

3. model limits. pay attention to the amount of time you spend watching tv, checking email, surfing the net, or chatting on facebook. Kids learn more from watching us than hearing from us.

4. bombard kids (with information). education and conversation are our best weapons against internet dangers.

5. avoid Violence. violent video games that reward antisocial aggression, such as Grand theft Auto or doom, should not be permitted in your house. playing violent video games has a substantially more toxic effect than watching equally violent television programs. neither is healthy, but

children are even more susceptible to behavioral influences when they are active participants.

6. teach literacy. Just because preteens can use media and technology doesn’t mean they are effective at critically analyzing and evaluating the messages they receive. this is called media literacy. An important media literacy skill, which can be developed through parental guidance, is a child’s ability to

distinguish between reality and fantasy.

7. remember that you have provided the technology—you can set the rules. don’t let your children’s demands dictate your parenting. they need structure, and you are the best and most loving enforcer of that structure they will ever have.

Use media and technology to your advantage. Make them work for you rather than simply fearing their impact.

If you as a parent are strategic, you can use this powerful force as a powerful tool.

Ideas for Setting appropriate and balanced media boundaries:

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The Messenger 2011

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once upon a time there was a land called dekodiphukan (pronounced ‘decode if you can’). There were dragons there and Vikings and a king who was very sad because he couldn’t read. In fact, nobody in Dekodiphukan could read because all the writing there was in a code that no one had cracked.

Junior kindergarteners at St. Paul make regular visits to Dekodiphukan, where they learn, along with the king, the forty-four phonemes that make up the English language. Stories, rhymes, and pictures help young learners associate sounds with the letters. Then they are able to practice blending those sounds and letters into words. “It’s such an exciting process to watch,” says junior kindergarten teacher Sarah Heck. “The children love it because they feel like they are breaking a code or solving a puzzle. They see it as a game. They beg to learn new sounds, because when they learn new sounds, they can make new words, solve more puzzles, and break more codes!”

Kathleen Herb, leader of the junior kindergarten team, adds, “Dekodiphukan has been tried, tested, and proven to be successful for every type of learner. Along with Handwriting Without Tears, and Everyday Math, this program has helped our JK children be very enthusiastic about learning because it is fun for them, and they can see for themselves the wonderful things they can do. Our JK program teaches children to be little students and motivates them to be eager learners.”

DekodiphukanJunior Kindergarten’s

iPads in Kindergarteneducators have long understood the value of kinesthetic or tactile learning, especially when children are first learning to form letters. Up until this year, kindergarteners at St. Paul practiced their letters by tracing them with their fingers in desktop sandboxes. The immediacy of the experience, without even a pencil to intervene between letters and little fingers—helped to cement reading and writing skills.

Kindergarteners at St. Paul now have another tool for kinesthetic learning: iPads provide a similar tactile experience, with color and movement and sound that more fully engage the senses in the learning process. “We’ve

had laptops for years,” says kindergarten teacher Sarah McGarry, “but for a kindergartener, the touchscreen of an iPad opens up whole new learning possibilities compared to the keyboard and mousepad of a laptop. It’s just more natural for a young child.”

Besides letter formation, kindergarteners are practicing simple math sentences and letter sounds in their weekly iPad sessions. “Children love technology and they’re comfortable with it,” says Miss McGarry. “iPads are another way for children to practice the skills they’ve learned in a hands-on way. Plus, the bright colors and fun sounds help too.”


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The Messenger 2011

brain research shows that it takes five hundred repetitions to firmly plant a word into the mind of an average first-grader. The first-grade team at St. Paul Christian Academy realized that having students memorize a list of words the night before a spelling test wasn’t doing it. So they instituted a whole new approach to spelling: “No Excuse Words.”

First graders at St. Paul no longer just take a spelling test on Friday. They concentrate on a group of words for two weeks at a time, using them for games and writing, from finding them in word searches, to spelling them with magnet letters to painting them with water on the sidewalk. The students also have their own writer’s journals as well as a class “word wall” for resources in spelling the words correctly in their daily work. They are immersed in the words—some of them “sight words” like would or high that don’t follow normal decoding rules, and some regular “decodable” words. Once the students have been assessed on a group of words, those words become “No Excuse” words, meaning that students have no excuse for not spelling them correctly in their daily work.

The result has been a steady improvement in the proper spelling of these words. “Students are getting more confident and more competent, and it shows in their daily work, not just their spelling tests,” says first-grade teacher K.C. Carraway.

When do second-graders do sixth-grade science projects? When they’re with their sixth-grade buddies. The keystone of leadership development at St. Paul, the big buddy/little buddy program gives older students the opportunity to befriend and lead younger students by serving them and gives younger students the opportunity to be more fully engaged in the life of the school; it engenders some of the most meaningful interactions that occur at St. Paul.

The buddy program matches each older student (third grade through sixth) with a younger student ( junior kindergarten through second grade). Big buddies meet with their little buddies every week or two to read or share class projects or do a craft or play outside. Sometimes little buddies come to the big buddies’ classroom to see a frog dissection or enjoy an “edible insect” from the big buddy’s science project.

“The sixth-grade buddies have been great role models,” says second-grade teacher Michelle Florez. “Our second graders are able to stretch beyond their peer group to see examples of God’s love through leadership and kindness. Instead of being afraid of the big kids, our students are proud and excited to know them by name. You should see how excited they get when their big buddy leads the devotion or participates in a chapel or even walks a junior kindergartener to class at morning carpool.”

The buddy program is just one of the ways St. Paul is laying a foundation for young leaders who uniquely shape the world in which we live.

No excuse words

“Students are getting more confident and more competent, and it shows in their daily

work, not just their spelling tests.”

Big BuddiesLittle Buddies

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Big BuddiesLittle Buddies

iBandmusical apps have been around for as long as iPads have. The tablet lets users noodle around on drums or keyboards or bells or horns or any number of musical instruments. St. Paul music teacher Dora Ann Purdy is making the most of that capability by forming an “iBand” with third graders. The idea is simple enough: put iPads in the hands of students, and let them make music together.

“iPads have been a great way to introduce students to the music-making process,” says Mrs. Purdy. “Students who might not otherwise be interested in making music are getting engaged because they’re interested in the technology.”

The iPads have allowed students to have “hands-on” experiences with a much wider variety of instruments

from around the world than would have been otherwise possible. A sitar app, after all, is much less expensive than a sitar.

“Third graders don’t always have all the motor skills they need to play a guitar or a piano,” says Mrs. Purdy, “but they do have the kind of hand/eye coordination that an iPad requires.”

When these young iMusicians combine their efforts, the result is music that isn’t half bad. And that, hopes Mrs. Purdy, will motivate more of her students to pursue music in the real, un-virtual world. “iPads are no substitute for musical instruments,” she says. “But they do give students a taste of what it’s like to make music with a group, and hopefully that will open the door to ‘real instruments’ for many of them.”

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The Messenger 2011

raucous cheering. Intense competition. Face paint and funny hats. It’s not the Super Bowl. It’s Math Mayhem, an Olympics-style competition that St. Paul fourth-graders participate in every year. Teams compete in six different challenges, each involving math in everyday situations, from measuring and weighing to complex word problems. Teams have to balance speed with the necessary care to avoid computation errors (and the resultant point penalties). And they are rewarded by thinking logically and systematically.

Math Mayhem grew out of the fourth-grade team’s frustration at finding a satisfactory math-related field trip. “We came up with off-campus solutions that had a small amount of math involved,” says team leader Jenny Cretin, “but we wanted our math field trip to be deeply connected to math.”

So they developed an on-campus event that was both more math-intensive and more exciting than most field

trips. “We have seen excitement for this event build dramatically over the past three years,” says Mrs. Cretin. “Students now come to fourth grade asking when Math Mayhem is going to be.”

It’s not just fun and games. “The best feeling a teacher has is seeing a student have that ‘aha’ moment,” says teacher Katy Clement. “I see plenty of these moments happen during Math Mayhem. And the beauty of it is that most of the learning is actually coming from other students helping their teammates out. It really is a spectacular event.”

For teacher Drew Clausing, the importance of Math Mayhem lies in helping students see the real-world relevance of math. St. Paul Christian Academy’s quantitative reasoning scores have dramatically increased over the past few years. Says Mr. Clausing, “I’m convinced that involving logic and quantitative reasoning exercises into our school activities is a big contributor to that increase.”

Math Mayhem

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“In our Spanish and french classes in fifth and sixth grade, we spend a lot of time talking about ambassadorship,” says Bevin Beers, St. Paul Christian Academy language teacher. “Our students understand that language is a bridge. Regardless of how they feel about the subject matter itself, they learn to see language and culture as a multi-purpose bridge: a bridge for relationships, for understanding and appreciation, for opportunity, and ultimately a bridge for Christ. Eventually, they come to see themselves as a bridge. I tell a lot of stories centering on ambassadorship, and I challenge students to consider doors that will open in the future just because they know another language.”

Spanish remains the bedrock of language education at St. Paul, but this year Miss Beers has added French to the mix, leveraging the two languages’ similarities as members of the Romance family of languages.

The study of culture has always gone hand-in-hand with the study of language at St. Paul. For Miss Beers, a cultural focus has been an opportunity to emphasize both leadership and a passion for Christ. “Ambassadorship expresses itself differently in different cultural settings,” she says. “While

we were learning Spanish, we focused often on developing countries. Now that we have moved to French, the focus is more on developed countries. But we have made the point that it is all the same to Christ, no matter what culture one is an ambassador to.”

Language Ambassadors

Disease BooksSt. Paul christian academy’s sixth grade is full of disease experts. They’ve even written books on the subject. Looking for ways to give his students a deeper connection to their study of viruses, bacteria, and protists, sixth-grade science teacher Scott Radbill came up with the idea of “disease books.” Each of his students chose a major disease and became an expert on it, from its causes at a microscopic level, to its means of spreading, to its symptoms and treatments, to its history.

Students practiced their research skills in gathering the necessary information, then practiced their writing skills in organizing their discoveries into colorful “disease books” that were later displayed in the C.S. Lewis Library.

“We had already learned about viruses and bacteria,” says Mr. Radbill, “but this project was really about applying the things we had learned to a specific, real-world disease. Sometimes when students learn about microscopic organisms, they can get the feeling that microscopic

organisms are things that live under microscopes. But they live in the same world the rest of us live in, and they have an impact on this world—sometimes a huge impact. These ‘disease books’ were a chance for students to make those connections and to help one another see those connections.”

From the salmonella typhoid bacterium to Typhoid Mary to sanitary conditions in Latin America. From poliovirus to the polio outbreak to Jonas Salk’s vaccine to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The sixth-graders’ disease books tell stories that connect microscopic life to “real life.”

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The Messenger 2011

think of three episodes in your life when you experienced significant growth and increased wisdom. How many of those episodes involved pain or hardship or failure? I’d be willing to guess that at least two of your “growth spurts” came at times of difficulty—and probably all three.

Most of us grown-ups understand that it is through struggle that we become better people. It is through struggle that we get stronger. It is through struggle that we understand how much we need God. We know all these things for ourselves. But when it comes to our children, it’s hard for us to believe it. It’s a hard thing to let our children struggle when we believe that we can make things easier for them.

As parents, we are able to shield our children from many of life’s discomforts and disappointments. We can do their school projects with them (for that matter, we can do their school projects for them!). We can coach their teams and make sure they get lots of playing time. We can buy them video games whenever they feel sad. There are lots of ways to steer clear of sadness and discomfort.

But there is no steering clear of the fact that we live in a fallen world. Your children, like the rest of us, will fail someday. What then?

I’m convinced that one of the best gifts we can give our children is to let them fail—and then help them to get back up. We cannot protect our children from discomfort and failure and disappointment forever. But we can help them see that failure and disappointment and pain aren’t the end of the world.

Is your home a place where it’s safe to fail? If it is, then it will also be a place where it’s safe to get back up. That’s where real confidence and self-esteem come from: the knowledge that you can get back up, not the false belief that you cannot fail.

I heard a story about a little boy who took pity on a butterfly that was struggling to get out of its cocoon. Its head was free, but struggle as it might, it couldn’t seem to get its wings out of the cocoon. At last the boy couldn’t stand to watch

it any longer, so he got a little knife and slit the cocoon so the butterfly would have an easier time getting out. The butterfly did manage to get free of the cocoon, but it never flew. What the boy didn’t understand was that the struggle was a necessary part of the process. It was the struggle that would have strengthened and shaped the butterfly’s wings. The boy’s misguided act of kindness was exactly what the butterfly didn’t need.

I hope you won’t deprive your children of the opportunity to struggle. And I hope you’ll create an environment where it’s safe to struggle and even to fail. It’s the only way they’ll ever strengthen their wings.

The Gift of Struggleb y J i m c A l l i S

Associate Head of School and Upper School Division Head

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do you want to give your kids a leg up on their academic development? Let them play. It seems strange to say in an age of “tiger moms” and “helicopter parents” and four-year-old soccer leagues and “academic enrichment centers” and alphabet flash cards, but there is genuine benefit in leaving children alone and letting them entertain themselves (without screens!), either alone or in groups.

Children were made to play. It’s how their brains work. It is through play that they learn how to see things from another person’s perspective: You be the princess this time and I’ll be the queen. Play lets them experiment with cause and effect: What happens if I ram this car into that tower of blocks? Play gives children a chance to learn key social skills: If I won’t take turns, there is no game.

We use the phrase “child’s play” to describe things that are simple. But there’s nothing simple about it. Think about how many subtle negotiations go into the organization of a neighborhood kickball game. What are the bases going to be? How do we divide into fair teams? How do we adjust for the fact that we’ve got a six-year-old and a ten-year-old competing against one another? When we let them—when we don’t jump in and solve everything for them—children get very good at figuring out how to make their play work. I’m all for organized youth sports; I’m not even entirely opposed to video games. But children also need opportunities to be in charge of their own play and not just be consumers of play.

As teachers and researchers Erika and Christopher Christakis point out, “Through play, children learn to take turns, delay gratification, negotiate conflicts, solve problems, share goals, acquire flexibility, and live with disappointment.” Those are vital life skills. They are also vital skills in the classroom. They lead to real, measurable success.

Parents are eager to see their children grow intellectually. That’s perfectly understandable. At St. Paul, we’re in the business of helping children grow intellectually (as well as in other ways). But it’s important that we understand that the dynamic between intellectual growth and playfulness

is not an either-or proposition. We don’t move our children toward maturity by taking away play and replacing it with more “serious” matters. Playtime is a time of intellectual growth and stimulation.

I’m not just talking about making kids more “well-rounded,” though play certainly does that. Play doesn’t just balance out academic pursuits; it enhances them. So turn off the screens and turn your children loose to play and use their imaginations. Let your children do what children were made to do, and trust the process. You’ll be pleased with the results.

The Gift of Playb y J A n e - A n n m y e r S

Early Childhood Division Head and Director of Learning Center

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The Messenger 2011

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When Jennifer atema looks out the window of her new art room on the third floor of Schaeffer Hall, she sees the high, gleaming buildings of downtown Nashville. “The windows provide great inspiration for the students,” says Miss Atema. “They like to see what the skyline looks like in different lights and different weather. They’re more interested in architecture than they’ve ever been.”

Before Schaeffer Hall opened in the fall of 2010, Miss Atema taught art to second through sixth graders in a cramped, windowless, fluorescent-lit room. “It wasn’t the kind of space that encourages creativity,” she says. “And the fact that we couldn’t spread out really limited what we could do.”

The spacious, high-ceilinged new art room, on the other hand—with its natural light and window seats and kiln and easels—feels like a place where creativity is going to happen. “Our old room was just a classroom where we happened to do art,” says Miss Atema. “Now we have a true creative space. Just sitting on the stools makes the students feel more artsy. They love the stained concrete floors and the open ceiling. They notice the details.”

Schaeffer Hall is home not just to the art rooms, but also to the three-story C.S. Lewis Library, the lower-school science room, the language classroom, the technology lab, and two music classrooms, one named for Isaac Watts and the other named for Fanny J. Crosby.

Susie Haddock’s lower school science class was a traveling show before she settled into a room on the first floor of

Schaeffer Hall. “I used to bring science to the students’ classrooms,” she says. “I had forty-five minutes per class, but I had to set up and clean up in that forty-five minutes.”

Now Mrs. Haddock is able to devote the whole class period to teaching. And she has options for long-term projects that she never had before. “When we study worms, we are now able to set up a worm habitat and let it be,” she says. “We can check the progress of the worms’ tunnels week to week. That’s not something I could have done when I was going from one classroom to the next.”

Having a permanent source of water and an enclosed patio has also broadened the scope of possible activities for Mrs. Haddock’s students, not to mention the freedom to

configure the room according to the class’s needs. “The other teachers have always been great to work with,” says Mrs. Haddock. “They were always open to whatever I wanted to do in their classrooms. But there are limits to what you can do. Having our own space has made a huge difference in what the students and I have been able to do together.”

The result has been a flowering of creativity in what had already been a highly creative class. In Mrs. Haddock’s class, children are immersed in the subjects they study.

“When we were learning about penguins, I had all the boys line up on one side of the room to be the daddy penguins, and the girls put eggs on the boys’ feet,” says Mrs. Haddock. “The boys had to stand still, keeping the eggs off the frozen ground like daddy penguins, while

Schaeffer HallW h e r e c r e A t i v i t y c o m e S t o l i f e

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The Messenger 2011

the girls—the mother penguins—went all over the room ‘catching squid.’ Afterwards, we talked about whether it would be more fun to be a daddy penguin or a mother penguin.”

In much the same way, Dr. Bruce Curry’s popular “Discovery Lab” has taken on new life in Schaeffer Hall. In this interdisciplinary, hands-on class, students take things apart and put them back together in creative ways, making sculpture out of toasters, for instance, or understanding how bikes work. “Now we have a place to be messy,” Dr. Curry says. “We used to spend a lot of time and energy working around problems—like our toaster sculptures falling apart every time they were moved—but now we’re able to devote all our energy to learning and teaching and interacting.”

That kind of innovative, immersive learning is happening throughout Schaeffer Hall, where St. Paul Christian Accademy’s co-curricular teachers for the first time have

the space and the resources to bring their own inventiveness more fully to bear.

Schaeffer Hall is named for Francis Schaeffer, whose own interests were as varied as those that are pursued in the building that bears his name. In his books he wrote about everything from philosophy to education to politics to art, always insisting that Jesus was Lord over every corner of human experience. Schaeffer wrote, “If Christianity is really true, then it involves the whole man, including his intellect and creativeness. Christianity is not just ‘dogmatically’ true or ‘doctrinally’ true. Rather, it is true to what is there, true in the whole area of

the whole man in all of life.”

Schaeffer’s holistic, immersive vision nicely sums up the work that students and teachers alike are doing in Schaeffer Hall. In this beautiful new building, students are experiencing the dominion of Christ over every area of their creative and intellectual lives.

That kind of innovative, immersive learning is happening throughout

Schaeffer Hall, where St. Paul Christian Academy’s co-curricular teachers for

the first time have the space and the resources to bring their own inventiveness

more fully to bear.

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The Messenger 2011

Events

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The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faithby Tim Keller

review by

beth GrAhAm And JAmie dorriS,

Third- Grade Teachers

Jesus’ parable of a wayward son is known by many believers and non-believers alike. In The Prodigal God, Tim Keller argues that the Parable of the Prodigal Son can be the key (as the subtitle suggests) to “Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith.”

That word recovering is an interesting choice. It implies taking back possession of something that has been lost. One important thing that has been lost is the fact that there are two sons who are lost to the father in this parable. The older brother who stayed home is just as far from the father as the younger son who ran away.

Keller writes, “Nearly everyone defines sin as breaking a list of rules.” However, through this parable Jesus makes clear that sin is more than breaking rules or, to put it in terms familiar to young St. Paul students, “needing your clip moved.” The Ten Commandments begin with two guidelines: first, God is God, and second, we are not God. Sin, ultimately, is “putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord, and Judge.”

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son[s], each of the two brothers sought to displace his father’s authority in his own life. The younger son did it by rejecting the father’s moral system and doing his own thing. The older son did it through a moralism that, he believed, entitled him to certain rights and privileges. Keller describes the two types as the moral relativist and the religious moralist. And both sons, Keller shows, desperately need Jesus.

As Christian parents and teachers, we want our children to be moral. We want them to be good. But Keller offers a helpful reminder: if he or she puts his faith in his ability to be good, the rule-follower is in as much danger as the rule-breaker. Keeping the rules, whether publicly or privately, isn’t our ticket to the feast.

Thanks to this parable, the word “prodigal” has come to mean “debauched” or “runaway.” But the original meaning is “recklessly extravagant,” or “having spent everything.” And by that definition, it is the gracious father, not the wayward son who is truly prodigal. God is extravagant in His love for us all, older brothers and younger brothers B

ook

Rev

iew

s

As Christian parents and teachers, we want our

children to be moral. We want them to be good.

But Keller offers a helpful reminder: if he or she puts his faith in his ability to be good, the rule-follower is in as much danger as the rule-breaker. Keeping the rules,

whether publicly or privately, isn’t our ticket to the feast.

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alike.

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis

review by

ShAnnyn hArriS, Fifth- Grade Teacher

before becoming an author and philosopher, c. S. lewis was first an educator. As an educator myself, The Abolition of Man has impacted me greatly. It has reminded me that education isn’t just about shaping minds, but shaping hearts.

Lewis viewed early education as a means of training our emotions and affections so that we learn to “feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likable, disgusting, and hateful.” He writes, “until quite modern times all teachers and even men believed the universe to be such that certain emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it—believed, in fact, that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval or disapproval.” The heart of the book is Lewis’s concern that contemporary society and education are beginning to reject this universal truth. Helping students to think better is only part of our job as teachers. We also have to help them feel or respond better to the world around us.

“Men without chests,” in Lewis’s terminology, are those who lack the heart to navigate the world of ideas on the one hand and appetites on the other. In the absence of heart, the appetites govern our choices almost every time. Men without chests aren’t truly “men” at all—not as God created us to be. That, as Lewis argues, is the abolition of man. It’s a dark prognosis, but The Abolition of Man has helped shape and fuel my passion for Christian education. Training students to love what they ought to love is ultimately about pointing them toward God’s heart and character as revealed in His Word. This is the central pillar at St. Paul—a passion for Christ that is evident in our affections, in how we evaluate history and current events, understand and use language, and uncover truth and beauty in His world. And all of this, God willing, will result in graduating young men and women with “chests,” with soft hearts attuned to God’s Way—to the preservation, not the abolition, of man.

Blue Like Jazzby Donald Miller

review by

richArd coWAn, Director of Christian Leadership

about five years ago, I purchased a used copy of Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz in full confidence that it would transform my understanding of being Christian in a modern world and open my eyes to see the Lord in ways I never had before. I never made it past the first chapter, and Blue Like Jazz took a spot on the third shelf of my bookshelf. Its future, for me, was bleak.

A few months ago, however, Miller’s book found its way back onto my bedside table. I quickly discovered that something had changed, and it wasn’t Miller’s prose. It was me. My heart was somehow ready to receive these meandering reflections on the tender and welcoming character of our God whose image and dignity are woven deep into the fiber of all people. Miller offers stories without polish, but he offers them truly and in a way that speaks hope where hope is lacking. What kept me reading, and what will probably bring me back to this text again someday, is the fact that Miller knows he is still learning, that his story is far from complete, and that his words contain value only so far as they reveal God’s desire to build his kingdom anywhere hearts are willing to receive it.

In my role as a Christian educator, Miller’s memoirs have helped to refresh my vision, giving me eyes to see the capacity for goodness in moments of seeming chaos and the hope of redemption in moments of brokenness and sadness. Though we, as students, parents, and teachers, stumble along in a world filled with potholes, we are forever endeared to a God who embraces the clumsy, the bruised, and even the downright disobedient.

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The Messenger 2011

the centerpiece of the new Schaeffer Hall is the c.S. lewis library. From its cozy reading well on the first floor to its towering stone fireplace on the second floor, the very architecture of the library invites children to step into books and stories to be awed and transported to other worlds.

“The mission of the library is to bring books to life.” says librarian Lou Alice Rogers. “Most of our projects are focused on celebrating imaginative characters and enjoying rich language and big ideas that are waiting to be found in books. I want library time to be a treasure hunt. I try to build in time to let the children explore all the shelves and touch and open any books that pique their curiosity. I love to see how books help them delight in the world that God has given them. The greatest pleasure is to see a child take a book and then go home and try the experiment, cook the recipe, draw the characters, tell the jokes...to live the book.”

Mrs. Rogers uses a variety of methods to help students of all grades to live the books they read, from puppets to costumes to songs to video. When reading a piece of fiction, Mrs. Rogers often pairs it with nonfiction counterparts as a way of talking about how authors create stories and face the creative challenges of spinning a tale about dogs or robots or spunky pigs. In a recent lower school author study of Mo Willems, students explored the world of elephants, pigs, pigeons, and naked mole rats. In exploring Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, Kindergarteners discussed and read about the mysterious life of a real naked mole rat. Third-grader Landon Cashwell—our resident Dr. Doolittle—made a video about the peculiar habits of naked mole rats and, in so doing, inspired students to snap up every nonfiction naked mole rat-related book in the library, so that they too could become experts in the animal kingdom. Landon’s informative video, complemented by footage from the London Zoo showing the teamwork of naked mole rats in their natural habitat, rounded out the “real world” study of these remarkable animals.

But the students’ engagement with Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed went beyond the scientific facts. Mo Willems’ book is

about individuality (What happens when a naked mole rat wants to get dressed?) and community (What happens when other naked mole rats don’t approve of clothes?) and friendship. So the students donned mole rat snouts and talked about what they would wear if they were naked mole rats. (Underwear was the overwhelming choice.) They talked further about what it would feel like to be the only person who was different.

Second graders studied another Mo Willems book, Don’t Let Pigeon Drive the Bus. Mrs. Rogers used the book as an opportunity to introduce the second graders to formal debate, critical thinking skills, and teamwork. They made posters listing pros and cons of the question, “Should Pigeon be allowed to drive the bus?” and, having observed sixth graders in a semi-structured debate, staged a debate of their own. “It was so much fun to see how much the second graders were engaged in the debates,” says Mrs.

C.S. Lewis LibraryWhat’s happening in the

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Rogers. “They were coming in throughout the day to write arguments on the poster—reasons that had come to them why the Pigeon should or shouldn’t be allowed to drive the bus.”

OOO

In the upper-school library, on the second floor, third- through sixth-graders move from learning to love the experience of reading books to honing and refining their tastes in literature and learning how to use the library for research. Each week classes read and discuss a different genre of literature: poetry, adventure, mystery, historical fiction, or humor, for instance.

This year, third grade has met an hour per week in a combined library/technology class. Mrs. Rogers and Lower School Technology Coordinator Becky Clymer have led the classes to conduct a number of research projects that required them to navigate several databases and organize the information they gleaned into presentations. They asked big questions and learned about different parts of life in Africa. They have researched figures from Tennessee history and turned biographical research into lively group presentations, from skits to movies to raps.

History has come to life for the third graders in Living History projects; they have interacted with octogenarians from The St. Paul Senior Living Community to delve into the Great Depression and World War II. They have read, seen, heard, touched, and smelled history in the C.S. Lewis Library.

The third graders at St. Paul are making history too. In the second half of the school year they have been exploring autobiographies and telling their own stories. They are researching their family trees and putting it all together in hand-made books with Japanese stab binding. Mrs. Rogers

says, “Through this project, the third graders are doing what I hope all the students will be able to do here in the library: they’re learning more about who they are, where their talents lie, what direction their passions are taking them, where God may be calling them next. This a big story we’re living and my job is to invite these students into it.”

count on kindergarten and first-grade boys to go straight for the trashiest books they can find. Two of the most popular books in the C.S. Lewis Library are David and the Trash-Talkin’ Giant and Jonah’s Trash…God’s Treasure, by Nashvillian and former St. Paul parent Joel Anderson. Each retells a familiar Bible story in rhyme and is illustrated with collages made of trash and found objects. Jonah, for instance, has pipe cleaner arms and a face made from an electrical receptacle. His ship is made of popsicle sticks and cheerios; the whale is made of a soda bottle, watch bands, and spatulas.

One of our first-graders is a big fan of Anderson’s trash collages—such a fan, in fact, that he was inspired to make trash figures of his own. “I showed the book to my mom and said, ‘I want to make some of these,’” he said. “So she got me the stuff.”

He made his five-inch soldiers out of thread spools, wooden finials, pipe cleaners, and jiggly eyes. He also sewed them felt capes. He calls his soldiers Two-Eye and Crazy Hat. “I might make some more,” he said, “if I can find the right stuff.”

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The Messenger 2011

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It’s been three years since the green Hills grille closed. Three years since anyone has savored the tortilla soup that used to be one of Nashville’s most comforting comfort foods. So there was quite a buzz when the faculty at St. Paul received an email one January morning announcing that Green Hills Grille tortilla soup would be on the lunch menu in the Dining Hall that day.

“The response was overwhelming,” said Jason Crockarell. “The lunch period wasn’t even half over, and all the tortilla soup was gone. I had some mad teachers on my hands.”

So how exactly did Green Hills Grille’s tortilla soup make its way to the Dining Hall at St. Paul? Mr. Crockarell is the co-owner of Flavor Culinary Management, the vendor that provides lunch for students at St. Paul. Before starting Flavor, Mr. Crockarell was the corporate chef for three years at the Green Hills Grille. “I wasn’t the author of the tortilla soup recipe,” he says, “but I was its caretaker for many years.”

Tortilla soup is just one of many fresh flavors that Flavor has brought to the brand new kitchen at St. Paul. The new menu is designed around fresh ingredients and a unique, creative style of preparation and presentation. There is no fryer in the new kitchen, and therefore no deep-fried foods.

“When I sat down to write a menu, I just thought about what I would want to eat,” said Mr. Crockarell. “I had never done school lunches before, so I didn’t have pre-conceived notions of what could and couldn’t be done. I just try to serve kids the kind of food that their parents wouldn’t mind serving at home.”

Crockarell’s commitment to freshness means he spends more on ingredients than institutional vendors, but he makes up the difference in his much lower overhead. The net result for St. Paul families is much better, much healthier food for not much more cost than they had been paying before.

The Dining Hall food is so much better than usual that the admissions department has come to think of it as a recruiting tool. At a recent event, prospective parents went through the cafeteria line just like their children would and sat down to a plated meal from the usual menu. Admissions Director Julie Dilworth remarked, “How many schools want prospective parents to know what is really going on in the cafeteria? Since many families ask about the lunch their children will be eating, we decided to invite them up here and show them just one of the delicious, fresh meals available.”

“There aren’t many schools that are willing to push the envelope when it comes to school lunch,” said Jason Crockarell. “A lot of them don’t even know there’s an alternative. But I think parents are starting to demand something better, and it’s been great to work with St. Paul at getting out ahead of the curve.”

Flavor Brings Freshness to the Dining Hall

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The Messenger 2011

after classes ended on a monday in november, Mr. Callis and I loaded our vehicles with rope, gloves, a chainsaw, and a handful of fifth-grade boys and headed south to a farm in Smyrna to secure the perfect tree for St. Paul Christian Academy’s third annual Christmas Tree Lighting. The owner of the farm was happy to hear that a group of students was coming to pick out a tree for their school, cut it down themselves, and use their corporate wits to wrangle their prize onto a trailer. When we arrived, we discovered that we had the place all to ourselves, so we split the boys into two groups and laid out the plan. Each group was to take ten minutes to find the perfect tree, considering the critical elements of height, girth, symmetry, and overall capacity to evoke cheer in the hearts of its viewers. Sprinting off immediately, as if another group might possibly steal their unfound treasure, the boys began their search amid clusters of white pine, cedar, and cherry laurel. Though there was no choir of angels singing over the winner of our tree debate, it was quite a moment when we finally agreed upon our champion and began to imagine it standing in our courtyard on campus with 2,500 twinkling lights draped from its branches. The boys positioned themselves out of the way while I got to cutting, and, as the tree dropped, they instinctively shouted and hoorayed and

raced to the fallen tree to begin the long haul back to the trailer. It looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting--boys and men lined up along the twenty-five-foot trunk, many hands making light work of a ton and a half of Christmas tree. Boys crave adventure; they need it. A boy needs to know that he’s a force to be reckoned with. It’s amazing how simple it is to create camaraderie and yet how often we miss opportunities to do it. Such great memories come from such a simple idea.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, the buzz of a chainsaw filling the air until gravity and inertia combine into a crashing thud at your feet. Discovering that there is sap on your palms and that the temperature has dropped low enough now to see your breath against the darkening sky. Driving back to campus at dusk with your majestic evergreen prize bobbing behind you. Knowing that in a few short days the whole first grade, students and parents alike, will be sipping cocoa and singing Christmas hymns around your prize.

That afternoon with our fifth-grade boys is but a snapshot of the joy and wonder of the St. Paul experience. Every day, students and faculty together are sharing their ideas and bringing them into a reality that shapes and blesses our community.

A Holiday Adventureb y r i c h A r d c o W A n

Director of Christian Leadership

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It has been six years since Kendal Herring was a student at St. Paul. Yet the Harpeth Hall senior still keeps a framed picture she received when she was in St. Paul Christian Academy’s sixth-grade girls’ Bible study. It’s a photo of all the girls in her class with their theme verse: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” In her Bible she still keeps another artifact from that Bible study: a list made by her classmates with words describing and naming her.

“The sixth-grade girls’ Bible study, led by Director of Admission Julie Dilworth, made such a difference for me,” Kendal says. “What I learned in Bible study helped prepare me for a new school. I was inspired by Mrs. Dilworth’s leadership which gave me the ideas and confidence needed to lead a Bible study for middle school girls when I was a junior in high school.”

Mrs. Dilworth started the St. Paul girls’ Bible study in 2005. It’s now a fifth-grade girls’ Bible study rather than a sixth-grade study, but it’s still led by Mrs. Dilworth. “This can be such a hard time for girls,” says Mrs. Dilworth. “They don’t feel all that beautiful, but they’re more aware than ever of the standards of female beauty that our culture puts out there—yet they don’t usually have the critical skills to see how ridiculous those standards are. You can see their confidence start to drain away.”

Mrs. Dilworth tackles that confidence drain head-on. “We spend a lot of time talking about our identity in Christ,” she says. “The more you know the gospel, the more you know

what God has to say about you, the more you understand that you are of immense worth to him—and the less you care about what the world says you’re worth.”

The fifth-grade girls’ Bible study is heavy on discussion; the girls talk about what beauty really means and how the media distorts girls’ view of themselves. They talk about modesty and valuing one another’s differences. And they practice naming one another—not with the hurtful names that so often are hurled around in a school setting, but with names of truth that build them up. “I like to give the girls a chance to say what they see in each other,” says Mrs. Dilworth. “Because girls that age have a hard time seeing the best things about themselves.”

“The fifth-grade Bible study has become such an important part of what St. Paul does for girls,” says Kay Herring, St. Paul Christian Academy’s prep-school counselor and mother to Kendal and sixth-grader Kelsey Kay. “I’ve had two daughters go through it now, and Julie has had a huge impact on them both. She’s coming alongside girls and affirming in them exactly what needs to be affirmed at that time in their lives.”

Every girl in the fifth-grade Bible study gets a photo of herself in a frame that reads, “You are beautiful.” Her friends write her best attributes all around the frame. Mrs. Dilworth tells each girl to hang her picture in her room right beside her mirror. That way, every time she looks at herself, no matter how she’s feeling or what kind of day she’s having, she sees one of the most important truths about her: God sees her as beautiful.

You are Beautifult h e f i f t h - G r A d e G i r l S ’ b i b l e S t u d y

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the answers to these questions and everything else you need to know about St. Paul christian academy can be found at www.stpaulchristianacademy.org, then click:

The Messenger 2011

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It’s that easy!

When is the

next jeans

day?

What’s for lunch?

Where is the

next athletic

event?

Where can I find a St. Paul screen saver?

What is

newsworthy

this week?

summerCamps

We specialize in working with younger campers. each day campers play, create, explore, worship, relax, and share together. Activities span a broad range of interests including: arts, crafts, athletics, field trips, swimming, games, projects, plays, devotionals, cooking, service projects, and many others.

www.stpaulchristianacademy.org/summercamps


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The Messenger 2011

the class of 2005 alumni reunion will be held on Saturday, may 7th 4:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.

Alumni ReunionClass of 2005

All alumni are invited to come to campus to see our new facilities and visit with us. Please contact Nancy Crowell, Director of Alumni and Parent Relations, at [email protected].

Map IndexMcGuffey HallDining HallSchaeffer HallRochford CenterMarshall HallKuyper HallMassey Athletic ComplexLiddell TrackProposed Parking

123456789

CampusMap

Keep in touchto keep up with what is going on at St. Paul and your fellow alumni, as well as to update us with

news about you, visit the alumni section of our website at www.stpaulchristianacademy.org.

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Alumni


Partnering with the

St. Paul SeniorLiving Community

faithful library volunteer, mr. don akers

Veterans day 2010Veterans day 2010

one of the visitors from the St. PaulVeterans day 2010

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Ath

letic

sStudent Corner

The Messenger 2011

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find these images throughout the magazine:

mad libsWhen i get out of my car at hook-up, i like to before

going to class. on the way, i always wave to .

in miss/mr. ’s class, we begin the day by learning

about a/an which makes me really hungry.

After learning lots of exciting things, we go to pe and play jump

over the . At lunch, i eat a yummy

and am ready for an afternoon of science, music, and of

course taming. Another great day at St. paul!

verb

superhero

favorite food

kind of bug

clothing song

animal

Student Corner

continues on back->

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The Messenger 2011

make your own bow tieIt’s simple! follow the steps below to make your very own bow tie:

1. color the above bow tie however you like. use your imagination, creativity, and favorite colors!

2. With an adult’s help, cut along the dotted line.

3. using a hole punch, make a hole through the circles on each side of the tie, take two pieces of yarn, and loop them through each hole.

4. loosely secure your new bow tie around your neck.

5. Show off your accessory to all of your friends and family!

color the letters SPca

tools needed:

• crayons• scissors• hole punch• yarn

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2010 -2011 Parent councIl offIcerS

co - PreSIdentSStephanie Dickinson & Anne Holleman

VIce PreSIdentSStacey Andrews & Adrienne Knestrick

treaSurerRenee Kovick

SecretarYJanet Dube

member-at- l argeJennifer Comengna

cHaIrPerSonS

AllocationsRenee Kovick

NominatingStephanie Dickinson & Anne Holleman

Wrapping Paper SaleLara Green

The Saint ShopDanielle Hulgan & Robyn Moore

Grocery/Retail/Boxtops ProgramsLisa Harrison

Used Uniform SaleWendy Pierce

Used Book SaleSusan Adams

Spring Book FairMary Sensing

School SuppliesJennifer Wheeler

Dear Dads’ BreakfastKimberly Petty

Sweetheart Moms’ BreakfastChip Campbell & Mark Dickinson

HospitalityCara Crews & Carole Peterson

Hospitality-AdmissionsMary Ann Bacurin & Britt Horn

SunshineMary Wilson

Room Mother CoordinatorJill Holmes & Beth Smith

Field DayChris & Kam Nola

Christmas ProgramLiza Graves (1st - 6th)

Amy Butler (Kindergarten)

Grandparents’ DayAmy Husband & Gina Drummonds

ElfAshley Cook

Parent Council of NashvilleGina Stansell

Many Thanksto our corporate sponsors who helped make our

2010 Boots and Buckles Spring Auction successful!

BBE Solutions, Inc

Dixie Motors

Joel Gluck Orthodontics

Lara and Nathan Green

Harpeth Hills Funeral Services

Heritage Medical Associates

Music City Motorsports

School Facility Management

SunTrust

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The Messenger 2011

o u r m i S S i o n

St. Paul Christian Academyintegrates academic excellence

with a passion for Christto develop a strong foundation

for young leaderswho uniquely shape

the world in which they live.

Documents

The Messenger 2011