Our Hero’s Journey
A year ago, I sat across the small table from my son’s 3rd grade teacher feeling defeated, lost, and frustrated. This was the last parent teacher conference of the year, and I was listening to her tell me, again, that he was behind. She kept trying to reassure me by saying “but not by much, we just need to get his test scores up just a little bit more”. At this point, our family was trying everything we could – we had hired two tutors, we tried the reading and math camps provided by the school, we were doing the extra homework but still the scores were not “where they should be”.
The confusion really sank in when the teacher kept recommending that he needs to “read more”. The tutors are saying his reading is fine and they didn’t see the issue. At the end of the camps my son kept saying “we didn’t really focus on reading or math” … None of this was adding up.
A little background on how we got here – We are military family who has moved four times since my son started school. His most significant part of his schooling took place in England. He attended a military DoD school, and during his first-grade year, his teacher changed six times. When we landed on the sixth teacher, we decided it was too much and put him in a local British school. The idea of steady teacher and environment was enticing, and we were excited for the change. However, after two months of dragging my child kicking and screaming to the new school, Covid shut it all down. At this point, my son had so much anxiety about school that I promised him he could pick whether he wanted to attend the on-base school or British school the following year. Thinking that if he was excited to go, that’s a win in my book.
With the anxiety building in him and the nomadic lifestyle of the military, my husband and I decided it’s time to move home and be with family. Our mantra became “one more move, one more school”. We held on to the hope that at the next school we can finally create the steady environment for our son to thrive.
Except he didn’t.
Now back to that small table with the teacher and the test scores. I was actively watching the public school system fail my child. The teacher, the parents, the tutors – none of us were on the same page. We all seemed to have the same goal in mind, get the test scores up. But we all seemed perplexed on how to achieve this. Our concerns were the test scores and not the child, and my son was the one suffering. His anxiety had reached new heights, crying at night because “he didn’t feel smart” and stressed because of testing. An eight-year-old should not know this kind of stress or anxiety.
Defeated and lost, at the end of our rope, we discovered Chisholm Creek Academy.
Their “why” truly resonated with our family, “The purpose of education is not the regurgitation of facts to pass a test. Learners deserve better”.
YES! We found our school, sign us up, and let’s goooo!
But do you know what happens when you take a child with a rocky four-year education to a new school with completely different principles? You get confused, defeated, and frustrated.
At the end of each school session, parents meet with the guides (teachers) and their learner (student) to hear how the session went. For the first SEVERAL sessions my child was crying so hard none of us could hear what he was saying, or he opted for total silence. This turned 15-minute meetings into an hour or more.
As parents, we want what is best for our child, but we had the feeling we failed him. He wasn’t thriving at this school either. It made us question, “Did we make the right choice”? “Would he ever see the potential we see in him”? “Will he ever feel confident and know how smart he is”?
Those first meetings were rough. However, the guides reassured us this was fine. In fact, they expect this to happen and even have a name for it, Traditional School Detox. They came from a place of understanding and grace. Not additional pressure, expectations and test scores.
Amidst the confusion of wondering why this school “wasn’t working” is when it dawned on my husband and me. WE were the ones who were failing our learner. We didn’t model the school’s philosophy at home and weren’t holding him accountable for his education. We were still under the impression that school was one world and home was another.
Once we shed the definitions of “teacher” and “parent”, detoxed ourselves of traditional school expectations, and modeled the same philosophies at home as at school, we began to see our learner bloom. What are parents if not “guides” as well?
It clicked. We came together as a family for our first “home meeting” to draft a family contract. We worked with our learner to model the contract after the one he uses in the studio. Then, coordinated with the guides to ensure similar language was used. Now, it is a living document that we discuss regularly, soliciting feedback from one another.
Two sessions later, our child is a new person. His stress and anxiety are down. He is contributing to the end-of-session meetings and setting his own goals, with confidence (and some giggles here and there). There is nothing that will make a parent prouder than seeing your child have pride in themselves and truly grow.
Chisholm Creek is unique. When our learners begin to acquire knowledge, instead of cramming for the next exam, they take pride and gain confidence in finding themselves along their journey. It’s true, the learner must make the decision to take the Hero’s Journey. But it became so much more powerful when we realized as parents, that doesn’t mean they do it alone.