As my husband and I are moving back to my hometown, I have realized that this my chance to dream again. What are my passions? What do I hope to accomplish in this world?
I have always believed that I am a life-long learner. And one thing that I am called to do is pass along this passion to the next generation. One of the things that I think we have lost in our school system today is the time needed to instill that love.
My home church is an Adopt-A-School Partner with two schools in a needy area of town. What I am hoping to do is create a group of tutors or mentors that can help facilitate book clubs. Many of the children do not understand what deeper comprehension is because they have not had it modeled for them. What I would like to do is train some church members to engage in meaningful conversations and debates about books. I hope that we can expose our child to a wide variety of texts with the help of educated adults that have read a wide variety of genres. I am thinking that if we get enough volunteers, there could be a couple of facilitators for each small group. Children need help with determining importance in a non-fiction text. And in a fiction text, students need help with inferencing. What does it mean to read between the lines? How can we as adults help model that thinking to students and encourage the students to think, question, grapple with the meaning of the texts.
I have an interview on Thursday at one of these schools. If this is God's mission for me, I will need to feel their need for me and I hope that I will feel that my experience will be useful to this school. I will begin praying about it now. Only by God's grace will he provide what my family NEEDs, while giving me the job to answer my passions. I'll keep you updated.
