It’s been 30 years since we took these photos and our faces were printed on the prestigious pages of the local newspapers. Our 5 seconds of fame weren’t perfectly preserved, but I thought I’d share what I had.
As our local school board voted this past weekend to wait a little longer to start school, and as I sit and talk with Kris about what this world is coming to, and then think about where we’ve been I see just a little glimmer of hope in this reminder of where I’ve been. One of these articles mentions that our ancestors were Amish and how they didn’t believe in higher education, yet here we were 5 in one generation (most of us one or two generations away from that Amish perspective on education) who took the opportunity to do more, and did it.
What if we don’t have a good school year? What if we can’t squeeze as much in this year as we usually do? What if our kids don’t have what we had? They may not, but I guess this little memory just reminds me that an education is what you make of it. A good education starts at home, and we get more of that than ever this year.
A good education has more than a good schedule and the right amount of credits. A really, really, good education has a motivation to do something with what we’re given and to soak up more and more of what lights a fire in our minds. I’m determined to encourage my boys this year in creative ways. They still have more resources and opportunities than their Amish grandparents and Great-grandparents did. Imagine what we could do if we really looked for knowledge with the time we are given. What if we educated our kids in the kind of character it takes to educate themselves?
Both of my parents were a part of the Amish church until they were teenagers. My mom went to public school until 10th grade, and my dad until 8th. My dad later got his GED through the Army. Their parents were even less educated in terms of formal schooling, and yet they were some of the smartest people I knew.
They read books, and discussed issues. They were as far removed from a classroom as you can be, and they still kept learning. Both of my grand-fathers could read and speak German, partly due to their Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, but mostly due to the fact that they hungered to know things. I have several of my grandfather’s German study Bibles and a German hymnal as well. They were a part of a religion that discouraged a lot of vanity and puffed up knowledge, but that only fueled their desire to understand what was around them, especially what was written down.
My parents came from large families that worked hard and dedicated themselves to God and one another. This dedication seems like a simple and even small reach approach to understanding, but it is rooted in a something very, very broad. In paying close attention to understanding God, we are paying close attention to understanding love. This is deeply important to all aspects of life. When we are devoted to family, we are closely inspecting our own influence, our own legacy that will reach much further than whatever achievements we master on our own. Our children: their character, their outlook, their desire to understand and their capacity to love, is a lasting and valuable commodity to the world around us. When I look at the reach of my grandparents, and the long arm of their heritage just in my cousins I see pastors, teachers, nurses, ministers, foster parents, farmers, worship leaders, advocates, and more. I see so much good in their families too. The good of a privately driven, unceremonious, hands on education that is centered on the individual, not the score. You can’t get that in most classrooms and yet it’s the best foundation a classroom education can have.
My siblings, my cousins, even some of my younger aunts and uncles were sent to school, and many went on to college, but we didn’t have to have perfect opportunities to achieve what was most important. We had that from our parents and our grandparents. So this year as I see the classroom time diminish for my kids, as I see the time they do have being eaten up by training for a virtual education, I could be distraught. I could worry. I could be sad for them, or angry at others. I think though, I’ll look back a few years at five kids I remember well who turned out to be pretty productive adults and I’ll thank their parents and grandparents for never skimping on the foundation that made them able and eager to learn.