Mustard Seed School

Today is my second day at the Mustard Seed School in Hoboken, NJ and I am excited to see what it holds for me. I am working/observing the Resource Room, which is a place where children can come if they need a quiet place to get away to do their work, where teachers can send students for a "time-out," but the main purpose is for students who need help in specific academic areas or struggle with learning disabilities. It is an incredible resource at an amazing school.
Favorites of the School thus far:
1. Casual dress...I am wearing jeans right now and loving it.
2. Embracing the arts...art is everywhere around me and it just makes me happier (and the students as well)
3. Optimism...everything is done in a genuinely positive way.
4. How conflict is handled: it is not pushed aside, students are not disciplined without purpose.
That is something that I have found to be a theme throughout this school: purpose. Everything done is purposeful. There is a reason for everything, and when students ask it is explained. That is something I have found quite innovative; I was talking to Mrs. Miller this morning about a particular student who did not find imaginative spelling to work for him because when told to spell a word how it sounded he replied by asking how he was supposed to spell a word like it sounded if he had not been taught what the correct sound for letters were (this was a kindergardener!) and so he was taught another way. A way that made sense to him.

Yesterday during seminar the principal of Mustard Seed came and spoke to our group. At the end of her talk was a Q&A period. One question that was asked was about religious teaching here. Mustard Seed is a non-denominational school and is an open school, which means you don't have to be a Christian to attend here-so the religious make-up is quite diverse. It is interesting to explore (in my mind) the implications for that because I have always thought of Christian education as Covenantal education (for Christians-only). Worship is done everyday, students are required to lead in worship at certain times and the gospel itself is seen very overtly all over the school. However, because of the type of school there are no doctrine classes and stories are much more prevalent than "truths," that's not to say that the stories are not presented as truths, but they are told as stories. It will be interesting to get a greater taste of this type of education and the implications of this over the next few weeks.