Immanuel Classical Newsletter 12-12-22

12 DEC 2022

Newsletter DECEMBER

About Us We are a new Christian and classical school, just finishing the 14th week of our second year! The Lord has richly blessed our beginnings. We want to spread the word of who we are and our desire to raise disciples in Christ. We hope this newsletter grows our community's understanding of our mission: to cultivate wonder, train in truth, and shape our students' love for God and His world through robust, objective-based, Classical Education. www.immanuelclassical.org (509)955-3335

A Letter from the Headmaster

Hello Immanuel Families!

As we get to the end of this year, we wanted to send a reminder of why we invest in Classical Education. St. Augustine once said that the only question we need to ask in developing an educational program is, "What skills does a child need to understand the Bible and tell others about it?" That might seem simplistic, but, what are those skills?

Students need to be able to read (books are important). But even more than that they must understand grammar, literature (the Bible is filled with poetry, history, parables, proverbs, legislation, etc.), and ancient languages. They need to know geography (the Bible is filled with places) and history (the Bible tells the history of the nations of the world and has affected history after the Bible was written). But to really understand the Bible a young person needs the principles of logic to make a theological inquiry and so must be trained to think logically. Augustine discusses numbers in Scripture, and talks about the physical world —we need to know math and science. But the capstone of Augustine's ideology is the ability to communicate God's truth to others in a way that is winsome and moving—that is, the study of rhetoric. Amazingly, this embodies a thorough liberal arts education. And this is why Christians for millennia have gone into new cultures, championing literacy and education, and transforming these cultures with the study of God’s Word. The liberal form our heritage. The goal of a classical education is not to nostalgically return to a golden age of the past, but to build on the heritage of Christian learning as we move creatively into the future in a post-Christian society.

This robust, distinctly Christian view of education has largely been lost in our culture. It is hard to train a child to love goodness, beauty, and truth when we don't believe such things exist. This is why Christian education will be distinctly different from the education of the world. We are teaching our kids to love what God loves. But it turns out that these abilities to think wisely and communicate effectively (the goals of the liberal arts) are precisely the most important skills a person needs to go into life, the workforce, and to transform the world. We have the tools to equip our children to confidently go out into the world as light, and to go forth as God's agents. Here at Immanuel Classical School we are recovering these tools and have been blessed to give our children something that the world desperately needs.

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Faculty Highlights Abigail Bosshardt: Primary A What is your favorite thing about teaching Primary A? My favorite thing about teaching Primary A is how excitable my kids are.

They are so eager and enthusiastic about learning. It's so fun to get to be with them every week!

What led you to teach at Immanuel?

I have worked with children for a long time mostly in early childhood education. Even when God led me to elementary teaching jobs, it still felt out

of my depth. I met with Craig for an informal sit-down and felt unmistakably attracted to the type of students and disciple-makers Craig envisions to come out of ICS and into our city and country.

I am still so honored to be a part of this school!

Fun Fact: In Minnesota, where I grew up, every local park flooded out their baseball field for a skating rink in the winter. I could ice skate not long after I learned to walk!

My sister Olivia (L) and I (R) at a University of Minnesota volleyball game at Maturi Pavillion in Minneapolis, one of my happy places!

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Peek into the Classroom What we've been up to this year: All of our primary level classes this year are studying astronomy, and students have engaged in a variety of hands-on activities to understand our solar system.

They have designed habitable life systems for other planets, built (and eaten!) edible earths, researched and presented on specific planets, simulated storms on Jupiter, created volcanoes, demonstrated phases of the moon with Oreos, and more!

Our secondary classes are focusing on earth and physical science this year. They have worked to hone their skills of scientific reasoning through a variety of experiments, take-home projects, science games, class discussions, learning from guest speakers, and in-class presentations. In addition, an important component of the classical model of education is learning to distill information and articulate reasoning effectively and with integrity. Secondary students regularly build upon these skills of logic and rhetoric within the study of science.

Scientia is the Latin word for knowledge,

Mrs. Gaskell making clouds in a jar to show how Neptune and Uranus make their clouds

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and knowledge discovers what already exists in God’s creation—it is understanding what IS. God made the world in an ordered way, and science discovers this order through investigation, exploration, and experimentation. It is an active process that should cultivate wonder. These skills, well developed, promote discovery of truth; and this prepares students for more formal studies. The ultimate result of scientific discovery is fulfillment of the creation mandate in Genesis, and this informs how we engage with ethics, morality, and politics. Therefore, at Immanuel, we use science as an opportunity to instill in our students a wonder of God's creation, a desire for truth, and teach investigative skills to discover truth. Through science, we strive to instill in our students a wonder of God's creation, a desire for truth, and investigative skills to discover truth. We rotate through various studies so that students are introduced to a wide range of scientific concepts, processes, and inventions.

Top: Mrs. Williamson’s class making rock candy

Right: Mrs. Nolan’s class designing and creating a Mars habitat

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School News and Events Christmas Program

Our Core Days music classes will be performing the songs that they have been working on since the beginning of the school year! Each music group (2 combined classes) has their own song, Primary C and above will sing a second song, then the whole school will sing a version of Silent Night together with the audience on December 15th at 6:30 PM.

Changemaker Fundraiser

Immanuel has an ongoing tuition fundraiser, Changemakers, which supports current and future families! A changemaker is someone who donates their digital spare change to Immanuel.

You simply sign up a credit/debit card, shop as normal, and your change is automatically donated to the school. Please click here to learn more and sign up to be a changemaker!

Preview Day

On Thursday, January 19th, we will host a preview day for prospective families to experience chapel and look into classes in the morning.

Enrollment Opens

Enrollment for next year opens to the community on February 1st!

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