so lately i’m fired up on a new topic…i found out that shawna, owner of young at art, is helping spearhead the creation of a new “alternative school” here in fresno. i talked to her some about it and have done a lot of thinking about it…and recently stumbled upon a home video i made at harmony day school from back when i went and visited them in 1996. it has got me thinking a LOT about harmony (the school, sadly, no longer exists…but i used to teach at it for 2 years, in sacramento) and REALLY wanting to recreate something similar here in fresno. fresno NEEDS some quality educational choices! i’ve subbed in the public schools here and i was NOT impressed.
so i had already been heading up a committee to create a homeschool resource center at the discovery center. got sidetracked about that but they already have said we could rent the nature kids building from them (which i think is the perfect building for this), and we just need to get moving again on it. working on that now because this harmony thing has fired me up again about the HS resource center because i’d like them to go hand in hand. so now i’m working with shawna to share what i remember from harmony that she might want to incorporate into her school…and suggesting that they open up the program to homeschoolers as well.
the school idea is a much bigger one, and i don’t know that i will be able to follow through completely on it…its better that shawna is in charge of that one. she has the business knowledge on that subject and potentially the funding to work on it. i will just continue to share the actual vision of what it could look like in action.
i took a copy of the video (adam burned it to dvd for me) over to shawna so she could see harmony in action. i hope she’s impressed. i also went so far as to print up a copy of the map of the unitarian church property where the school used to be located (they had a copy of it on the unitarian’s website) and marked the different things she sees in the video, on the map. and wrote up a synopsis of what she was seeing in the video as well. so she would understand a little more about what she’s watching. and she said she’d ask me questions after she gets a chance to watch it.
i hope i can help inject some harmony into this new school. it would be just marvelous! i just remember so much about that school that i would want for my kids.
harmony was more than a school…it was a community…a family. that’s what i am missing in my life right now. i was thinking of this the other day…why am i so driven by these sort of ideas? its because i grew up in a family that was very much entrenched in a community…in childhood it was a church community and a military community…mostly church. and then later it was harmony and then it was the community of moms at la leche league, and then my mommy and me mini-community for awhile (the families that attended my program were very much like a family)…and when we started homeschooling i had thought that that would be my next community but its turning out to be like pulling teeth to get that group to pull together like a community and attend regular events together and such. its just not happening so far. i feel like i’m beating my head against a wall. i think its just that the specific families in the group are just more happy not being involved in group things. they do it here and there, but its not what i personally want and need.
i feel empty without a community. my dad keeps trying to get me to go to church…but i cannot go back to that again…there’s not a church that i’ve found yet here locally that i would feel at home at. i’m not christian and the only other option that is not another belief system that i equally don’t believe in, is the unitarian church and i simply don’t like the local unitarian church. it just doesn’t give me a feeling of acceptance. i always feel like a stranger going there. i’m used to churches where people embrace newcomers and you are instantly welcome…i feel pretty much ignored going to the unitarian church here. oh well.
so maybe my homeschool resource center will be that community i’m yearning for. i am hoping that by requiring a membership fee that people will be more inclined to get more involved.
one thing’s for sure…i’m NOT giving up. i want and need a community and i’m going to build it, dammit! i want my kids to have what i am yearning for. they deserve to grow up in a loving community as well…and so that’s what i’m going to create for them. if its the last thing i do!
so for now, i’m going to get back to focusing on that resource center and continue to inject my ideas into shawna’s alternative school idea. 🙂 see what comes of it. at the very least, i can get more going for the HS resource center…which shouldn’t be too too much work. we’ll see. 🙂
ah i just soooooo look forward to the day that i can feel like i belong to a community again.
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