31 days of life: Day 17

Its Brandon again, sorry to disappoint.

As a part of Classical Conversations this year, we are offering the Essentials program.  Basically it teaches our kids everything about grammar and writing that we never learned (or didn't pay attention to) so they can be smarter than us.  I hated English class.  I did better in Spanish.  You guessed it.  I am the tutor for Essentials.    Feel free to keep reading when you are done laughing.

Done yet?


Ready?


OK, time to get a grip.


I have a class of four little girls that I am attempting to teach grammar and writing to. I have had to read books and watch videos to learn what to teach.  Did you know that there were only 112 ways to write a sentence?  There are endless possibilities for what they can say, but only 112 ways to do it.

I have learned how to diagram sentence.   Stop laughing.
I know all 8 parts of speech.

Truth be told, I am having a blast teaching my class each week.  However, there are some down sides to tutoring essentials.

1. I see grammar in everything I read.  I find myself saying, "Wow, that was a compound-complex sentence with Verb-transitive Direct Object Pattern"  The worst part is I know what that means.

2. You will all reread this to find all my mistakes.  Just because I teach grammar does not mean that I know how to use it.  Like most good teachers, I use the "Do as I say, not as I do" rule of thumb.

3. I found out this week that to complete my certification, I have to complete three writing assignments.  All of them about elephants.  I have til the end of the month.  I have lots of free time right now because our church has only planned 83 special events in the month of October.

4. I find myself frustrated that I don't already know this stuff.  Then I am horrified that I even care about this stuff.  ( I woke up the other morning wondering how to diagram an appositive.  a month ago I didn't even know what an appositive was.)

Thanks for letting me vent.  I feel better.  (that was a very short sentence, its a stylistic technique to make writing more interesting...did it work?)

I love Essentials and love what I am learning through teaching these girls.  Ultimately, I remind them each week that we are learning to communicate effectively, so that we can communicate the Gospel of Jesus to a lost and dying world.  God gave us language and we can learn to use it for His glory.

Wow, I got kind of serious there for a minute.  That was awkwardly out of character.  Oh well, at least Libby can use this for her editing exercise tomorrow.

Goodnight