Let’s shadow Peter, a seven-year-old third grader at Genesis Christian Academy. Peter arrives at school at ten to eight. There are a total of six students in his homeroom class. His homeroom is the elementary science room. For the next six weeks, Peter is one of three third graders responsible for morning feeding of the reptiles, fish and small mammals in his homeroom. He has been shown the exact location and proper use of all equipment. He has a specific routine for measuring and weighing food, feeding, watering, and marking a chart on each cage to document his activity. Peter’s homeroom class created all of the charts used to document feeding the first week of school, as part of orientation. Peter’s third grade schedule looks like this:

Today is Monday, and this is the third week in the semester, so classes for this week are held in a 3-4-5-6-7-1-2 sequence:

Today in homeroom, the class prays, Peter’s teacher takes attendance, and the class plays a Bible drill game in two teams. Sometimes they sing praise and worship songs, or they will watch a portion of a Christian video.

At 8:30, Peter moves to his first class of the day, Creative Arts. Creative Arts combines Music, Dance, and Visual Arts. Since it is the beginning of the school year, Peter’s music teacher is concerned that his class master the Genesis Christian Academy school song. This week, she will spend ½ hour each of the three teaching sessions practicing this song. The remaining 75 minutes will be spent doing ceramics on Monday and Wednesday, and dance on Friday.

Peter has 15 minutes between each class. This gives Peter enough time to stop by the school canteen, and get a piece of fruit, yogurt, or a whole grain muffin for a mid morning snack (no “junk foods” are sold in our school.)

Peter then proceeds to his Language Arts class. Today, Peter’s class is out in the garden taping a video documentary on organic farming. The program was conceived and written by Peter and his five classmates. One eight-year-old classmate is operating the digital video camera. Today’s class represents an inter-disciplinary learning module. Peter and his classmates have applied the information learned in the first weeks of school orientation in writing the script. Peter’s teacher has given the class a checklist of terms, such as ‘sustainable agriculture’, ‘anaerobic’, ‘aerobic’, ‘compost’ and ‘organic’, to be used and defined during the course of the documentary. Two whole class periods will be devoted to the filming of this project.

This week period 3 is only an hour and one half. However, next week and the week after Language Arts will be an hour and forty-five minutes, and one and one half hours, respectively. Peter and his classmates will use 45 minutes of the next six class periods to edit the tape and produce a one half hour show. During one art class over the next two weeks, Peter’s class will make posters advertising the screening of their documentary. All student films are run during the lunch hour every day in the elementary Language Arts room. All students from third through twelfth grade are required to turn in critiques of at least three student projects on the first of each month. In addition to editing his documentary next week, Language Arts class for Peter will include learning Latin and Greek prefix and suffix derivatives, and a group reading of an elementary biography of Nelson Mandela.

The school lunch period is 1½ hours long, and is divided into two 45-minute periods. Peter can choose from a variety of activities during lunch break: he can do 45 minutes of assigned computer work in the library during the first segment of the lunch period, view student videos, visit the library to read and check out a book, volunteer as a kindergarten lunch tutor, or take a music lesson.

Time management is part of the orientation during the first weeks of school. Peter has learned how to sign up for activities, enter them on both his and the activity coordinator’s schedule on his computer, and hand write them in his daily planner. In order to assure balance, each student is required to turn in a lunch sheet to the homeroom teacher, documenting his activity.

Although there are several free days for student choices, each student is required to engage in specific activities a certain number of times per month. Peter fully understands the time use requirements he must meet. They have been explained to him, and reinforced through mock time-management exercises in a Monopoly style game format.

Peter eats lunch from 12:45 to 1:30. Most students are finished with lunch in fifteen minutes and are free to go out to play. Today, there is a puppet show going on in the lunchroom, and Peter decides to stay in the lunchroom to watch for the entire period.

After Lunch, Peter has Science. This term, his class is studying the solar system. Today, Peter’s class will learn about the revolution of the earth around the sun, and how this affects the seasons. A hands-on demonstration will be reinforced with a worksheet, and a game format oral quiz. Later in the week, his class will learn how the earth’s rotation on its axis determines day and night.

Peter’s last class of the day is World Studies. Eight to five is a long day for early primary kids; regardless of subject matter, every sixth period teacher of grade 5 and under is required to begin the 6th period with ½ hour of physical play, preferably outside. This play period can involve games in which they perform stunts and answer questions related to subject matter topics, but the purpose of this time is for energy release and to perk the kids up for one more hour of academics. Teachers are also required to have a quick snack for the kids that can be easily divided among a small class, like popcorn. Peter’s teacher has coordinated with the Science teacher’s lesson on the Earth’s relationship to the sun and moon. Today in World Studies, the students will be introduced to time zones, read a book called Somewhere in Time. When the class meets on Wednesday, the pre-class game will divide the class up into time zones to figure out relative times of different locations.

Preparation for College: The Upper School Curriculum

Teaching modules and class subjects are the same in both elementary and high school grades. Of course, each discipline will incorporate a greater variety of teaching units. For example, high school Language Arts incorporates etymology, Latin, Greek, research techniques, review of grammar, World, American and Christian literature, creative writing and SAT preparation. Every other discipline includes advanced placement and SAT subject matter testing preparation in the eleventh grade. Extensive college admission guidance counseling will be provided.

In the twelfth grade students will engage in approximately 300 hours of ministry. These supervised placements will vary and may include overseas missions, Baltimore and DC area shelters, a teaching internship at the school, or performance outreach ministry to other schools.

They call themselves "Genesis Men." A few students pause to commemorate a
Spring 2001 trip to "The Holyland Experience," in Orlando, Florida.