Different Mission. Different Model. Different Results
Back in 2006, I decided to homeschool my children. At the time, I had one in high school, one in middle school, and one in elementary school, and I was absolutely intimidated by the thought that my children's educational future—and everything attached to that—rested in my hands. I was terrified of getting it wrong.
In the beginning, I did what I knew to do. I tried to run our home school like I’d seen public schools run. That didn’t work. It didn’t work any better when I tried to run our home school like a private school. My children quickly became frustrated and so did I, as I tried to maintain strict schedules and unmanageable expectations for them and for myself. Something had to give, and it did when one day I heard a still small voice say, “This is not a public school.” That’s it. That’s all I heard, but I quickly understood the message.
I had decided to homeschool my children because I recognized that they needed something different. That meant I needed to give them something different. What works for public schools and private schools wouldn’t work for our home school. We had a different mission, so we had to employ a different model. And we did.
Learning took place in our home school in countless unconventional ways that worked for me and my student body of three.
I’m proud of the results our home school produced. All of my children went on to college and have done quite well. I’m proud of them.
That same philosophy shapes ArtXecute. ArtXecute is a performing arts program. That much is true. But we’re different. While, yes, we produce theatre productions, that is not our primary aim. Understanding the stage is more than a place to perform—it’s a place to prepare, we utilize the power of performance to teach the disciplines of life. Yes, our students get on stage—and you bettah believe they do their thang—but what we aim to do is so much bigger than the stage. Our primary concern is what happens when they’re off stage.
We want to make sure our students are prepared to handle whatever life throws them once they leave the stage..
And keeping the main thing the main thing means that our program doesn’t follow the typical theatre model. We don’t have a four-show or five-show season. We take longer than eight or nine weeks to mount a show. We move a lot slower than that. We keep our students closer to us a lot longer than that. Why? Because it takes time to build a family. It takes time for students to discover the treasures deep within them. So . . . we take time.
Our mission is different, so our model is different.
Different mission. Different model. Different results.
From ArtXecute’s production of Annie
Photo by Terrie Nelson