Archive for category Personalized Homeschool Curriculum

In my book on authentic classical education, Trivium Mastery:  The Intersection of Three Roads, I advocate spending some quiet time reflecting upon your child’s unique gifts, interests, and abilities so that you can intentionally tailor the complete homeschool curriculum and strategic semester plan to capitalize on his or her strengths.  Although my friend Shelly was not actively looking for a learning opportunity that focused on her son’s strengths, the Lord unexpectedly dropped a special experience in her younger son’s lap!  Here is her story:

Nick enjoys acting and he loves history, so it was pretty cool for him to do something that included both interests—the film was set in 1941.  In the film, Nick is the second child of a family of 4 children with 2 older boys and 2 younger girls—just like our family!  We didn’t know this until we arrived for the shoot, and they didn’t know anything about our family either.  We thought that was pretty amazing.  Here’s how this unique learning opportunity came about.

About a year and a half ago, someone sent me an e-mail to send to my homeschooling co-op friends asking if they’d like to be extras in a scene for a short film called “Tarnished “which was being filmed at a local Christian school.  Nick and Luke decided to do it.  They basically just walked out of school with the main character.  It was submitted to Heartland and Sundance Film festivals, but neither chose it.

About a year later, I received a call from a woman who said that she’d met my boys at the filming of “Tarnished” and wondered if they were still “clean cut.”  I told her that they were, and she said that there was another film that the same directors were making, and they needed a 12 year old boy.  Then she said that she remembered Luke having a “classic look” and wondered if he’d be interested.  I thanked her for her comments, but also told her that he is now very tall and doesn’t look like he’s 12 years old anymore.  So she asked me to send pictures of both boys, along with height and weight.  They chose my younger son, Nick, for the part, and we were told to show up in Cincinnati for filming on a certain day.  We were amazed!  Many times people spend time and money trying to get a part like this, but it came to us instead.

When we arrived at the farm where his part was filmed, a woman came up to the car, took one look at Nick and said, “You must be Nick.  You are perfect for this part!  You look like you just stepped out of the 1940’s!”  He just beamed, and I thanked God for the stranger’s comments because they were very genuine and clearly touched him.  He walked a little taller that day and had more confidence than he would have otherwise.  It was so sweet.  (That was my favorite part of the whole experience.)

The P-51 Mustang flew low over our heads about 20 or 30 times that day, but it never lost it’s wow factor!  It was amazing!  In fact, the director told the kids that they “wouldn’t have to act” during that part when the plane flew overhead—they should just do what came naturally.  They were right.  It was exciting every time.

One funny thing was that Nick had to walk through the corn field holding his airplane up high about 80 times—no joke.  He’d walk and they’d say, “Again!”  About the 50^th time walking through the corn, John said,  “Cut!  Nick, you’re holding the plane backward!  You’ve got the tail of the plane in the front.”  Nick looked at him and said, “I know.  I thought you needed some bloopers!”  He had done it on purpose, and the directors just laughed and laughed.  It provided a great moment of levity after working very hard for several hours.  It all took a lot of concentration—more than I would have realized.  For example, when the kids line up in the field and the older brother hands the binoculars to Nick, they filmed that probably 50 times.  Sometimes it was from the front, sometimes from the back or down low or from up high.  So, the kids had to do everything the same way every time to make sure it appeared seamless.  It was really interesting.

Isn’t that a great story? As Shelly noted, Nick enjoys acting and loves history.  I’m sure that he learned more about the  realities of acting and the history of World War II during this filming experience than he knew before he started.  These two aspects of his personality were planted there when the Lord created him.  Each of your children also have unique passions, interests, and abilities that serve a greater purpose than just completing an academic year.  In applying an authentic classical home education, seek to discover those specific areas of interest and ability that help define your child.  Nurture these strengths by selecting learning opportunities that reinforce and improve these innate talents.  You can incorporate these opportunities into your planned top  homeschooling curriculum or  utilize them as extracurricular activities.   Your child will be much happier, and learning will not seem like drudgery…rather lifetime learning will a joy!

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You can watch Nick in action in this 16 minute film created by photographer, John Fleck, for the Tri-state Warbird Musuem in Batavia, Ohio.  Look for the cute little guy with the 1941 Life magazine and toy airplane in the first few minutes of the film.  You’ll agree with the producer who thought he looked like he just stepped out of the 1940s!