It blows my mind how fast time flies. By this time next week, ten years will have elapsed since my graduation from eighth grade at the (now-defunct) Stone Church Christian Academy. In some ways, it doesn’t feel that long. In other ways, it amazes me that it has only been ten years.
I could give a year-by-year rundown of my time at the school, but that would only be self-edifying, and I really don’t feel like doing that. I could give a recap of our eighth grade graduation, as I still have VHS footage of the event. I’ll spare you that as well. Nothing of great note occurred outside of some amusing one-liners from Mr. Prosapio and a family of one of my classmates causing a bit of a scene. I guess I will attack this post from three directions. I will do my best to cover the things about my experience that were positive, the things that were negative, and some of my feelings, etc. that have changed over the course of the past ten years.
I had the good fortune of spending all day for nine years (since we did not switch classes at Stone) with three of my closest friends growing up. Not unsurprisingly, those guys are still my closest friends. In addition to them, I was close with a great number of my other classmates. A lot of the girls were all sorts of fun, and in all honesty, I looked forward to getting up each morning with the opportunity to hang out with (most of) my classmates. Sure, I did not get along with a few of my classmates at times, but it was nothing serious (and nothing close to what I had to deal with at times in high school).
I also had the privilege of having my favorite teacher twice. Mr. Clifton was about THE best person possible to deal with the 24 of us. No, he was not the perfect teacher, and yes, some educational scholars may have cringed at some of his styles and methods, but he was successful in reaching us, in connecting with us, and in making us care about what he had to say. His relative youth (it’s a weird thought to think that I am currently the same age that he was when he taught our eighth grade class) and Virginian charm really resonated with most of us. He was one of the primary reasons I became interested in education. There were many other excellent teachers (as well as a few teachers that I did not enjoy). For the most part, the school excelled in providing instructors who gelled with the students.
The final positive I feel like discussing were some of the special events that made Stone what it was. We had weekly chapel, but for the three major holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter) things were turned up a notch. It had a more important feel. I’ll never forget the Thanksgiving dinners we had following the chapel, nor will I forget Field Day (a day of athletic events) or Grandparents Day (a day where our grandparents got to observe our classes and eat lunch out of an elaborately decorated box).
As much as I probably gushed about the school in the previous paragraphs, Stone was certainly not without its faults. First things first, the curriculum was atrocious. While it was strong in its grammatical foundations and its rote memorization training, it certainly lacked in most other areas. Science was a joke, and math did absolutely nothing to prepare students for high school. The disallowance of calculators did students no favors as well. The history curriculum was thorough, but unfortunately biased. Anyone and anything without a fundamentalist Christian background was more or less doomed to the depths of hell and buried in the book.
While I cannot fault Stone entirely for the curriculum (since they were not the ones who wrote it), I can not say the same for the next point. Stone attempted to instill a sense of discipline and respect in its students but did so at the cost of breaking down the individuality of the students. While I was more than fine with wearing uniforms (because I really didn’t care what I looked like until early 2003), some of the rules were excessive. In-school suspensions for boys who got their hair cut too short were way over the top. Limiting the color of girls’ nail polish to red, pink, and purple was ridiculous as well. There are many other rules with which I do not agree, but I will not continue on because a) I think I have said enough, b) many not involved with the school will find them unbelievable, and c) I do not wish to come across as condescending to those who found these rules perfectly acceptable.
Unfortunately, the most glaring negative of the school (and I truly do not believe this one was intentional) was its inability to socially prepare its students for the non-sheltered world of public high school. As I have progressed in my study of the educational field, I have become more and more of a proponent of the middle school system. It is a specific system that prepares students academically, socially, and emotionally. It is an especially important period of students’ lives, and it is the responsibility of the school to do their part in shaping the lives of its students and aiding their journey of self-discovery and self-sufficiency. By providing an extremely sheltered “bubble”, it made the transition to high school exponentially more challenging. While I do not speak for all students in saying that, I know this to be true in my own life, and in speaking with some other graduates, it was true in theirs.
So, what has changed the past ten years? Other than finally beginning to grow into my ears (a little), a lot. If you had asked me ten years ago about the school, I would’ve likely told you of my belief that the school could do no wrong. As I got older, and as I became slightly more socially adept, I became more aware of some of its shortcomings. I realized that for many years I truly did live in a bubble.
A lot has changed with my classmates as well. A number of them are married. One has sadly passed away. Some have probably gotten arrested. I am no longer close with any of my female classmates. It happens. Time goes by and people grow apart. It doesn’t make any of us bad people. It just makes us human.
The school itself is no longer in existence. After a tumultuous final few years, the school closed its doors for the last time in May 2009. Stone Church no longer exists in that location, either. As I said, much has changed.
After all this reflection and remembrance, I asked myself two questions. First, if I could go back in time and change my personal history, would I still have attended Stone? Second, would I ever send my (potential future) children to a school like Stone? To answer the first question, I weighed the social negatives against the friends I made and still have to this day. I would not trade them for anything; therefore, I would still choose to attend Stone. To answer the second question, I don’t believe we live in a day and age where private school is that much of a greater good than public school. In my experiences with both private and public schools, both have their positive and negatives. The positives of private schooling do not offset the economic burden. So, while I would not change the details of my life, I would not choose that life for my children.
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