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Feb. 20, 2009
Planning Meeting Jitters
I actually love leading the planning meeting, because it's cool to see what emerges as our schedule. But since I stood everyone up last week accidentally, I'm a little nervous. I always get nervous at planning meeting night anyway, sort of like stage excitement.
I've been praised for having a vision for the co-op, but really I don't have one for specifics. I want us to be a place where we can bless one another with our talents and children, so that the kids get some group learning experiences, and the parents have a place to shine. (If we also fill in one another's gaps, that's great too, but that hasn't happened in our experience. I think we'd need to be the ones telling everyone which curriculum to use if we were seriously going to fill educational gaps, and we are too loose for that.) I want us to glorify God by the excellence of our work. But I don't have a specific vision beyond those operating values.
Small can be beautiful.
But I'm reminded of a group assignment in college. No one wanted to take chairmanship on the imaginary civic problem, and organize a report about where to cite a road. I got antsy seeing us talk in circles, and suggested a quick and dirty way of getting something turned in. I was after getting it done, not getting an A. I wound up "in charge."
I quickly came up with an "answer" to the problem, and assigned the parts to the various members of the group by their apparent strengths, agreed to a follow up meeting where we'd turn our parts into the English major who would be the editor and compiler, and went to supper right as the line was closing.
Having neglected to discuss my 'answer' with the others in the group, the parts were written partly to support my quick and dirty solution, and partly to undermine it! The freshman editor was handed files to put on his computer that argued against each other. The business major rolled his eyes at my 'solution' since it was more expensive than other solutions, and we all eventually got a B. I had warned them, I was not interested in getting an A, just getting to dinner before the cafeteria closed!
That technical writing class was very enlightening. My prose tightened up too.
As co-op coordinator, I'm interested in organizing the group's ideas into a healthy program where no one's child is running unsupervised while we figure out what we are doing, no teacher is penalized by having to set up their class for other people while watching their own (bored) kids simultaneously, and the money is available for expenditures as expenses come up, so no volunteer is put out too much. But beyond that, I want them to come up with the content of the classes.
It can be exhilarating to be part of. But some of the folks are dropping out as their oldest kids get into high school. We seem to be the young elementary/middle school co-op. I can't fault them for leaving, we take a lot out of our parents, and schooling teen agers takes a lot of careful budgeting of time and money. But I sure do miss them. I wonder if we are doing something wrong that we don't seem to grow up with the families but families out grow us, why our co-op is one of the things people can do without.
Perhaps my lack of specific vision (or the presence of an awesome cottage school nearby with classes for High School kids) has limited us to younger families.
Small can be disappointing.
Well, each planning meeting creates a whole new co-op. There might be some new families at the meeting, we'll see what comes up.
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