Author: Cheryl Swope
Cheryl L. Swope, M.Ed., married 25 years, has a master’s degree in education: Learning Disabilities and a bachelor’s degree in education: Behavior Disorders. Cheryl and her husband home-schooled their 21-year-old adopted special-needs boy/girl twins (both with autism, learning disabilities, and mental illness) from the twins’ infancy with classical Christian education. She holds a lifetime K-12 state teaching certificate in the areas of Learning Disabilities and Behavior Disorders. She has worked with special-needs children, youth, and adults for over thirty years, Cheryl is an advocate of classical Christian education for special-needs and struggling students. The love of history, music, literature, and Latin instilled in her own children has created in Cheryl the desire to share the message that classical education offers benefits to any child.
The highest end of true education is capable, compassionate service to others. When our children struggle with learning, or face challenges such as medical conditions, we can devote extraordinary amounts of time and effort to help them. We cancel plans and sacrifice money so they can receive therapies and see specialists. We change diets, find …
In some circles the word “curriculum” is anathema. It is far better, this thinking asserts, to take a relaxed approach to education, to teach a la carte, or to let the child decide what and when to study. We must not be “dogmatic.” Different children must study different things—or so we begin to believe. We …
Years ago my curly-headed, blue-eyed little boy toddled downstairs one morning in footed pajamas. He watched Daddy fill his briefcase and leave for work. Climbing atop the sofa to wave through the window, he turned to me and said with authority, “Daddy go to work.” He slipped back down the sofa and went about his …
One evening my son came to me beaming: “Mom, you have to read this!” Earlier he had been “in a mood,” so I had sent him to his room with clear instructions: “Do not to speak to anyone the rest of the night until you have read two chapters of your C. S. Lewis literature …
Spelling is the meticulous twin sister of Reading. Reading may receive all the adulation, but Spelling accomplishes the work. Spelling is where students of Reading come to master their lessons. The Role of Spelling Hard-working, durable, and orderly, Spelling holds a respected role in education. Early in the first century, Quintilian wrote: As regards syllables, …
Training the Memory with a Classical Education In the Dickens novel Great Expectations, Estella admits, “There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.” So it is today with the lost art of training the memory …
A classical education curriculum can often be adapted for use with students who have learning challenges. Start with visually clean, uncluttered books with a clear, step-by-step progression and built-in review designed to help you teach for mastery. Then make any or all of the following modifications: 1. Reduce the amount of material presented in each …
One hot Missouri June when my children were very young, we decorated our front porch with a large white container of flowering impatiens. The pink and red petals with deep foliage cheered our doorstep. At the time, I knew that impatiens needed shade, but I hoped they would thrive in the full sun like other …
What is the hardest thing about the different challenges you face in your life? The hardest challenges of my life are not being able to do what I dream about in my life, such as marry, drive a sky-blue bug that is a convertible, act well, sing, dance ballet professionally (Giselle in Swan Lake, Clara …
My daughter works each week in a nursing home. She helps me at home with dusting, folding laundry, and making beds. She feeds her cat and cares for the neighbor’s dog. She takes ballet, enjoys art, plays sports, listens to music, goes to the library, and takes walks with her brother. She cheers all of …
