Introduction to the 2019-20 Academic Year
Categories: Léo’s Insights 2019-2020
What a difference a day makes! Twenty-four little hours!
These two sentences are actually the first two lines in an old song originally popularized by Dinah Washington in the late 1950s. Although the song was about how one’s life can suddenly be much improved with a positive event, we all know life can also deal us events and issues that can be more of a disastrous nature.
Alberta home educators should have been collectively singing that song on the morning of April 17, 2019. What a difference a day made! Twenty-four little hours saw the removal of an anti-Christian government that essentially thought it was far wiser than parents. Twenty-four little hours moved Education Unlimited from threatened extinction to being given at least another year to live.
If you are wondering what I am talking about, I need to refer you to the final “Léo’s Insights” of last year. In it I explained that our sponsoring school had been served notice that it would lose accreditation and/or funding if it did not capitulate to the NDP Education Minister’s demand to jettison our faith. Had the NDP government been returned to power, our sponsoring school would have been shut down and our fate would have been in question.
This, of course, was a possible worst case scenario which I had to address in case it actually came to be. But then again, what a difference a day makes! In just twenty-four little hours we had a new majority UCP government that I hope will at least reduce the animosity exhibited towards parental authority and religious freedom by the former one.
I cannot say that all is now good. No doubt there will be challenges and some changes. Hopefully they will be improvements over the last four years.
Still, we do need to understand that not all that threatens home education is coming from outside the community. Much of what ails home education in this province is coming from within and needs to be seriously reviewed. However, we will have to leave that topic for some other time.
In the meantime, we will all need to take the time to seriously evaluate our own motivation for home educating. We may be faced with having to make decisions respecting our collective future within the provincial education ministry.
… So, … all of us at Education Unlimited want to thankfully welcome all of you to a new year of home education. We are thankful for having been given another year to serve the home education community. We are thankful for all of you. And, we are thankful for your having chosen us to be your helpers and guides in your home education journey.
You picked us out of a bunch of options because we best fit with your family objectives. You like the way we value our families, faith and our freedom. You appreciate the way we conduct our affairs with the least possible complications. And you value being associated with a group that puts ministry ahead of other considerations.
I trust that this year will see great things for you, your family and the greater home education community. I pray that this year’s blogs or Léo’s Insights will be a blessing and an encouragement to you.
Now go forth and prepare the next generation to be the best!
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