Shawnee Hills Agape Folk School - Cobden, Ill.

I took my first trip down to the Shawnee Hills Agape Folk School this morning. It's a small, Christian K-12 private school located in Cobden, Ill., that I've been wanting to do a story on since I learned of it early last semester. This semester, I plan to do a picture story on it for Phil Greer's Picture Story class, as well as a multimedia project involving video, slide shows, and Flash animation. In the end, I would love to have a video or slide show for each of the students, 17 altogether, and arrange them with a main slide show all in a Flash project. I may just feature a few of the students in videos if some of them don't work out too well. I'll probably visit the school at least once a week from now on, but this time I just introduced myself and got a feel for how the classes and activities worked.

The kids are great. Some of them even came up to me and introduced themselves all politely and said it was a pleasure to meet me. Each one of them has a different story as to why they are there. Many of them have had problems in public schools, such as with learning disabilities or behavioral issues. I think, for the most part, their parents just want them to have an education with the inclusion of God and the teachings of The Bible, which is definitely what they get.

They begin every school day with devotions, which is bible study and prayer, and the students themselves often help with teaching scriptures to the other kids. This morning they talked about David and Goliath and discussed the things that are Goliaths in their lives. One girl told the teacher, Jill, who happens to be my Aunt Debbie's sister, that the Goliath in her life would be how her mom and dad fight. Most of the kids agreed that a Goliath for all of them is getting more kids to come to SHAF, so that they can learn about God, too.

This is one of the kids that has already caught my attention. His name is Johnathon and he has bright blue eyes and a face like he should be some kind of child actor. He's very quiet and apparently sensitive, but something I learned about him is that he loves the ocean. He is constantly drawing fish, sharks, dolphins, rays, barracuda, squid, octopus, starfish, seahorses, coral, etc., and he knows the name of every kind of sea life there is. A 5 year old. Jill says he wants to be an oceanographer and she has a collection of sea animals he's drawn, colored and cut out and she's amazed by the detail he includes in his creatures.

Here are some numbers regarding the school's operation. 17 students. 3 teachers. Class 4 days a week (Mon-Thu). Class 8am to 3:45pm. $2,000 yearly tuition. 13 grade levels. 5-6 students per class. 2 pledges of allegiance (American and Christian flags). 1 God.

This little guy's name is August and he wanted me to get a picture of his polar bear folder. He's a kindergartner with a lot of energy, but he needs a little help devoting that energy to learning letters and numbers.

The school offers the kids a chance to learn many extra talents, such as piano lessons (like today), sewing, breadmaking, gardening, art, music and quilting, among other things. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, the kids at SHAF won first prize in a national quilting contest held by the National Quilters' Association in Paducah, Ky. They beat over 60 other schools.

They are divided into three classes: Kindergarten, 1st through 4th grades, and 5th grade up (about 5-6 kids in each). The school uses a challenging curriculum, but the education is completely individualized. So, one 11-year-old may be working the 7th grade, while another 11-year-old might be working on the 5th grade. In theory, a child could complete all the grades and graduate with a high school diploma long before reaching typical high school senior age. Bonnie holds that the material is challenging, however, so I'm sure it would be a lot of work to graduate early.

I'll probably post on SHAF School every week as I continue to produce pictures and video from my visits. I scheduled my next visit for Monday, when I'm gonna focus mainly on a video interview with the school's founder, administrator and teacher, Bonnie Vines.

-TB