It begins with the cheerful pitter-patter of little feet, intermixed with the thod-clod of slightly bigger feet. Seconds later, cheerful giggles and exuberant, youthful chatter joins the song. Classroom doors swing open, tables rearrange, and maps, paints, beakers, and props leap from their storage bins and disperse from wall-to-wall, delightfully and expectantly awaiting the pending arrival of 21 budding scholars, aged 4-12, and their homeschooling families.
It’s 7:30a.m. on Friday morning at The Presbyterian Church of Floyd. The joyful hustle and bustle of preparations made by tutoring moms and dads for the Floyd Classical Conversations “community day” is in full swing. A little over an hour later, the usual Friday procession of vans, SUVs, and pickup trucks makes the right turn from Newtown Road into the covered church driveway. Backpack clad, lunchbox toting families burst through the double glass doors just in time for prayer, praise, and scripture in the sanctuary.
Childrens’ hymns fill the old brick walled sanctuary from one stained glass window to another, as the moms and dads talk and as the children find pews to settle into with their friends. The Lord’s Prayer resounds from the hearts of the smallest to the largest participants. John 1 also echoes off their lips in memorized song. A half hour later, a child will volunteer to pray aloud for their community, marking the ending of the gathering known as “morning assembly”.
After the assembly comes the academic program called “Foundations”. As scholars gather in their age-grouped classrooms, the sounds shift into separate unique pockets that fuse into a collective symphony loud enough to be heard down the long, old church hallway, all the way down the corridor to the pastor’s office. The littlest voices, ages 4-5, can be heard chanting their new memory work while skipping around their classroom. The oldest voices, ages 9-12, can be heard in confident shouts as they recite newly acquired knowledge, often with precision and always with enthusiasm. The voices from the middle-aged group, ages 6-8, can be heard mingled with the sound of a gathering drum used by one of the tutors. If you take a peek through the windows you’ll almost always see a few dance moves or several ridiculous costumes from children and parents alike.
As the Foundations program progresses, the song takes on a new chorus marked by exclamations and questions as scholars become junior scientists, eagerly engaging in the process of the scientific method. This engagement predictably includes thoughtful hypotheses, exclamations of surprise, and most often some pretty messy experiments. Another half hour goes by and the room quiets as a tutor reads a biography for the current week’s “great artist”. After the reading is finished, each child is tasked with emulating the art style from the selected artist. The shuffling of craft paper follows as paint is poured into a stash of palettes and served to each child. The exclamatory sounds of the morning dissipate and soften to whispers, as little hands grasp tiny brushes while they paint expressive and remarkably unique pictures. The atmosphere is quieter still as students bravely show off their works to their peers.
After three hours in community, the morning program reaches its finale with a crescendo as parachutes, jeopardy boards, and miniature guitars are dragged out for exciting review games. Following review time, a parade of lunch boxes and laughter spills over into the hall and out into the churchyard as families reunite for a time of open-ended fellowship during lunch and recess. Homeschooled children fill the field and playground, acting out sword fights, sharing the swing set, and jamming together with their stringed instruments in true Floydian style.
After the boisterous, beautiful noise of recess, another procession of vehicles flows in and out of the parking lot caravanning the younger scholars to their homes until next week’s day in community comes again. The morning’s symphony settles as the sounds reunify, marked by an increase in maturity and a steadiness in pace. At this time, the 9-12 year olds grab their oversized white boards and they reconvene in the largest classroom space to learn the art of structured, classical writing in the afternoon program known as “Essentials.” These older students analysis sentences and gain a command of technical grammar unfamiliar to most educated adults, while also crafting their own written pieces. The final portion of this time includes the drilling of complicated arithmetic problems and solutions through playful competition and games.
Two hours later, the atmosphere briefly and succinctly picks up pace again as the sounds of shifting tables, dragging chairs, sweeping floors, and restocking bins fills the space. The conclusion of the Floyd Classical Conversations community day resembles how it began. The sounds of chatter and potter-pattering return. This time, though, the sounds go out the heavy backdoor of the church and drift into the vehicles they arrived in.
This is the pulsing heartbeat of a day spent in worship, learning, and fellowship with the Floyd Classical Conversations community. Licensed Classical Conversations communities serve homeschooling families worldwide, but there had never been a local CC community less than an hour drive from Floyd County until last year. As simple as it may sound, the idea to build a Floyd-based CC community began as a hopeful daydream of the founding director, Mrs. Emily Stansberry.
Mrs. Stansberry had spent many years as a public school teacher and fell in love with education. She knew that she would want to homeschool her own children once she became a parent. She and her husband, Matthew, moved to Floyd in 2014. After having kids, they began homeschooling and found a CC community based in Roanoke. Even then, her calling to education had not been fully realized. In the fall of 2022, Mrs. Stansberry was standing with her youngest on her hip in the long hallway of her family’s church and peered through the door window of her children’s church classroom. She witnessed wiggles, giggles, and exuberance in the form of a simple Bible lesson in Sunday School. At that time, the Stansberry family, including her husband and three children, were still making the long weekly trek to a CC community in Roanoke. She began to wonder if a CC community could be facilitated in Floyd. As time went by, the Stansberry family became even more grounded in the value of the CC curriculum, and that simple daydream grew to a higher, profoundly consistent call to begin such a community.
As Mrs. Stansberry began sharing her desire to grow a local program to serve her home county, the necessary support and commitment began to arrive. Pastor Bob McLavey, the elders and congregation at The Presbyterian Church of Floyd, and local as well as regional CC leadership came forward to give the Stansberrys the needed support to successfully launch a fully licensed program. In August 2023, the Floyd CC families met for their first academic orientation to learn about the year ahead. Two weeks later, they began the official community day program. During their first fall semester together the community was additionally honored and supported by becoming a VELA Educational Grant Recipient. Additionally, the Floyd CC has the honor of hosting a 2024 CC Practicum on Friday, May 17th. Practicum is a free, day-long classical learning event that serves homeschooling, or interested in homeschooling, parents and grandparents in Floyd and surrounding counties.
Within the Floyd CC community, all members of the family play active, vital roles. Parents serve as licensed tutors that lead classes on community day each week. Non-tutoring parents serve as classroom helpers, experiment and art facilitators, and substitute tutors. CC is a paid academic program with a set weekly structure more akin to a private school experience for homeschooling families, different from the “co-op” structure familiar to most local homeschooling families. The financial reciprocity for parents who serve in more demanding roles is a featured highlight of the program.
Floyd Classical Conversations is planning for an exciting academic program for 2024-2025. In addition to the Foundations and Essentials programs offered for 4-11 year olds, Floyd CC is expanding to also offer “Challenge” programming for teens ages 12-14 in the upcoming year. Open application season begins March 1st.
www.ClassicalConversations.com
FloydClassicalConversations@gmail.com