Transcript:
Rev. Jeremy Walker (00:17):
And welcome back to another episode of the Preschool Pioneers podcast. I’m your host, Reverend Jeremy Walker, and on this episode we’re going to be discussing, what’s the trouble with finder’s keepers? We’re going to discuss how to deal with parental concerns and of course discuss our GCS apprenticeship program and a little bit of an overview.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (00:40):
You can visit our website at CR101Radio.com to find this episode and more. If you’re more of a social media buff, you can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/PreschoolPioneerspodcast.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (00:55):
For those of you that like Twitter, you can find us on twitter.com/Pioneerspodcast. And we also have an Instagram page to which we post photos and information, and you can find us on Instagram.com/CR101Radio.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (01:14):
So let’s go ahead and get ourselves started with this episode. We’re going to start with the concept of why Christians should become teachers. That’s kind of our main focus here because our hopes are to promote other Christians to see the need for Christian education and the absolute necessity for them to become teachers, start schools and to influence others.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (01:44):
So to begin with, we’re going to be discussing a passage called Exodus 23 verse four. “If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it in back to him again.”
Rev. Jeremy Walker (02:02):
Well, Exodus 23:4 is part of the Old Testament and for many people, the Old Testament, I’m not sure why, but some Christians consider the Old Testament to be obsolete. In other words, something that Christians are not obligated to follow anymore. Ridiculous.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (02:21):
The whole Bible itself is our guide. It’s the Old Testament, the New Testament. You can’t pick up the New Testament without it pointing back to the foundation that was laid in the Old Testament itself. I genuinely believe that most Christians just are confused about what in the world’s going on. But we’re going to skip past that for now and just go into why Christians should become teachers and how it relates to your enemy and their ox or their ass or their donkey goes astray.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (02:55):
So this verse in the Old Testament with Moses and the Israelites was saying that God wanted the Israelites, they had somebody who hated them. Now this isn’t an enemy who’s trying to kill you, but this is a person who dislikes you, a person who is not friendly to you. And so this is a person that obviously you do not have close connections with in society or otherwise, but somebody who is your enemy.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (03:23):
But you see this person who’s lost their property, an ox or an ass or a donkey. The donkey’s run away, the oxen has run away and you see it. Well, what should you do? Should you just ignore it and walk away?
Rev. Jeremy Walker (03:40):
God says, no. Thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. Now the reason why this is important is because God’s morality, God’s sense of justice, what is right and wrong extends beyond just who you like. It extends to all people. And here, God’s people are supposed to promote and protect the property of all people, even those people who dislike them or even hate them.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (04:10):
Now this has far reaching consequences because a lot of people, a lot of people would like to see non-Christians go out of business. Say somebody who does not operate a business or is a coworker or otherwise and because they’re non-Christian, because they don’t share the same morality as us, we would like to see them fail. We would like to see their businesses go out of business. We’d like to see them lose their jobs.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (04:38):
We were discussing on a different episode or podcast about filming people on a different podcast we run and the concept is that people want to hurt other people. Specifically they think that if it’s a non-Christian they can hurt them. Well, that’s not the case.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (04:57):
Christian morality extends to not just who is your friend, who believes what you believe, but extends to all people including those people who might even hate your guts.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (05:10):
Now see, the funny thing is, is that people believe that for some reason the New Testament is the time of grace and mercy and peace and love. In the Old Testament was law and judgment and oppression. It’s ridiculous, completely ridiculous.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (05:34):
See, I became a Christian when I was 17 meaning I became one because that’s when God decided to convert me. And at that time I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong with Christianity. But the problem was, is it was a lawless faith. It was a people who believed that they had faith and they had grace, but they had no law.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (05:59):
And whenever you have that, the people themselves have to create their own law. They have to decide or determine for themselves what is right and wrong. And so you get lots of people who have all kinds of ideas.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (06:12):
One of the ideas is that you should just love everybody equally, and to a certain extent, that is true. Meaning in this case here, it doesn’t matter who you are, you should be helping them to protect their property.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (06:28):
But it doesn’t mean unconditional love. If your enemy had lost his gun and you knew where it was and he was going to, when you retrieved that gun, shoot you, you would not assist them with finding their gun. These kinds of ideas.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (06:47):
When it says your enemy, it doesn’t mean someone who’s deliberately causing you harm. It just means somebody doesn’t like you. Somebody who is not promoting you. It might be somebody you just dislike and they dislike you, for a number of reasons. But this right here tells you that every single person’s personal property is important.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (07:10):
Now, Christians should become teachers because most people do not teach this. The concept of finder’s keepers is one that we talk with kids about, cause as I was growing up, it was something that they taught the kids or the kids taught themselves. Finders keepers, losers weepers, and if you found something, this was a humanistic idea, of course, you were allowed to keep it.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (07:32):
So if it was money or a toy, it doesn’t matter what it was, but you found it, you got to keep it. And if you lost it, you had to weep. Or because you’re going to cry because you lost it. Nobody’s going to help you get your stuff back.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (07:45):
See, this is the contrast between humanism and Christianity. In humanism, it is finders keepers, losers weepers. In Christianity, it is finders bringer backers, if you could say such like thing, and losers and people who are then now happy because why? When you lose something, other people, if they find it are going to attempt to bring it back to you.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (08:14):
And this is tied directly into the eighth commandment, thou shalt not steal, but the commandments themselves are negative, but all their case laws also tell you not just what you shouldn’t do, but also what you should do. In this case, it tells you the protection of private property for all people.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (08:33):
Now this has far reaching consequences because as the children grow, if you are a good teacher, you become a teacher. You teach children the 10 commandments. You teach them, thou shalt not steal. You teach them the importance of protecting the property of other people. The importance of if you find someone else’s property, you should bring it back to them and give it back to that person. You’re supposed to purposefully protect other people’s property, not just your own.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (09:01):
And on top of that, your enemies are going to see you and say, you’re not treating me harshly. You don’t hate me. Because we show love by keeping the commandments. People think that we show love by avoiding the commandments. We show love by not holding people to the standard of the commandments. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (09:23):
We show our love because we keep the commandments towards other people, including those people who might dislike you or have a problem with you.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (09:30):
See, here somebody who has a problem with you, dislikes you, but when you see their property goes missing and you can help, you do. You go over there, you bring it back to them because the Christian isn’t supposed to be the person who attempts to further or propagate the problems.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (09:49):
Their job is to help people as the needs arises and if it does come up that they need help, you help them. If there is a genuine need, you’re there to keep the commandments towards this person. Now, it doesn’t mean you go out of the way and you wash their car for them and you do all kinds of other stuff and go shopping for them, but it does mean if their property is in danger, you help and then tell them about it. You attempt to preserve their property. It’s important to you because it’s important to God.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (10:20):
Now, the important part of this and how this ties into why Christians should become teachers, because when children grow up, what do you think they’re going to do when they grow up? They’re also going to be going into the workforce. They’re going to work with other people and they’re also going to be what we like to call it in the political world, they’re going to be voting.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (10:39):
If you’re not paying attention, right now you have different parties in America for people who are going for president and some of them are what we call socialist. That means on the platforms that they’re running is we’re going to tax the rich. We’re going to take away money from these people and we’re going to give you free stuff here and free stuff there and free stuff here and free stuff there. Because after all, these are the rich people, so it’s okay to take from them because they have so much money. We can steal it from them and give it to the poor. A sado Robin Hood.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (11:13):
See if Christians become teachers, not only do they teach these children God’s commandments and it affects them right now, but also it starts to permeate into their families, into their communities, and eventually permeates into a nation.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (11:27):
Could you imagine a nation of children who grew up believing and understanding that they’re not supposed to steal the property of other people, including people who dislike them? Could you imagine what could happen if a political candidate stood up there and said, I’m going to steal from the rich and give to the poor, and all the people said, we’re not voting for you. You’re promoting theft and we are completely against theft.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (11:50):
If you’re going to steal from someone, it doesn’t matter who they are. We’re not going to support you and therefore this type of talking point just falls apart. It can completely change the morality of a nation just with Christians who become teachers and teach simple things, simple concepts like bringing back the personal property and protecting of those people who might even dislike you.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (12:15):
So that’s going to be this part of why Christians should become teachers is because as we teach Christian morality, it affects the child today. It affects the adult of tomorrow and it affects the future of society in general because what we believe affects the world around us and that is why Christians should become teachers.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (12:36):
Now to discuss a little bit moving on here, some of the other content and things we’re working on. If you haven’t heard rushdoonyradio.org, the name R.J. Rushdoony should be somebody that I hope you become familiar with.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (12:52):
He’s been very instrumental in my life and we’ve been working with Chalcedon Foundation to produce the rushdoonyradio website, rushdoonyradio.org and bring back Rushdoony’s lectures and sermons and even creating audio books to explain and to show the next generation of people his teachings.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (13:14):
Now once again, he is a great lecturer, he is a great pastor. He has a lot of wonderful things to say and it is part of what we partner with and hopefully you’ll check it out.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (13:24):
Also, of course we have CR101Radio.com. It’s actually an internet radio station that we have which plays podcasts, lectures, sermons and other things, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So check that out at CR101Radio.com.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (13:41):
And we also have another podcast which we produce as well called reform, reproduce and reconstruct. You can find that at CR101Radio.com/reformreproduceandreconstruct and that’s a fun one that I also help to host because it talks about what we should believe, how it affects the family and what the family should be doing, and of course what we should be doing as how to impact society and reconstruct things.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (14:10):
But let’s go ahead and move on to our next section where we want to deal with parental concerns cause the field guide here on Preschool Pioneers is not just the theoretical stuff, which is like what we talked about in the first section all the time, why Christians should become teachers. That’s the theological side, the foundational side, the promotion of why we should be doing what we’re doing.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (14:34):
But this side is, let’s say we get beyond that. You’re somebody who wants to become a teacher or is a teacher or wants to run a school or does want to run a school and already does. The field guide is meant to help you kind of get the practical aspects of it because theoretical stuff is one thing. The practical side is something completely different.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (14:55):
So how do we deal with parental concerns? I’ve been dealing with parental concerns for over 20 years myself. I am a parent. I have 11 children with my wife and so parental concerns are a big thing to me.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (15:08):
One major aspect of parental concerns is because I have them myself and if you’re a parent, you can sympathize or empathize with parents and their concerns and hopefully you should because I know I do as a parent.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (15:23):
But let’s say a parent comes to you and they have a concern over a health issue. If it’s the child is sick or has a fever or any type of symptoms that they have, but the parent comes to you and they have health concerns. How should you handle that?
Rev. Jeremy Walker (15:39):
What about if the child is crying? They’re a new parent, the child is dropping off and they’re crying throughout when the parent drops off. What do you do to console that parent? What does the parent need?
Rev. Jeremy Walker (15:51):
Or if they’re potty training, what kind of things are helpful to kind of get parents through that? And they’re always coming to you for advice because as a parent myself, I’ve potty trained 11 children and of course, so I have a lot of experience with that.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (16:05):
And so here are some of the ideas about how to handle parental concerns. To handle parental concerns isn’t overly complicated. I mean the first thing you want to do as a teacher or as an operator or a manager of a Christian school, listen to the concern. You never want to interrupt. You just want you to listen. Say, how is it that I can help you? What is it that you’re concerned about?
Rev. Jeremy Walker (16:27):
Most of the time in general, people do not tell you what they’re really concerned about. They’ll start talking to you about one thing, but then they don’t always bring up exactly what they’re concerned about or they don’t explain it properly. And I find that to be the biggest cases that I have to kind of pull out of people what they’re really trying to get at.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (16:47):
You have to remember, most people are not comfortable with confrontation. Most people do not like that. They want a good relationship or they just don’t like to confront people. They don’t want somebody to get upset at them or be angry at them.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (16:59):
I’ve heard other people say before, if I say something and you take it wrong, will you be upset at me and take it out on my child? I’ve heard that kind of stuff before too and I mean I think it would be an appalling thing if somebody would be angry at someone else and then take it out on a child.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (17:17):
But if it’s a non-Christian world, which the vast majority of what we have in America today is operating in a non-Christian environment, they have a right to be concerned. I mean the vast majority of people do not have Christian morals, Christian ethics and therefore they would take out their anger, their pettiness on the child, so people do have a legitimate concern.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (17:40):
Although for me, I’ve always found it to be strange because I could never and would never do such a thing, especially having kids myself. But I would find that to be something that’d be unthinkable, but you know it is something that is apparently pretty common with people, which is why people are concerned about it.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (17:57):
But anyways, let’s say they have health concerns. You want to listen to what those health concerns are, whatever the issue is. Now, if it’s something that is standard, standard would be like, well, my child woke up this morning and they were running a fever or they had shivers. They’re throwing up, they had diarrhea, whatever.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (18:20):
Follow your school’s protocols. If you don’t have protocols, you need to have them. Protocols are your friend. Policies are the foundation of everything that you need to protect your school and to know what to do. It helps everybody know what to do and it also avoids argumentation. It avoids indecision. It does everything that you need.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (18:40):
Now our schools have an operations manual which lays out all this stuff. We might get into that later. But your school, if you don’t have an operations manual, if you don’t have policies, you definitely need to get them.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (18:52):
But in the case of health, if a child is exhibiting a fever, they need to go to the doctor. If they have unexplained symptoms, you need to go to the doctor. If they’re vomiting? You need to go to the doctor.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (19:03):
So basically, do not admit children if a parent comes to the office in the morning and you’re talking to them about it, just say, just take the kid to the doctor. See what’s going on, get a doctor’s note before you return. That’s a good idea for health issues.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (19:17):
And like I said, you never want to, and this is a big thing I think that most people miss, you never want to diagnose, even if you’ve been in the business for a long time. I’ve been doing it for 20 plus years now. Even if you have a really good idea, but you think you know exactly what the problem is.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (19:35):
If you’ve seen a virus type, if you’ve seen a type of ear infection, if yada, yada, yada, whatever it is. You cannot put your personal opinion into it. You have to say, well, I’m not a doctor, so you need to go talk to the doctor and see what they have to say.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (19:49):
So you don’t diagnose, even like in the school, like it’s midday and you saw a child with a red eye and it’s bloodshot. It’s typically going to be the purposes that there’s pinkeye there, or conjunctivitis and if you see, I don’t know if you’ve seen it before, but I have enough that you know what it looks like when you see it.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (20:08):
Anyways, if I saw a child whose eye gets bloodshot midday, didn’t come in with it, but it happens later. I’d call the parent up and say, you know, the child’s eye is red and irritated and they need to go home.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (20:19):
But you would not say, well they have conjunctivitis, they have pinkeye and they can’t come back. You would say go to the doctor, see what’s going on.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (20:26):
And that goes with pretty much any health issue, any symptoms at all. Listen to the concern, follow your protocols and never attempt to diagnose. Always suggest that they go to the doctor and suggest that the doctor diagnose then let you know what they have and when they can come back.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (20:44):
Another big thing is when parents are brand new or not so brand new, but the children start to cry at drop off and things like that. Some people call it separation anxiety. There’s always a fancy name for everything nowadays but it basically means the child cries at drop off.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (21:00):
What you want to do when you’re talking to people is once again listen to their concern, listen to everything they have to say. Ask questions, when you drop off what happens? Let them explain it to you and then hopefully at this point you’ll know the child. If you don’t just, well, let me check into it, but most of the time I know the child and I keep a close eye on things so I know what happens in my building.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (21:22):
And so normally when a parent brings these concerns up to me, I can say, well, you know I saw Johnny and yeah, he does cry a little bit but it doesn’t last more than a few minutes. You should also have protocols for this as well because it will help you with your parents later.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (21:36):
If the child does not stop within five to 10 minutes at most, you will contact them and call them on the phone and have them come back and pick the child up. That will breed confidence with the parent, make them feel comfortable that you will not allow the child just to be distraught and cry all day.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (21:53):
See that’s another aspect as well is that there’s a difference between crying and being distraught. Children in general will cry from time to time. They’re going to get upset, they’re going to be homesick. And so from time to time they might fuss, they might cry a little bit. It’s short lived, it stops, it starts, it stops, it starts. Especially when they’re new or if they’re just cranky, didn’t get enough sleep.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (22:13):
But when you’re talking to people, you explain to them, I will never let your child be distraught. I think that’s a good word because it explains the difference between just kind of being fussy and a child who’s legitimately inconsolable.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (22:27):
And whenever I’m talking to people, that’s what I say to them. If your child is going to cry uncontrollably or inconsolably, I’m obviously going to call you and have you come to the school and pick the child up.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (22:38):
That’s what people want to hear and it should be the policy of the school as well because as a manager or a teacher, you’re promoting trust because they’re not just handing you something to hold on to, like you’re just asking you to hold onto a pencil for the rest of the day. They’re giving you a child and they want to know that that child is properly taken care of while they are not there.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (22:58):
And there’s other things as well you can get into like potty training and other concerns, but for the most part you’re building a relationship with your customer, if this is a parent in your school, and they’ll have to learn to trust you as a person. The policies are important of course, that’s always a very standard and stabilizing force. But at the end of the day, they trust a person, not a facility, not a policy, but they trust a person.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (23:24):
And so if there’s something that the parent needs to know, you’re going to stop everything you need to do and you’re going to talk to that parent, you’re going to get their attention.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (23:31):
And basically while they’re not there, you are going to do everything in your power to make sure that child is properly taken care of. And if anything happens that the parent needs to be made aware of or if whatever problems arise, you’re going to stop everything you need to do. You’re going to contact them, call them and let them know about it.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (23:49):
And when you build that relationship and you build that level of trust, that’s how you’re going to become a successful teacher. That’s how you’re going to become a successful manager or director or owner or an operator is building relationships. Because like I said, policies are important, but people don’t trust policies. People trust personalities. And that’s what you’re really going for.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (24:12):
Now the field guide’s important, but there’s other things we also do as well that are not just the field guide and the other stuff we do. But every single month, there’s two different things we like to do as well cause we want to promote Christians. We want to promote Christian education and part of that is having a good foundation.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (24:30):
So we also give away books here on CR101Radio.com and we have a book giveaway every two weeks. We have a book giveaway roughly every two weeks, but two a month, and you can find that at CR101Radio.com and click on the top, the menu bar, book giveaway. We always have multiple books we’re giving away every month and we promote these things. They’re absolutely free. All you have to do is enter to win and we promote that heavily.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (24:57):
So if you want information, you want to get some free stuff. If you want to get a good foundation of what it means to be a Christian or especially a Christian teacher, the foundation is the theology behind everything you do. So go ahead and check that out. And once again, you can get free books.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (25:12):
We also have a mailing list which if you want to be part of that you can never miss anything. MailChimp is what we utilize for that, just to send out our bimonthly newsletter. It gives you, lets you know when a book is available or rather books that are entered free to, try to get them for free.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (25:31):
We also let you know new content. It might be on Rushdoony Radio. New podcasts that you might’ve missed. Lots of different stuff that you can get directly in your mailbox just by signing up. So you can check that out as well on our website as well. We can help you get set up on that. So check out CR101Radio.com and also look for the signup there on the homepage as well.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (25:53):
So let’s go ahead and move into our third part. And our third part is going to be our GCS apprenticeship program because here at Grace Community School, we’ve been in operation for 30 plus years now and since 1986. And I’ve been here for 20 years of that. 20 plus years, it was here in 1999 was when I first came here, so I’ve been here since then. So is that 20, 21 years roughly.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (26:18):
Anyways, I became an apprentice at the age of 19 and I’ve been with Grace Community School ever since. Now the Grace Community School apprenticeship program is what I enrolled in. It’s a three year program.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (26:31):
And at the time when I was 18, I felt a desire and pull towards Christian education. I saw the need for it. I saw the, one is just the vast negligence of the government schools to actually educate, reading, writing, arithmetic. Gross negligence.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (26:49):
If you think that education is about reading, writing, arithmetic, then you’re not paying attention. The government schools are not concerned with that and they do a horrible job of it, but they do a horrible job of reading, writing and arithmetic because that’s not their goal. Their goal is socialization and the humanization of its students or the humanistic faith.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (27:10):
But I did notice that is that public schools fail at the basic three reading, writing, arithmetic. And then of course the major aspect is that it is a religious organization so it teaches their students the religion of humanism, which is of course contrary to scripture and teaches everything against God and the Bible. The very foundation is evolution and therefore it all falls apart.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (27:35):
But the apprenticeship program is a three year program. And just briefly to give you an overview about what it’s all about, cause I won’t spend too much time on this. First year covers mostly classroom training. The second year is more of a kind of like an assistant manager position, which we’ll get into that in a second.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (27:53):
And the third year is more of learning what management does and it takes about three years to get good at something. Mostly because of trial and error and it does take time to learn skills.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (28:03):
Now we’re not talking about classroom theories, we’re actually talking about actual skills where you learn to actually do something, which I can attest to the fact that I did not know fully what I was getting into, but I have been owning and operating a Christian school here now in Southwest Florida for 20 years and my wife and I, we are fully financially independent. We have 11 children and like I said, we’ve been doing this for years. Able to help other people control the education of our kids. It’s an absolute wonderful program for family and children and of course for the community.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (28:37):
So classroom training is first. You learn classroom cleanliness, classroom control, how to teach children to read. Reading, writing, arithmetic, how to actually do that. Bible instruction’s in there and developmental appropriate practices, sickness and injury prevention. Lots of things go into that first year.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (28:54):
Second year is, like I said, more of an assistant manager thing where you learn classroom management. So not just learning how to operate in the classroom, but how to actually help facilitate the operation of a classroom and multiple classrooms at the same time. So teacher training, that kind of thing.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (29:10):
Employee training and management. You also end up doing employee and customer support. That’s handling customer and employee problems, employee scheduling, regulation maintenance, curriculum management and storage. You also end up doing fire and emergency procedures. All those types of things go into what is a second year.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (29:33):
And the third year goes into more of what a manager goes. So office management, crisis management, phone and customer support, customer relations, business organization, student admission and dismissal, business safety and management, handling inquiries and investigations by police officers, DCF, attorneys. Hiring employees, orientation, dismissing employees, vehicle safety and training and maintenance, student accident, workman’s comp.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (30:02):
All those things go into the third year of management and management of course goes beyond that into accreditation compliance, health department compliance, fire department compliance, and then all the different organizations that go into actually operating a facility.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (30:16):
So it’s not just classroom training and it’s certainly not theory. This is brass tacks, nuts and bolts of how to actually operate a facility and so you’re going to have to need to do lots of these things.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (30:28):
Beyond all that, the three year apprenticeship program also helps people get what’s called a national CDAC certification or child development associates credential, which of course is what is required to own and operate a facility, to run and operate a school.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (30:45):
There’s other things as well like the men will be able to be licensed to preach and eventually be ordained to preach as well after successful apprenticeship as well. There is of course thorough theological training and studies that happens throughout the three years of an apprentice’s time here, which is of course here in Southwest Florida.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (31:08):
And we have free housing for all people that are apprentices with the program, full salary and even monthly bonuses.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (31:17):
So we really do want to not just give the theories out there to people cause I mean why Christian should become teachers is wonderful and all that jazz, but helping people to actually do it. Moving beyond the theory, moving into not just the explanation of practical stuff like the field guide.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (31:35):
But then having a program like the apprenticeship program where we actually will train people how to do it and not at their own cost, but full salary, bonuses, free housing, especially for young people like I was when I was 19 years old, and came to do it. It’s an absolute gold mine for people who want to be in the field of Christian education.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (31:55):
Now I won’t lie to you. Not everybody can do it. It’s not for everybody. Not everybody can do all the things that I’ve just laid out. It does take a very dedicated person. It needs a firm foundation of why you’re doing it. It needs a dedicated person who says, I want to do this and I see the need for it and then of course the commitment to pursue and to push through it.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (32:15):
But if you can do that, our organization, Grace Community School can and will assist in teaching you how to own and operate your own school or how to become a successful Christian school teacher.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (32:26):
And that’s a kind of overall layout. Now for more information you can visit our website at GCSapprenticeship.com for more information on that.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (32:36):
And so moving on, as we’re wrapping up here, we also have other materials that are available as well besides just the apprenticeship program. Some people are not able to join us here in Southwest Florida for training for three years, but they want to run their own school or they have a school but they want to augment it to make it better.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (32:53):
We do have materials available on our website at GCSapprenticeship.com/materials like our Preschool in a Box. Or College can begin at 2 curriculum, operations manual and of course, our very own personalized preschool reading program where we teach children as young as two years old to read.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (33:13):
Now you did not hear me wrong. We do teach children as young as two years old to read. It might sound ridiculous to some but I’ve been doing this for 20 years and my daughter, one of my daughters. Her name is Madeline and she is in the program as well, like all the rest of my children and she is two years old, about two and a half.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (33:34):
Made it through her entire alphabet, went through her entire phonetic base that you have to go through and into reading books. She’s actually reading words and we’re not talking like she’s reading Moby Dick or anything, but she has got the basics of reading and can actually read words and she’s not even three years old yet.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (33:52):
The programs do work and all children are different of course. Not all children will read at two or three or four or even five, but it is possible. And the reading program allows children to read at their own pace but is phonetic based and it does work and those materials are available on our website.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (34:10):
So anyways, this has been another episode of the Preschool Pioneers podcast. I do want to thank everybody for joining us again here on Preschool Pioneers. I do enjoy everybody joining me here and taking out the time to do it.
Rev. Jeremy Walker (34:25):
But this is Jeremy Walker. This has been a Preschool Pioneers podcast, and until next time, this is Jeremy Walker signing off saying, God bless you and you have a great day.