This week, Headmaster Philbrick welcomed the new families to JRHS to begin the orientation process to what it means to be a member of the JRHS Community. These opening remarks offer a great perspective on the predictable outcomes of a successful JRHS career.
“My Parents have been Hobby Farmers for over 50 years. They have owned a small farm here in Candia since the early 70’s, and have embarked on all things agrarian, ranging from gardening to animal husbandry, and everything that goes with it. They have cared for and harvested fields of hay and various crops, and they manage a near-Narnian forest of useable and renewable trees.
For me, it was a great way to grow up, and has instilled in me an appreciation for God and His Creation in a way that is unique and special. Then, giving the small farm life to my own children, guided by their Grandparents, has been a rare and precious gift to them.
Mom and Dad are not young farmers anymore, Dad (78) and Mom (77) so, I help them when I can. This week, it has been the season to cut buckwheat, a great cover crop with unique benefits, and to then turn the soil over, getting even more out of the buckwheat.
Buckwheat is really pretty cool. The farmer plants it in place of a main crop, for a season, so that the main crop can thrive at a greater rate a year later. I have learned that Buckwheat has some significant and valuable assets:
- Suppresses weed growth
- Attracts honeybees as pollinators with its multiple blossoms per plant
- Adds nitrogen to the soil
- And generally refreshes and rejuvenates a plot of land for later and greater usefulness for a main crop
This week we have been cutting and then grinding the buckwheat plants into a loose mash, almost like a bark mulch. We then spread it throughout the field it grew on, and tilled this new compost back into the black soil, infiltrating the soil with the crop it just grew, thereby enabling it to do even more good for the soil.
All analogies break down somewhere, and running the risk of likening students to buckwheat….. here we go!
I love the process of JRHS, and how the mission of our school creates predictable outcomes, and like Farmers, the JRHS Teachers, bring about amazing, life-long habits and traits and skills in our students.
At JRHS, it is the Mission that is the essential process, that brings about the life change and formation that has been the hallmark of a JRHS education for the past 28 years, and now, kicking off year 29, we have extreme confidence that the Teachers can once again, run the Mission Process. So, here it is: Jesse Remington is a Christian Community of Students and Faculty, pursuing Wisdom, Knowledge and Understanding, and is committed to raising a generation to be effective leaders for Jesus Christ.
Done right, that mission will create amazing results in our fortunate student body.
A good cover crop cared for from April to August, when harvested, will create the desired outcomes of the farmer. JRHS, from August to June, will create the 6 outcomes we are after, that the mission will bring about:
- Spiritual Formation - the student becomes a young man and woman of integrity and character in the home and the workplace. Spiritual formation is the compass by which all decisions are made.
- Biblical Worldview - Understanding that the predominant worldview of the modern culture is Relativism and Secular Humanism, the student, strives to build principles of the Biblical world view into everyday living such that they become salt and light in a post-Christian world.
- Academic Formation - the student embraces all learning as a gift from God, and seeks to become a well-rounded, productive, and spiritually vibrant representative of His Kingdom.
-Skills Formation - the student complements academic achievement with skill development that will lead to a diverse, productive and rewarding life.
- Formative Relationships - the student comes to realize the importance of right relationships before God, understanding that we are created to live in productive God-honoring communities.
- Personal and Professional Development - When fully served by a JRHS education, the student takes responsibility for decisions and actions that will lead to a productive and fulfilling career, a successful marriage and family, and a thriving set of ministry and recreational activities.
When the graduate, affected by the mission, now molded towards these outcomes, leaves JRHS for greater things, they are more than prepared for the life ahead of them. They are prepared to go rejuvenate the soil that God is going to plant them in. Let us boldly welcome this wonderful process to our new students this fall of 2020!”
For more about the ESO’s at JRHS, look here: https://www.jrhs.org/expected-student-outcomes