Academy Nurse Goes the Extra Mile
“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
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‘Going the extra mile’ isn’t easy. Especially when you have five children under the age of nine. But that doesn’t stop Amanda Aaseby. She is a powerhouse of service, constantly giving her time and energy to help others, most often behind the scenes. Why? Because she loves God, she loves people, and she loves meeting needs.
Amanda teaches a first aid class to middle schoolers at the Academy for G.O.D.
By profession, Amanda is a Registered Nurse. Currently, she is the School Nurse for the Academy for G.O.D. She works during school 20 hours every week (and more hours on her own time) to respond to the healthcare needs of students at the Academy. Regarding her job, she says, “I do what I do because I love the students. I want them to feel taken care of and safe. The Academy needs someone on-site who knows how to respond when health needs arise, which many people lack experience in. I don’t. I’ve been training for this since I was a teenager.”
At 15 years old, Amanda was a certified lifeguard, and from 16-18 years of age, she worked as a nurse aid in a nursing home. Following high school, she attended Aquinas College in Nashville, TN, where she received her Nursing degree in 2007. That same year, she began working at Southern Hills Medical Center, first as a post-operative nurse for 9 months, then in the Emergency Room for two years. Then, from 2010-2015, she worked in the Emergency Room at Summit Medical Center.
Amanda says that working in the ER equipped her with triage skills, the ability to ask the right questions, to find out not just what’s going on, but what it might be stemming from, or what’s triggering it. Hands-on, real world experience has given her confidence in her work, enhancing her calling from the Lord to serve people’s healthcare needs that she’s felt since high school.
But, Amanda also recognizes the important role that her biblical education plays as a health care provider, especially in the private school setting. She says, “Knowing the Lord, I’m able to provide something outside of the science and logic that the hospital setting limited me to. I have more to offer children than what I’ve experienced, what I know, what I’ve seen, what I’ve read about. What I’ve learned from the Bible has immensely sharpened my confidence, so that I can give students something rooted in the Lord. All of the students here are learning the Bible in their classes. So when they come to me not well, I have the opportunity to talk to them about how to understand themselves, how God made their hearts and minds and bodies connected. Are they experiencing something physical? Did their ill health begin in their minds? We get to have healthy conversations and times of prayer.”
What do the students have to say about Amanda? “She is always there for us and she knows what we should do and why we should do it!” “She is a very good nurse and she helps us and cares for us. She is very loving.” She is really sweet. She is actually concerned with you, and she is so nice.” “She takes care of you instead of saying, ‘Just sit over there!’ She lets you lay down, she is concerned with you and she is very kind.” “She is the best!” “She is a good nurse!”
Amanda’s job description includes a variety of responsibilities. She creates and implements policies and protocols pertaining to the health and safety of students and staff. She performs yearly health screenings, vision screening, testing for scoliosis, colorblindness, and taking vital signs, height, weight, and body mass index. She writes a health update for the weekly school newsletters for teachers and parents. She meets with each class school-wide to provide education on health topics monthly, such as seat belt safety, nutrition, and the importance of physical activity. She keeps all medical kits and the eyewash station on campus fully stocked. She creates individual health plans for students with chronic health problems such as asthma or allergies, and educates the teachers of those students on their health needs. She trains the faculty and staff in Basic Life Support, and teaches a CPR and first aid course to middle schoolers. She makes cleaning supplies without chemicals for the classrooms. She takes extra care to make sure families are educated and children are healthy.
Amanda assesses the health of our East African cooperatives in Uganda. She knows that it's not just important for students to be healthy, but their teachers too!
Additionally, Amanda serves in leadership on G.O.D. Intl’s East Africa team. In October, Amanda traveled to our East Africa headquarters to help educate the community there. She performed health assessments on all of our cooperatives, their children, and the Institute students. She taught health seminars on hygiene, first aid, and how to avoid the spread of sickness, which included how to tell if someone is contagious or not and when to quarantine an individual, and how to assess healthcare needs they encounter, at home and in the workplace.
Amanda is invaluable to the work we are doing as an organization, both here and abroad. She is committed to the Lord, and to doing the things she’s equipped to do, in his name. She is a servant to all those who know her, driven by great love for people and meeting their needs, an outpouring of her thankfulness to God for such a great calling.
Why Teaching Basic Arithmetic is Dumb
I often get asked: “So, why don’t the kids have ‘real math’ classes at this school?”
It’s an easy question to answer, but it’s only been made complicated by the institutional experience of most parents: we all went to school where it was an accomplishment to have memorized a times table, or race through a series of addition and subtraction flash cards. All activities that have been proven to impede the child’s logical development as opposed to enhancing it.
I often get asked: “So, why don’t the kids have ‘real math’ classes at this school?”
It’s an easy question to answer, but it’s only been made complicated by the institutional experience of most parents: we all went to school where it was an accomplishment to have memorized a times table, or race through a series of addition and subtraction flash cards. All activities that have been proven to impede the child’s logical development as opposed to enhancing it.
The easy answer: Teaching them math, like we were taught, will rob them of their ability to critically think and problem solve, and in turn, retard their development as a whole.
The complicated answer has to do with a review of some history of education in the United States, and cognitive studies in education.
Historically, our education system was designed to supply workers for factories. The great concern was that a worker would be able to add a series of widgets together so they could put them into a box, or take a minimal amount of defected items off of the line, without exceeding an expected quota. Basic arithmetic was necessary to accomplish the big goals of production for factories. While this was of necessity for assembly lines, it was of detriment to the development of the individuals on the line.
Today, studies in cognitive development have shown that the student’s reasoning faculties are dulled by the introduction of arithmetic in early years.
Our approach at The Academy is to introduce the abstract processes of math at a later point in the students cognitive development (i.e. 6th or 7th grade) and focus on developing the child’s intelligence during the formative years (i.e. K-6), so that when it’s time to learn math, the foundation they have will make that experience pleasurable and easy to do. This way they will be able to apply reason to the everyday problems math was intended to address, most practically in the fields of engineering, architecture, mechanics and robotics to name a few.
Below is a link for you to read about these theories for yourself and to get a better idea of what we’re doing at The Academy. Enjoy the article, it’s a very interesting read.
Psychology Today: How Early Academic Training Retards Intellectual Development.
Gregg Garner
Headmaster
The Academy for GOD
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201506/how-early-academi
Protecting a Child's Innocence Amidst Their Technological Universe
There are many benefits that come with technology. Most often they come in the way of making things “easier” for the user. Today our children have access to more information, from more times, and from more places than anyone ever in history. Gone are the days of the Encyclopedia salesman convincing parents that for the price of a used car, they could boost their children into a future undiscovered. Now this opportunity is on the other side of an internet connection, and at the Academy for GOD, we are doing our best to take advantage of the benefit.
There are many benefits that come with technology. Most often they come in the way of making things “easier” for the user. Today our children have access to more information, from more times, and from more places than anyone ever in history. Gone are the days of the Encyclopedia salesman convincing parents that for the price of a used car, they could boost their children into a future undiscovered. Now this opportunity is on the other side of an internet connection, and at the Academy for GOD, we are doing our best to take advantage of the benefit.
However, with such opportunity also comes the need to be responsible. While we as an educational institution can do all we can to ensure safeguards, we also need parents to be actively involved in protecting our children from information they’re not ready to see, or know.
In the bible, the man (Adam) and the woman (Eve) decided to have their eyes opened for themselves by obtaining knowledge independent of God’s timing and his revelation (see Gen. 3). This changed the way they saw the world - it was a loss of innocence.
It was never that God didn’t want the man and the woman to have knowledge, it’s that he knew that they needed guidance into what it was that they would see, learn, and experience.
In the same way, our children’s innocence needs protected at the vulnerable stage in life they are in. Though in time, their eyes will be opened to many things, it’s our responsibility to do our best to ensure it comes at a time when they can handle it.
A knowledge of violence and the hostility of the world, to a child, can not only be traumatizing, but also affect their development and their ability to trust; their optimism on the goodness that life has to offer, becomes damaged.
God wanted to walk (the biblical concept of education) with the man and woman in the garden. He wanted to teach them how to see the world. He wanted to open their eyes.
At the Academy, while protecting your child’s innocence, we are also trying to open their eyes at appropriate times, with appropriate subject matter that will allow them to gracefully navigate a world that doesn’t know God, and in turn can be quite hostile. However, with this knowledge of God, and the development of faith, they can be the kind of people who have hope and who can work for the kind of change that leads to a new, and beautiful day.
In an attached article, the writer encourages parents to take charge of their children’s technological endeavors by becoming familiar with both the devices, and the ways in which the devices can be used. While we will do everything we can at school to watch over your children, it won’t be enough. We need you to partner with us in ensuring students’ eyes are not opened prematurely and innocence is preserved for as long as possible.
I hope the article is informative and it leads you into further investigation as you take charge of your children’s technological universe.
God bless you!
Mr. Gregg Garner
Source: http://edtechreview.in/news/858-parents-need-to-learn-enough-technology-to-guide-their-child
2016 Blogs & Older
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Academy Blogs have been ongoing since the beginning of our school and began on the G.O.D. Int’l Website.
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