A Parent’s Story of Frustration That Turned Into a Scholar’s Formation

Interim Headmaster Rachel Janssen recently opened Curriculum Night at Glendale Prep with a personal experience she had as a mother that changed the way she viewed education, both as a parent as well as an educator.

Inspired by Susan Wise Bauer’s The Well-Trained Mind, Janssen was determined to offer her children the kind of classical education she herself had never experienced. At that time, the only way forward seemed to be leaving her teaching job at a public district classroom behind and transforming her living room into a school. That was until she heard a radio advertisement for Archway North Phoenix, a brand-new Great Hearts academy opening in the fall, offering a classical education for students in grades K–5. After getting on the waiting list for the academy, Janssen was thrilled to get an opening for her daughter, even if it meant a commute. “That year, I drove my kindergartener 40 minutes to attend Archway North Phoenix, eager for Spalding phonograms and math homework,” she shared.

“And then, one day, my little kindergartener—just learning to read and write—brought home a six-line poem to memorize and present in just four days,” Janssen recalled. “A poem with words she could barely pronounce, let alone read on her own.”

The poem was “At the Seaside” by Robert Louis Stevensen.

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup,
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.

“Now, I must admit—my first response was not one of joy and excitement,” she said. “What I was feeling may have actually been anger and frustration. What was her teacher thinking? Why assign a poem with language so new to her? Words she couldn’t even read independently?”

Janssen knew her daughter had capacity to memorize. “She sang songs all day long and recited lines from movies we watched as a family. So why, when assigned this simple poem, did I bubble with frustration? Why did I feel the urge to email the teacher, to express my concerns? Why did I almost share my anxieties with Ava herself?”

Instead, she made the decision to bite her tongue and instead used her energy to work through the poem with her young daughter, line by line. “To my surprise and delight, she had it memorized in just two days.” Janssen said her daughter came home from school on the day of the recitation so excited to tell her mom that she had successfully recited the poem in front of her classmates.

She rejoiced with her daughter and celebrated the accomplishment, but the moment also left her broken-hearted as a parent. “I realized that it was my fear of her failure, my fear of her humiliation, that had almost led me to interfere, to try to change the assignment from the start.”

“In that moment,” she shared, “I—who had chosen this education for her—found myself doubting it. I feared her failure so much that I nearly limited her success and held her back from her own growth and development.”

This story serves as a wakeup call some, and a great reminder for all parents. Our kids can do hard things. They can excel way beyond what they perceive their limitations to be. “That is the heart of what we do at Great Hearts.” Janssen continued, “We are a place where students are allowed to fail—and where they learn to rise again. Here, struggle is not a threat but an invitation: an invitation to cultivate perseverance, humility, courage, and resilience.”

Janssen and her daughter continued to work through the “hard things” through the elementary grades and in the prep school years… all the way up to the morning of this particular Curriculum Night, when Janssen moved her first born into her college dorm, knowing that her daughter is prepared for whatever challenges in college, or life for that matter, that come her way.

Do you have a story or know of one that you would like to see featured at Great Hearts? Please contact jmoore@greatheartsamerica.org.

Submit a student application to a Great Hearts Academy by visiting: https://www.greatheartsamerica.org/enroll/.