Nearly There....

Finally, we are in our final week of home education for the 2011-2012 school year. Benjamin has a few math, history, reading, and science lessons to do while Jonathan has only algebra and guitar. Timothy has Algebra II, a US History final, and an online SAT/ACT prep class through Brave Writer to finish. But, really, we're nearly there.

I'm in my final week of my last Brave Writer class this school year, the Shakespeare Family Workshop which has been very quiet. It's a rather self-directed class, and this spring's class is not large, plus many families are dealing with graduations and other year-end activities, so it's been a quiet class. I spent many hours last year totally revamping the class so that each family can take its own approach to each genre of comedies, histories, and tragedies after a two-week introduction covering Shakespeare's life and times and his language and poetry. So families can skim the surface or go really in depth, or any measure in between, as fits their kids' ages and interest levels. So this class has been quite a relief after teaching two totally intense literary analysis classes back-to-back. Whew!! I was often up working until 2:00 in the morning or later. It was wild!

So I will have the rest of June OFF. Yay!!

 Plans? Read, rest, relax! And write. :)

 On July 1, I start working for Brave Writer as a salaried employee rather than freelancing. I'll have additional duties in addition to teaching, so basically I'll be working year-round for Julie, and I've cut back my teaching load for the fall when I'll be needed more. It'll be a win-win: Julie will be able to hand off some of her tremendous work load, and I'll have set hours to work and a steady paycheck each month.

 I'm really looking forward to this kind of work; it's what I do best and enjoy most: investing myself into the detail work to flesh out someone else's brilliant visions. I'm not an idea-person; I'm more of a make-things-work-behind-the-scenes person, so I enjoy taking someone's visions and making them work in a practical sense. I've done it with my poet friend Judith and her many creative enterprises: an arts council for our small town, a monthly writers' workshop meeting at our local library, a community garden for our area, a children's program for her large annual artists' retreat, etc. Now I get to help Julie with the practicalities of her vision for Brave Writer so that she can leave the detail work to me while she keeps dreaming BIG. I'm really excited about helping her make Brave Writer everything she wants it to be.

Julie is a smart businesswoman as well as a brilliant and passionate educator and writer, and it will be a joy to work more closely with her. I'll also be teaching a summer class in writing fan fiction; I'll have the information up on my new website, SusanneBarrett.com, in the next week or so. It's a new class, but I think it will be truly amazing!! So as the school year finishes up, I'll be taking a couple of weeks to rest and relax, then I'll get to work at Brave Writer.

 See you all soon!