Workshop Speaker
Building Consistent Best Practices in the Grammar Classroom
My goal is to equip grammar-level teachers to glorify God in the classroom. To this end, I propose to provide tools that will shape a teacher’s desire and attitude toward excellence and professionalism. We will look at what a day looks like in my kindergarten classroom: my objectives, the methods I employ, the physical actions that affect the mind, and the way that reflects our soul and God’s purposes (yes, in the kindergarten classroom). Central to my teaching is etiquette, which leads to a well-ordered classroom and shows respect to peers, teachers, parents, and most importantly, God. Excellence and professionalism both reach outside the classroom. A teacher’s communication with parents and the parent’s involvement in the learning process is critical whether they are volunteering or partnering from home. We are responsible for establishing and nurturing loco parentis-type relationships with our parents.
Charis Hampel has been the kindergarten teacher at Veritas Christian Community School in Sierra Vista, Arizona, since 2011. This is my fourteenth year in the classroom. Homeschooling and running a home-based preschool/daycare helped equip me for the kindergarten classroom at Veritas. Classical Christian education has become my passion as I learned the essentials through the ACCS teacher certification process, Veritas teacher training, the ACCS Repairing the Ruins summer conferences, and personal book studies. Three favorite books whose concepts I use every day in the classroom are The Seven Laws of Teaching, Wisdom and Eloquence, and The Paideia of God. My study of classical and Christian education and its methodology will continue indefinitely. I earned a bachelor’s degree in Christian Ministry at Wayland Baptist University. I am currently leading a staff book club, working on a master’s certificate through ACCS, and mentoring staff through the requirements of the classical certification process. As a single mom, Charis homeschooled and raised two fine young men. Jacob is thirty-three and lives in Spokane, Washington, with his wife and two children. He is a SERE instructor for the Air Force. My younger son, Daniel, age thirty, is an Intel Specialist and Staff Sergeant in the Marine Corps. He is stationed in Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay.