Sunday, June 29, 2008

New name?

I'm thinking of calling our homeschool by a different name than Sutton Academy. I want something with a little more flair to it. A friend of mine has hers named after the street she lives on. Another one has a cutesy type name to hers. So I got to thinking, what name would I choose if I changed the name of our "school". I thought about the street we live on, "Alabama Street Academy" but I decided that since I am from Texas, I didn't want to name my school after another state. Just didn't seem right. lol! I thought about naming it after the housing addition we live in, "Bluegrass Academy", but naming it after a music style just didn't seem right either, even though I like to listen to Bluegrass once in a while. We have a creek running through our property, so I thought I might use that name. The thing is, I can't find the name of the creek anywhere. There is a "lake" that this creek flows from, but I didn't like the sound of it - "Clark Lake Academy". Since our creek merges with another creek and then runs into a much bigger lake that is part of the Trinity River, I thought I might name it after the Corps of Engineer park that is closest to it. It's called "Mustang Creek". I thought that might be a cool name to call my school "Mustang Creek Academy". Sounds outdoorsy and it could be the name of my creek.


I ran these new names past my son, but he said that he didn't want to change the name of our school. He also said that our "school" really isn't a school since he's the only student. So that brought to mind what the definition of a school really is. I looked up the definition of school on the web and this is what I found:


  1. An institution for the instruction of children or people under college age.

  2. An institution for instruction in a skill or business: a secretarial school; a karate school.


    1. A college or university.

    2. An institution within or associated with a college or university that gives instruction in a specialized field and recommends candidates for degrees.

    3. A division of an educational institution constituting several grades or classes: advanced to the upper school.

    4. The student body of an educational institution.

    5. The building or group of buildings housing an educational institution.

  3. The process of being educated formally, especially education constituting a planned series of courses over a number of years: The children were put to school at home. What do you plan to do when you finish school?

  4. A session of instruction: School will start in three weeks. He had to stay after school today.


    1. A group of people, especially philosophers, artists, or writers, whose thought, work, or style demonstrates a common origin or influence or unifying belief: the school of Aristotle; the Venetian school of painters.

    2. A group of people distinguished by similar manners, customs, or opinions: aristocrats of the old school.

  5. Close-order drill instructions or exercises for military units or personnel.

  6. Australian A group of people gathered together for gambling.

There were several other words listed in The American Heritage Dictionary under the heading with school in it so I clicked on the link to see the others. I found homeschool. Under that definition I found this:


VERB:

tr.

To instruct (a pupil, for example) in an educational program outside of established schools, especially in the home.

VERB:

intr.

To provide educational instruction in a homeschool.

NOUN:

A school operated outside established educational institutions, especially in a home.

In the previous listing, the word "school" is listed as a noun as were all of the other words with school in them except afterschool which is an adjective and homeschool which is listed as a verb. I guess it makes sense that homeschool would be a verb, after all it is an action since we as parents are homeschooling our children. Normally I write homeschool as one word because I am talking about how I am teaching my son. Other times I'm talking about where we do our schooling so I really should write it out as home school instead of one word. I will have to think about how I am using the word in a sentence next time and write it the "correct" way.


BTW, I decided to just keep the same school name we've always used. After all, it tells exactly who we are.

1 comment:

Stephanie Smith said...

I guess our name is kind of odd, lol ... We were puzzling over what to name the "school" and looking out the back window. there in the yard was the newly planted apple tree (Which the kids named Appelia) ... So.. our school became "AppleBlossom Christian Academy" which was fine and good - till the day came 8 years later to get Michael's diploma printed. We didn't have room for the whole name, so were going to shorten it - Hmm... ABC Academy seemed a little strange to be on a high school Diploma - So we went with AB Christian Academy, and that's what we call it most of the time. The girls don't want to change it. We have had the name since Michael was 10, so for 11 years that's been it now... not "cute" but suitable :)

And yes, one child makes a school.. Tell AJ thats my opinion anyhow, lol.

See you soon I hope!
Stephanie