It started last year as the Clinton Educative Co-op with 30 students who were home-schooled, but whose parents wanted to get together for a few classes and social events.
This year, the group has reinvented itself as Henry’s Rebellion.
“We rebranded ourselves,” Amanda Stillwell said. “We doubled the number of students and added classes.”
Amanda, the group’s leader, had the idea to rename the group Henry’s Rebellion, which offers enrichment classes for homeschoolers one afternoon a week at First Baptist Church in Clinton. It is the only home-school group in the area, she said, and draws students from Creighton to Tightwad and Warsaw.
“It was a need, and we were able to fill it,” she said.
By the time registration closed for the fall semester, Henry’s Rebellion had filled its 60 slots in four age groups: preschool and kindergarteners , 1st through 3rd graders, 4th through 6th, and teenagers, 7th grade and up. All the teachers are parent volunteers except for one professional teacher, Dr. Joe Wolverton, co-author of “The Founders Recipe,” who teaches an American history class on Zoom from his home in Memphis, Tenn.
The purpose of Henry’s Rebellion is to offer classes that enhance home-school curriculums and offer social opportunities, Amanda said. Classes include ones that are more fun or require a group, like theater and choir.
“We’re not taking the place of our own home-school efforts,” Amanda said. “We’re enhancing it.”
Asked why parents choose to home-school, she said there are a variety of reasons, ranging from political and religious reasons to safety concerns at public schools, including bullying. But at the core, she said, it’s being able to spend time with your kids while you have them, she said, and pour into them what you want to pass along.
The first semester started Sept. 7, and goes for 10 weeks, with 50-minute classes once a week from noon to 3:30 p.m. Each weekly session starts with an assembly in the church sanctuary. One of the mothers, Melissa, opens with a prayer, then the students stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
Last Thursday, there was an announcement about signing up for the Science Fair, which takes place at the end of October, with the rules about using tri-fold display boards.
Then Amanda asked students to review the three group rules: Be respectful (of property, teachers and peers), Try, (because everything is better when you put in effort), and have a Good Attitude.
To reinforce the latter, there was a sort of pep rally, except it was for all the students, not just the athletes. Amanda asks the students who they are and what they are doing, and they stand and say “We are Henry’s Rebellion,” and “We are Growing into Greatness,” the school motto.
Articulating goals and expectations, and giving thanks for the teachers in the morning prayer, reinforces a positive attitude towards education and the students’ power to use it to excel in life.
Then the students are divided into classes, which are small, allowing more give-and-take between the teacher and students than in large classrooms. In the Theater class, the teacher, Kim, divided the group into two, and each group did a first read-through of the Christmas play they are putting on Presentation Night at First Baptist Church in mid-November.
In another classroom, Carolyn Lee was teaching a small group of teenagers how to make egg noodles from scratch. Colonial Curiosities, All Things Nature, physical education, anatomy and geography completed the offerings for grade-school kids and up this semester. The youngest kids, 3 to 5 years old, focus on “kinder basics and more.”
In addition to freedom from religious and political restrictions, field trips are also easier. Home-school groups can take advantage of resources in the area to augment lessons. Last Friday, the students and their parents were heading to “Freedom Encounter,” the Museum of America’s Founding in Branson, which combines exhibits on American history with a presentation with a live bald eagle. No need for chaperones or permission slips — each parent was responsible for driving their offspring to the museum, and providing them with sack lunches.
An upcoming social event on the schedule is a formal “Me and Mine” dance that Henry’s Rebellion is hosting for all home-schoolers in the area, Amanda said. Students can bring whoever they want to the dance. Meeting new friends, building relationships and making connections to other home-schooled families is part of the goal of Henry’s Rebellion, she said.
The saying on the school shirt reminds its members that “In a dark world, virtue itself is rebellion.”
For more information about Henry’s Rebellion, go to the Henry’s Rebellion Clinton Homeschool Co-op Facebook. Yearly registration fee per family is $60, which covers insurance, plus $50 for supplies and materials for the semester for the first child, $20 for each additional child.
