We are absolutely thrilled to announce that Liberty Youth Academy now has a blog! We have a host of topics to discuss, so stay tuned.
Introductions
First, allow me to introduce myself. My mother is Stephanie Dale who founded Liberty Youth Academy over 13 years in St. George, Utah. I live in Sahuarita, Arizona (just South of Tucson) with my wife Bonnie and four children: Jaxon, Chesni, Aspen, and Cadence.
When our now ten-year-old son, Jaxon, attended summer school at Liberty Youth Academy in St. George with his grandma after his Kindergarten year, he had some incredible spiritual experiences. After that, we knew our kids were supposed to attend this amazing school.
The next several months were spent in a frantic job search in St. George, but we ran into one closed door after another. No matter how hard we tried and how diligently we searched, we were simply unable to make the move happen. Heaven itself seemed to be standing in our way. We had felt impressed that our children needed a Liberty Youth Academy education with all of its secular and spiritual richness, but moving to St. George was just not happening.
In hindsight, the answer to our predicament was obvious, but we had been involved with the St. George location since its inception and had seen the blood, sweat, and tears that my mother had poured into building Liberty Youth Academy. The thought that we might be called on to perform a similar feat in our area took some time to distill in our minds and hearts.
Eventually though, the Spirit’s promptings pierced the shell of our doubts and fears over taking on such a challenging project, and we decided that, if we couldn’t bring our kids to Liberty Youth Academy, we would just have to bring Liberty Youth Academy to our kids. Now, in the middle of our second year, it is difficult to imagine our lives without the refining and uplifting influence that this school has on our family.
What This Blog Is About
It probably goes without saying that we will talk about education on this blog, but I’m going to say it anyway. As America has tried new things in a well-meaning attempt to grapple with the complex issues that face education, we have made progress in some areas. In other areas, though, we have let important educational principles fall by the wayside. We are going to talk about those abandoned principles and how vital it is that we reclaim them.
We are also going to address the concerns that people unfamiliar with Liberty Youth Academy’s educational model commonly have when they first hear of it. Liberty Youth Academy is different, and different is good, especially in an area that is in desperate need of an overhaul. We are going to talk about those differences and hopefully shed some light on the concerns that those differences might have created in your minds.
Finally, this blog will discuss principles of freedom. It is no mere coincidence that the exponential growth of human understanding and knowledge over the past few hundred years occurred during a period of unprecedented freedoms. Freedom and education are inextricably linked. Besides, the founding of our nation and the freedoms that founding created are an integral part of a Liberty Youth Academy education, and we just like to talk about it.
If you have topics you would like us to talk about or concerns you would like us to address, let us know! We’ll add it to the queue.
We Welcome Respectful Commentary
The topics we will discuss on this blog are certain to attract the ire of the internet troll. Whether you agree or disagree with the thoughts presented, you are welcome to discuss your ideas in the comments section below with respect and civility. We likewise reserve the right to promptly and summarily remove the disrespectful and the uncivil.
Next Article
Check back next week as we discuss the apparent contradiction between what some view as a sheltered, faith-based education and the mandate to live in the world but not of the world.