“Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life, and new civilization, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
Now whose voice did you hear that in? William Shatner or Patrick Stewart? I always hear it in William Shatner’s voice.
The man behind the dream, Gene Roddenberry was born August 19, and when I look at the carefully crafted vision he had for his show, I look at my homeschool and think I need a vision for my homeschool.
Have you ever thought about the phrases in that opening monologue? “Space, the final frontier,” the final place to be explored. Right now we declare the oceans to be our final frontier, but someday it may be space. For me, homeschooling was a final frontier, I didn’t think I’d be homeschooling, and I certainly didn’t think I’d be writing about it.
“These are the voyages of the starship enterprise,” it narrows down who this journey is about, so for us it would be “These are the learning journeys of our family.”
“Its ongoing mission,” In the original show it was only a five year mission, but Gene Roddenberry revised it to become an ongoing mission when he realized it was popular beyond a short run. I like the idea of an ongoing mission.
“To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life, and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.” That’s an impressive list of goals. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what my goals are for my kids, I want it to go beyond “having a fun time,” or “learning a few facts.” I want them to be lifelong learners. I want them to have the tools to learn. I want them to read for pleasure.
So, how about you? Do you have a mission statement for your homeschool? I’m trying to decide what mine might be. I guess with the new school year coming I’m getting introspective.
You will find other birthday posts at iHomeschool Network.
When I saw the words “our final frontier”, I thought you were going to stop homeschooling! I hear Shatner too!
Oh goodness no! I just think of it as a relatively unexplored area in modern times.
Shatner, of course. What a great mission statement.
Thanks, I figured with Quentin wanted Star Trek Playmobil you’d probably hear it in Shatner’s voice.
Your goal should be to raise your kids to be crafty God loving science and history geeks like you are 🙂
Ha! That sounds perfect 😛
I don’t have any mission statements, but I love the idea of a family one (since we aren’t homeschooling).
I remember when I was teaching the big thing then was a class mission statement, and to have all the kids sign it.
Our is a bit twee and borrowed entirely from someone else (unsure who exactly!) but it’s about giving our children roots to ground them and wings to help them fly (it’s on my blog banner). It means so much to me I get shivers just writing about it. Words have such power, don’t they?
I love yours!
They really do, it’s something I learned early on from my Dad (who was an alcoholic) about the power of words, he said something inappropriate to me that over 20 years later I can still remember what he said.