{"id":47,"date":"2011-05-16T21:01:20","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T21:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foa.wpengine.com\/?page_id=47"},"modified":"2022-12-02T11:51:40","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T16:51:40","slug":"founding-family","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/leadership\/founding-family","title":{"rendered":"Founding Family"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>A Message from Laura Baur<\/h2>\n<p>When I tell people I started a school, they always look a little startled and are\u00a0curious as to why someone would do such a thing.<\/p>\n<p>I have a couple of answers to the question. My first response is my children. When my oldest son turned 6 and first grade loomed ahead I began the quest for finding the right school. His interest was focused firmly on construction trucks and outside playing and rarely did he slow down to use crayons!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-5640\" src=\"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/BaurFamily-270x207.png\" alt=\"BaurFamily\" width=\"270\" height=\"207\" srcset=\"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/BaurFamily-270x207.png 270w, http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/BaurFamily-540x414.png 540w, http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/BaurFamily-200x153.png 200w, http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/BaurFamily-125x95.png 125w, http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/BaurFamily-60x46.png 60w, http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/BaurFamily-85x65.png 85w, http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/BaurFamily-80x61.png 80w, http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/BaurFamily.png 684w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px\" \/>After a first-grade school readiness test required by one of the schools we were considering, a discussion began that would set the course for ultimately finding Montessori education. I was told, yes, first grade is fine, but he won&#8217;t enjoy it. He enjoyed moving-not sitting. He might struggle writing from the board and the subjects he excelled in would not be taught past the current year&#8217;s curriculum. When asked what would be best, the answer came back to Montessori. Naturally, this set me on a path to discovering Montessori.<\/p>\n<p>I would find the following tenets of Montessori Education a reason to build Five Oaks Academy.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Multi-age classrooms provide great mentoring opportunities\u00a0for students. Children love to learn from other children; older children love to &#8220;teach&#8221;. Maria Montessori taught that it was one thing to just receive and process information and another entirely to learn a work well enough to teach\u00a0another<\/li>\n<li>Each student is educated based upon individual need. There is no better way to learn!<\/li>\n<li>Instruction is not limited to one year&#8217;s level of \u00a0curriculum. This is great for gifted learners.<\/li>\n<li>Children need a happy, peaceful, and safe environment in order to learn to their potential. They need to be free to make the mistakes and resulting leaps in learning that happen with the experience of &#8220;safe&#8221; failure.<\/li>\n<li>Our students are consistently taught to feel comfortable with\u00a0their current level of study &amp; performance.\u00a0 They are encouraged to compete with themselves and always preform at their highest levels.\u00a0 The result of this approach and attitude is a\u00a0reduction of test and performance anxiety.<\/li>\n<li>Hands on learning and materials-based education offers children the opportunity to explore high level concepts while cementing\u00a0concrete skills that create a foundation for future learning.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Five Oaks Academy is a beautiful place that my husband and I are very proud of, and its success is certainly due to our teachers and the strong leadership of our director. We have a dream team of professionals who are inspired teachers, and maybe most importantly, happy to be working with children every day.<\/p>\n<p>The second reason I share with parents\u00a0is my need to be involved in an endeavor that makes a difference, an endeavor that moves people forward. Creating and Establishing an environment that promotes happy learning is amazingly rewarding. My husband and I share a common goal of making this learning environment available to the community so that many children can benefit from Montessori education and philosophy.<\/p>\n<p>Laura Baur<\/p>\n<p><em>Laura can be seen on campus most days and is very active in the school community. Laura&#8217;s children have graduated college and are pursuing careers of their own.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Message from Laura Baur When I tell people I started a school, they always look a little startled and are\u00a0curious as to why someone would do such a thing. I have a couple of answers to the question. My first response is my children. When my oldest son turned 6 and first grade loomed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":300,"featured_media":1935,"parent":45,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/300"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/45"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foastatic.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}