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| Teacher Rebecca Corey |
Now, a little more than a decade after "retiring," Corey is ready to once again welcome such students to her little one-room school house, the Orthodox Country School, in space given her for the purpose by Father Gregory Horton at Holy Myrrhbearers Orthodox Church, 1957 Pleasant Valley Loop, Bonners Ferry.
Rebecca earned her bachelor's degree in education at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, and she taught in Tacoma for five years before leaving to teach at smaller rural schools. In the early 1980s, she went to work in a one-room Winton School near Leavenworth, Washington, where she found, she said an ideal fit.
"I never liked cities," she said. "I liked the smaller, more personal setting where I could work one-on-one with my students and give them more personal time, and where I could work with the same students year after year, start to finish. That was the biggest blessing, the continuity. To be able to foresee problems and forestall problems and issues. To me, the small classroom affords the most wholesome teaching environment."
She taught in a small, one-room school in Montana, then one in Emmett, Idaho, where she retired. Now, starting a private school of her own, Corey says she will open the door once she has her first student, and will expand as her student body grows.
She is accepting students ages five to 12, even four years old if the child is ready, and will initially offer classes from 8 a.m. to noon, Monday through Thursday, expanding to a full day when the needs of her students demand it.
Rebecca is the first to agree that the small, one room school isn't for all students; many, she said, thrive in the busy halls and classrooms of the large urban school or the hometown public school where they have a lot of options. She also said she's not looking for the students who rebel, who are disruptive or who don't want to learn.
"Some children do well in a big, bustling school," she said. "Some do better in a smaller, more focused setting."
Some students, she said, learn more slowly than others, but she said she's never met a student who wants to learn who couldn't be taught.
"I don't care how slowly a child learns," she said, "just that they want to learn. With proper guidance, they will catch up."
She said her classes will focus on the fundamentals; reading, writing, arithmetic, offered in a wholesome, Christian environment, where academics, not indoctrination, will make up the students' days.
Her rate structure, starting out, is simple; $4 per hour, with discounts for families with more than one child to enroll. The idea, she said, is to keep it affordable, to give a good option for parents who think their children will benefit from more "teacher time."
To find out more, call Rebecca at (208) 267-9609.