Unification News for May 2004 |
Sun Hwa Academy Texas - Teaching Warriors as a way of Life
DJ Brewer
May, 2004
Sun Hwa Academy Texas began May 26, 1996, 8 years ago in the Brewer home, with a Hispanic non-member named Daisy and my daughter Linde as its first two students. Since then it has grown and developed, but the initial tenents remained the same: learning in pursuit of Truth, Beauty and Goodness, centered upon God and True Parents. That is the school’s motto.
In seeking to educate blessed children, there really isn’t any existing paradigm adequate for the job. We have to raise warriors who can understand secular culture and how to change it, who can possess True Father’s vision and have the drive and determination to implement it, and who can create true families as a reality, not just a colorful powerpoint presentation.
Our youth need to have Father’s character and vision. They don’t need just faith in God, they need to BE him incarnate on the earth, His arms, His legs, His heart, His mind, His passion, His determination, all focused on practical strategies that will substantially create the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.
True Father said it all in the following words, the core of our educational philosophy:
The primary purpose of education is to nurture a sincere love for God and all mankind. The second purpose of education is to recreate all mankind into people who know how to love, people who live for the sake of their neighborhood, people who are even able to love their enemies.
The ultimate purpose of True education is creating people who love their nation, that is, people who will devote themselves to searching for God's nation. the foundation for true education is encapsulated in the motto, "Love God, love mankind, love your country." The goal and purpose of our work in the field of education is to establish kindergartens, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and universities where love for God, mankind and country is nurtured and where people are equipped with knowledge and technical skills as well as good character.
Sun Myung Moon
Armed with this initial philosophy, Sun Hwa Academy provides an experiential education that is absolutely transformational. Hoon dok hae challenges the students every morning, and it is not just sleepily read through, but actively charged with clear, practical explanations of how the students can use it in their daily life. Immediately after hoon dok hae, students write a 5-paragraph essay on what they learned.
All of the regular academics are covered, but above and beyond academics, Sun Hwa Academy provides a daily lifestyle of public living closely akin to early center life in our movement.
It is this lifestyle that is so transformational. Students confront their fallen nature in lessons that are sometimes tough, but always with clear practical guidance, information, and strategies offered so that they can change themselves to become a better person. Students that push themselves and try to change succeed. Students that don’t, have less success in changing themselves. It is totally incumbent upon their own portion of responsibility.
The students do all the budgeting, all the meal planning, all the cooking, all the grounds maintenance, all the curriculum planning within clearly defined guidelines to provide an excellent education not only for college entrance, but for life.
The main goal of Sun Hwa Academy is to instill in each student a deep desire to fulfill the three great blessings as a personal ambition, not just a chart. They strive to better themselves through tough character training. They develop a deep longing to get matched and get blessed, and to make their marriages work and to become excellent parents. They learn technical skills that will provide them with jobs in the current job market, plus academics and thinking skills that will make them successful in not only in college but also in life.
Most importantly, Sun Hwa Academy imbues students with a sense of responsibility that they are to take on Father’s mission. Whatever they become, its up to them. They are educated to be self-determinant, to take initiative, to be accountable, and to be responsible, and above all to OWN who they are and what they become. They are clearly shown that they are co-creator with God; their talents are God’s gift to them, their utilization of them their gift to Him. A common saying, but none the less true.
The key force propelling and motivating the students is the fact that the kids really are put in charge of things and given responsibility to create something that they will be proud of. The foundation of hoon dok hae each day is probably the most significant part of the entire program, because without Father’s driving vision and words implemented into reality, the program could not exist.
Sun Myung Moon’s philosophy of education is probably the very best thing you could read and put into reality if you want to create your own educational program for the 2nd gen in your area. We have read it 4 times through in hoon dok hae at school, and the students memorize passages from it and from other works of True Father. I think too often we perhaps rely on Christian curricula or techniques or strategies to try and create a "youth ministry," but Father did not put us here to recreate Christianity. Father put us here to revolutionize the planet. As such, we have to be far more visionary than the Christians ever were, and own and dominate realms that Christians call "secular."
To do that, our kids need an incredible vertical axis, or they will be digested by the fallen world that they are entering into. Many 2nd gen these days are already dominated by their environment, smoking pot and drinking and dating, with or without their parents knowledge and certainly without their parents’ permission.
The only way out of this mire is to empower our children to understand Father’s words as a practical daily reality. If our hoon dok haes at home are sleepy events done conditionally, with little or no relationship to our daily lives, we are not providing our children with the practical understanding of how to use the clear ideas of True Father in propelling ourselves to perfection.
Father’s educational program for first generation consisted largely experiential education. He would give us goals that seemed impossible or even unreasonable to external thinking. Just uniting with the goal was an act of faith itself, much as Noah’s act of faith in building an arc on a mountainside. If we wanted to succeed, it was up to us to push, to research, to try and try again until we discovered the best way to achieve a goal and then replicate it.
The students at Sun Hwa have the clear vision and personal mission to create the Kingdom of Heaven on earth as a substantial reality, and raise children of like minded goals, and influence millions of others to do the same. This in and of itself is a huge act of faith, given the world circumstances. These kids are realists, and many for years have thought their parents were nuts for trying to accomplish such a goal. Here, it becomes their own determined reality.
At Sun Hwa, students are taught critical thinking and excellent research skills. They are taught problem solving techniques and all of these skills are used on a daily basis to build a practical knowledge base that is remembered because it is LIVED AND PRACTICED.
We teach computer graphic skills in image editing and web design. Students learn past the class time because it is something THEY want to master and increase their skills in. This is true not only in web design but in all subjects. It is a powerful thing to recognize that you are your only block in attaining any goal, in learning any subject. Then, you know that it is your own level of investment that will bring about the level of achievement you attain. Your skill becomes a matter of personal pride, not simply a grade point or a teacher pleaser.
Above all, the interpersonal relationships the students experience are core in preparing them to be excellent parents and public minded people who will carry their mission on not just for 1 or 2 years of STF, nor for a 7 year course, but for a lifetime. Students are given the vision that they ARE the Christ, and it is up to them to fulfill the mission of the Messiah, and carry on Father’s life work for generations to come, until we have actually completed the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.
Every year, one third to one half of Sun Hwa’s student body goes to Chung Pyung, not because it’s a school directive, but because it is their own personal ambition and desire in the process of perfecting their character. Sun Hwa students, many of whom had NO intention of doing STF prior to coming to the school, change and now fill the ranks of STF even today.
Sun Hwa had its first grandbaby this January – Chichi Vizecky Quinn gave birth to a baby boy named Andrew. The girls at Sun Hwa right now are making the baby a patchwork teddy bear blanket at the writing of this article.
One of the most precious aspects of Sun Hwa are the friendships formed here. Students form bonds of heart that will carry them through tough times for the duration of their lives and generations to come.
As true children of True Parents, any educational program we design should be founded on Sun Myung Moon’s philosophy of education, and with the mindset that we are educating Heavenly Warriors whose power and responsibility far exceeds our own. We ourselves should do minimum of a 40-day stint at Chung Pyung to prepare to be teachers. These kids don’t cotton to hypocrisy, and will note character flaws. Although we are wholly inadequate for the task of educating Second Generation, we really need to push ourselves beyond our level best to inspire them to follow Father’s words as a reality, not as platitudes read but not lived.
Wherever you are, it is very possible and relatively easy to begin to create a program for the education of heavenly warriors. All it takes is desperate tears, a heart of total commitment, incredible drive and constant prayer. The rest is up to you. I am sure God will inspire you with many ideas about what is possible to resurrect and empower the 2nd generation in your region. You are a powerful person. You are God’s finest and True Parents’ own. You can do it!
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