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How do students at Veritas Scholars Academy build relationships and foster an uplifting online environment?
VSA student Lauren Hall joins us to share her experiences in student leadership, including working with the Student Moderators and leading the Student Mentors – a group of Juniors and Seniors who give godly counsel, tech help, encouragement, and more to their peers.
If you have ever wondered what kind of environment students enter into at Veritas Scholars Academy and what sort of people students are encouraged to become, you won’t want to miss a minute of this insightful episode! We’ll learn how students build community, employ positive peer pressure, help each other excel, and enter into relationships that will last a lifetime.
Episode Transcription
Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode.
Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us one of our students on our online school, Veritas Scholars Academy, Lauren Hall. Lauren, welcome.
Lauren Hall:
Thank you so much, Mr. Detweiler. I appreciate your time and so excited to be here.
Marlin Detweiler:
That's exciting to see and interact with people that have benefited from what we're doing. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how long you've been associated with Veritas.
Lauren Hall:
Yeah. So it's crazy to think that this is my senior year. I still sometimes feel like I'm in eighth grade, but I joined Veritas as an eighth grader, joined the live courses then, and actually didn't join the diploma program until my junior year. So a little bit later, but I have absolutely loved my time at Veritas and all the teachers and the classes I've been able to take, and the relationships I've been able to build too.
But Veritas was a part of my education since I was in kindergarten or first grade when my brothers would do the Self-Paced History and Bible classes. So I remember all the timelines and everything, and then doing Omnibus and then morphing into the live classes as well. So, yeah.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well, that's wonderful. So you've been involved in live classes for five years. And of course, Veritas curriculum has been part of your life since, sounds like, kindergarten. Do you have brothers and sisters?
Lauren Hall:
I do. I have four younger brothers, so I'm the oldest, and there's probably a basketball game going on downstairs right now. Lots of sports and lots of fun.
Marlin Detweiler:
So are they all involved in Veritas as well?
Lauren Hall:
They are. Lots of them are doing live classes and are diploma students. And then two of them are doing the Self-Paced courses at the time.
Marlin Detweiler:
Wonderful. Now, you live in New Hampshire. Are there other people in your church or near where you live that are also part of Veritas?
Lauren Hall:
There are. We do a homeschool co-op on Mondays that I'm a part of and have been a part of since kindergarten. And so there's actually quite a few people who do Veritas there. That's how we were introduced to the program. They do the geography program for the kids and all the sciences. And it's really nice because some of the teachers teach science and they do the labs that correlate with the online classes. So we can take the classes throughout the week and then come and do the labs together.
Marlin Detweiler:
Oh, that's awesome. It's very nice.
Lauren Hall:
Absolutely.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, I love that. You've been involved in two things we do to help students that join the school. One is called the moderating team and the other is called the mentoring team. Tell us first about the moderating team, what it is, and what your involvement was.
Lauren Hall:
Yeah. So I joined the moderating team as a freshman. The moderating team is a group of students who go through an interview process and work directly under Dean King and the heads of Student Commons. We run the Student Commons. This is a place where students can come outside of classes and discuss different things, have fun, share prayer requests, share memes that they find funny, and have theological debates, especially in the older groups. They are grouped into four different age categories.
So we have the third through fifth graders, sixth through seventh graders, eighth or ninth graders, and then 10th through 12th graders. Each of the team members are moderating a specific age group, and they work together with head moderators and the head of student Commons to make sure that these discussion groups are filled with good things and with joyous things and that they're all going to the glory of God.
So we keep it clean, but we also try to keep it fun and interactive for the students.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, we found it wise and helpful to make sure that conversations didn't devolve into troublesome interactions. How have you seen the role that you played in it help to keep things good and healthy?
Lauren Hall:
I think it's really interesting just having the moderators and their influence on the students. We kind of get to be like big brothers or sisters or, in high school, just brothers and sisters in Christ. We get to have that influence and almost the peer—not peer pressure in a bad way, but the peer pressure to be good and to be glorifying to God—has the students strive for excellence in what they say.
I think that the mod team just puts out a picture of godly young men and women. We've been interviewed by the dean of students, so we're qualified for this position. Just in the way that we live our lives and the things that we say in discussions serve as an example to the students we moderate.
I think that makes student Commons so fun because people want to talk about good things. If a student chooses to say something wrong, we say, "Hey, that's not appropriate for student Commons. Can you please delete that?" or go into a process of discipline if needed. There's a lot of peer pressure to do good things, too.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, we really love the fact that it's students helping students. We think there's something healthy about that. Have you seen that?
Lauren Hall:
Absolutely. I think it's such an opportunity for students to have positions of leadership and to grow in their leadership skills on an online platform. That is so cool and definitely boosted my confidence. Joining the mod team allowed me to have so much fun and grow in other leadership opportunities, too.
Marlin Detweiler:
Now, you're not involved in the moderating team anymore because of what you're doing with the mentoring team?
Lauren Hall:
Yes.
Marlin Detweiler:
Is there a progression there for some people to move from moderating to mentoring? What happened there?
Lauren Hall:
Yeah. The mentoring team requires you to be an upperclassman, so typically juniors and seniors are the only ones who serve on the mentor team. A lot of people come in as freshmen and sophomores as moderators. If they choose to pursue the mentoring team, they apply for that. A lot of people actually balance both jobs well. And so some.
Marlin Detweiler:
People do both?
Lauren Hall:
Yes, I did that my sophomore and junior year. I did both of them. When I was asked to be the head of the mentoring team, I decided to leave the moderating team. Both teams come together on a platform, and that's where we do most of our discussion. The teams correspond with each other. And so it's not like I'm leaving a whole team behind, but just serving in a different way.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. So tell us a bit about the function of mentors, not about what you do as the head of that. We'll talk about that in just a minute. But tell us what mentors do.
Lauren Hall:
Yeah. So mentors are in charge of running the help desk. And this is an anonymous chat-based program where students from Veritas can come with questions or concerns or want of advice or technology tips. And so mentors answer those calls. We talk with students and we answer their questions, whether that be questions about homework or questions relating to "I got kicked out of student comments. Can you let me back in?” We get a lot of those or questions relating to family stuff, maybe questions about the Bible, scriptural questions, even some that are more serious relating to mental health issues or whatever. So we get to answer that and help them in an anonymous way so that they're able to feel safe.
But we are able to love them well in that platform. And then we also answer prayer praise discussions on the student commons. So we kind of work with the moderators there. We also write encouragement posts for the help desk group. So we write little devotionals there to encourage the students every other week. And then we hold quarterly prayer and praise meetings.
Marlin Detweiler:
Wonderful. Isn't there also a practical, a real practical element of helping new students get onboarded?
Lauren Hall:
Absolutely. And especially with students trying to figure out technical issues or how to relate well to teachers, what the chat box is used for. A lot of students come in and are like, "Hi, I don't really know what I'm doing in my class. Can you help me?" And so we're able to be like, "Yes, here's this."
We've all come from many years of Veritas, so we're able to share our tips and tricks with newer students too. So that's fun.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. When I interview teachers, I'm involved in the interview of every teacher that we hire. Three of us are involved in the last interview—Tom Garfield, of course, Dr. Cannon, and me. But when I interview them, frequently, the teachers have a question about the difference between teaching online and teaching in a brick-and-mortar classroom and that sort of thing.
One of the things that I've commonly told them is that there's a learning curve that they will go through, and if they're teaching two or more classes, it will probably last about a month before they find their voice and their comfort in communication. I'm curious what you would say to a student about their learning curve and getting up to speed as a student entering into a live online class?
Lauren Hall:
Yeah. I've answered multiple of these calls, especially at the beginning of the year. I just tell the students, "Give yourself grace. This is a new setting and that can be scary. Just be honest with yourself and talk with your parents and talk with your friends and talk with your teachers. Correspond with your teachers.
They absolutely want to hear from you. They absolutely want to help you as much as they can. Don't be afraid of your classmates. Your classmates are going to be some of your best friends. You're going to spend hours and hours and hours with them throughout the school year, so get to know them early on. Do homework together, maybe, or ask for help and use the chat box.
The chat box is super fun to interact with your teacher and classmates. If you get a question wrong on webcam, that's okay. Everyone does that. Just slow down and try to enjoy every moment. Don't be so caught up in, "Oh my goodness, what are people going to think about me?" but give yourself grace. And after a couple of weeks go by, you're going to have the swing of things. So you'll be great.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. I would say that the learning curve for students is a lot easier than teachers, but it's still a very real curve.
How has moderating and mentoring helped students not only get up to speed, but really– One of the things that people that have not experienced online classes are inclined to say is there must not be much community, but moderating and mentoring tells us a very different story, doesn't it?
Lauren Hall:
Absolutely. And I have so many friends who are like, do you get any social interaction in your life? And I'm like, yeah, I do. And so I think just having a community at Veritas, I think Veritas does so well in allowing opportunities for students to interact together in the classroom and then outside the classroom with student commons and with maybe email chains or texting chains.
I know one of my classes has a texting chain that, like, I woke up this morning and had 175 texts from.
Marlin Detweiler:
Oh my.
Lauren Hall:
I know, I know. I have it on silent. So there's so many ways to just interact with your classmates. And then going to end-of-year gathering and seeing your classmates, seeing your teachers is super fun. Because I know I went and I was like, I already know these people. Like, it was weird. I thought I was going to be introducing myself to people, but I already knew them.
And just because I knew them from the shoulders up didn't make it any different. I knew their personalities, I knew how they worked, and I was friends with them. And so I think there's so much fun that is had at Veritas and within classes and within student commons. And there's so much social interaction. And with classes like Rhetoric and Omnibus where you're giving speeches, where you're debating and stuff, you get so many practical tools that you can put in your toolbox of life.
And I feel like I'm able to interact and to communicate so much better than many of my friends who go to brick-and-mortar schools.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Let's pursue this a little bit. We have heard one of the—it actually gets me emotionally a little bit to think about this—but one of the things that I've heard is somebody coming to the end-of-year gathering and being in the large lobby at the Eden Resort and hearing a voice, knowing who it was before they saw them, and running to them to meet their best friend in person for the first time. Is that something that you've experienced?
Lauren Hall:
It is like the sweetest moment to be at end-of-year gathering. You're anxiously awaiting all your friends coming, and then you just hear these voices. You see these people and you immediately know who it is. And you're like, oh my goodness, I was in class with them. Or meeting people from years before and being like, I was in three classes with them four years ago, and I know them and we're still friends. Just hearing a voice and thinking, I know exactly who that is.
And just running and hugging them and getting to hug them in person. That's one of the things I miss most about online school—I can't give hugs to people, and that makes me sad. But at the end-of-year gathering, just being able to hug those people, it's so fun. And truly, I encourage every student to go to the gathering because it's so worth it.
Marlin Detweiler:
What would you say to someone, maybe a parent, maybe a student, who says, yeah, I just don't know how online school could really be a community?
Lauren Hall:
I would say that definitely like give it a chance because you will be shocked with how much Veritas encourages community and encourages interacting with other people and having very down-to-earth relationships with teachers is something that Veritas really excels in. Some of my teachers have become very close friends of mine, and we write letters to each other or text each other.
We follow each other on social media, and it's so fun to just have those interactions but also have interactions with classmates because you're only a FaceTime call away. You can always do a Zoom meeting, do a Google Meet, maybe FaceTime each other, and have really long conversations. I've had three-hour-long conversations with my best friends from Veritas, and it just feels like we're talking in person because we just get to talk with each other and have really meaningful conversations.
Some of my best friends have come from Veritas, and even though we live hours and hours apart, I feel like we know each other so well.
Marlin Detweiler:
You always lived in New Hampshire?
Lauren Hall:
I was born in Indiana, moved to North Carolina, but moved to New Hampshire when I was five years old. So that's mostly where I grew up.
Marlin Detweiler:
Your life experience is really New Hampshire. It's a very different culture than North Carolina or Indiana, let alone Texas, Florida, California, or who knows where else.
Lauren Hall:
I know. Yeah.
Marlin Detweiler:
How has the geographic diversity, not only nationally but internationally, enriched your education experience?
Lauren Hall:
I think it's been so eye-opening to see what different people experience around the world and in different cultures. I have a classmate in my anatomy class who does dissections with us, but she lives in India. She can't order a preserved dissection kit, so she goes to the butcher and gets actual freshly tilled parts of the cow to dissect.
It's really cool to see the differences and how people make do with different things if they're international. Also, just the cultural differences—many people do theater, and I'm not much of a theater person, but I think it's so cool. Just different hobbies that come from different areas of the world or different states. The cultural aspect that people bring in, but also knowing that under everything, under all our differences, we have a foundation of Christ.
We are brothers and sisters in Christ, and that's truly how friendship grows. No matter if we have a southern accent or maybe a British one, we love the Lord.
Marlin Detweiler:
When we started doing online classes about 20 years ago, the greatest unforeseen benefit was having students from other cultures and countries join together and learn together. The richness of that is simply not possible in K-12 education in virtually any other situation. It's very significant in how it opens up students' minds to understanding what is universally true and what is culturally bound as it relates to Christianity or life in general.
Lauren Hall:
Absolutely. I think it's really interesting to hear how Christianity is spread across the world and to understand that I have classmates from China who are such strong believers. Thinking that the gospel of Christ is active there as it is in New Hampshire is amazing. Christ doesn't change across the globe, although our cultures may and our time differences may.
Christ is solid. It's so cool to see the different persecutions people go through and the hardships their faith causes. I'm thankful that I live in a country where I am free to worship Christ, but also knowing that they are being grown and stretched in their faith. So it's really neat.
Marlin Detweiler:
Getting back to the topic of mentoring, you're the head mentor. How many mentors are you overseeing?
Lauren Hall:
I believe there's 13 other mentors this year. Yeah.
Marlin Detweiler:
Tell us, if you can recall, some of the complex things you've had to deal with and maybe a funny thing or two that you've had to deal with.
Lauren Hall:
Absolutely. There have been calls that are really hard to answer, and you feel like you can't say the right words to soothe them with the stories and struggles that they're bearing. And I know that I have struggled with guilt in different situations of coming off a call and feeling like, oh, I didn't do enough. Oh, I wasn't good enough.
And maybe they come back and they're like, I'm still struggling with this. And I'm like, oh man, what did I say wrong? But knowing that Christ will speak through you and you're just there as a vessel serving him. And so that is so special, knowing that he hears before all things and in him all things hold together.
And so he holds their life. And no matter what words you say, your words aren't going to be the ones that change their life around. It's going to be His Holy Spirit touching their heart. And so knowing that he's using you just as a vessel, and you just have to be willing to serve with what he has given you and willing to serve with the words that come to mind or with the verses that he places on your heart.
That's really special to be at a point where you're like, I can't do anything personally about this situation, but I trust that the Lord holds it in his hands and that he will use my words in my interaction with the student, brief as it might be, to work in their lives in ways that I might not see until eternity, but in ways that I trust that he's growing them.
And then also, there have been students who have come back multiple years, and just seeing their sanctification in the journey that they've had with Christ, from knowing them at the beginning of their walk with Christ as they're questioning, who is Jesus, to accepting Jesus, then to getting baptized, then to evangelizing themselves and being so strong in their faith.
That is so special to see that walk and to have a front-row seat to that, watching Jesus transform a life. It is so, so special. And so, there are also funny moments, you know, when students come in, and they're like, "Will you play a game with me?" And they keep coming back, and you're like, "Oh, maybe ask the moderators on Student Commons or something like that."
But there are sweet calls too, where students call me "Mrs. Hall." And I'm like, "I'm not married." But, you know, it's really sweet. So yeah.
Marlin Detweiler:
That's funny. So your plans, you graduate this spring. The idea of being of 2025. Yeah. And you're planning to go to Cedarville to study nursing. What are your plans for this summer after the end of your gathering?
Lauren Hall:
Yeah, so I'm going to be working at a doctor's office as a medical technician. And so I'm really excited about that, to get my feet into the medical world a little bit before I go into nursing school to get practice in that. And then I'll also just be trying to spend as much time with my family as I can before I move 16 hours away. So it'll definitely be a big change. But so, so excited. Bittersweet for sure. But yeah.
Marlin Detweiler:
How would you say your experience as a moderator, your experience as a mentor, your experience as the head of mentors and your education at Veritas will help you as an adult?
Lauren Hall:
I think Veritas has prepared me excellently to understand the world around me through a biblical worldview, to be able to defend my faith, to be able to communicate well, to be able to take on heavy course loads like in college. I've had friends from Veritas who go to college and say Veritas has helped me so much, and that all my classmates are struggling through this book. And I'm like, I read this in seventh grade, you know?
Marlin Detweiler:
The thing I hear most from graduates of ours is Veritas was hard, but college was easy.
Lauren Hall:
Yes, yes. And so, you know, putting in all the hard work at Veritas and late nights studying, pulling all-nighters, exams and midterms and assignments and lab reports that are like 20 pages long for chemistry or whatever. That's going to prepare me so well for wherever the Lord leads next and for wherever the Lord leads any student next, whether that be trades, whether that be university, whether that be the mission field, whether that be getting married and having kids or raising a family.
And I think Veritas has helped me learn to engage the culture well and to also communicate well with rhetoric and apologetics and Omnibus and to think critically and to love the Lord well through all that I do.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. That is truly wonderful. We have a couple of minutes left. Are there other things that you'd like to say that we haven't covered?
Lauren Hall:
I think that the Lord has just been teaching me so much lately, how important it is to rest at his feet and to really be intentional in our relationship with Christ. And so to those who are listening, I think that it can be easy to put all your motivation in your assignments and your work. But really, if Christ and the gospel of Christ is not within what you're doing, then you labor in vain.
It's worthless. And so making sure that the one life you've been given is lived in a manner worthy of the gospel that you've received, because Christ is giving you the breath in your lungs and nothing else matters apart from Christ. Also, I don't know if you remember the book You Are Special by Max Lucado, but that was a book that was really special to me as a kid. Reading through it recently, it came to mind.
It's about these little Wemmick people, and they put stars and dots on each other as praises or scorn. There's one girl who has none. When a little boy with all dots sees her, he's like, "Oh, I want that. I don't want any stickers." So he asks her how, and she says, "I go spend time with my Maker every day."
And so spending time with your Maker, as you spend time with Him, the praises and the adoration of men are going to fall off because they're not going to matter to you. And all that's going to matter to you is what your Maker thinks of you. Knowing that you are special because He made you, and that He doesn't make mistakes, and that spending time with Him is going to make the things of the earth grow strangely dim because His light and His glory and His grace are going to be all that you want to be in.
And so just, to God be all the glory, because He's done great things. I'm so grateful for Veritas and for all that it's been to me and just the relationships that I've built with teachers. The education I've received has been phenomenal and such a blessing in my life.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well, we and many others within Veritas have worked long and hard for decades, and I got to tell you, hearing your story and knowing that your story is not a unique one makes it much easier to get up in the morning for us to do what we do day after day. Thank you very much.
Lauren Hall:
Oh, you're welcome. And praise the Lord for all your hard work in this school, because it is transforming lives and it's changing lives. And that will change the world, and will glorify the Lord. So thank you.
Marlin Detweiler:
Very good. Well, Lauren, I look forward to seeing you at the end of your gathering. As you know, it's a busy place, so make sure to come up and say hello. I will, I think I'll recognize you, but just in case, make sure you reference, doing this together.
Lauren Hall:
Thank you, Mr. Detweiler. I so appreciate your time. And it was so fun to get to know you more and to share a little bit of my heart and my journey with Veritas.
Marlin Detweiler:
So it's been great to hear it. And folks, thank you for joining us for another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of Classical Christian Education. We hope to see you next time. Thanks, Lauren.
