Sep 25, 2019 | Care Conversations
If we assume that a Biblical Christian school operates as a learning community, then we conclude that students are not just the recipients of what the community has to offer; this would make them beneficiaries as opposed to members. Students need to understand that they are contributing participants.
It is always a good idea to have these discussions with families applying to be part of our school communities. We are able to outline why our school exists, articulate our desire to for a purpose that glorifies God and how that purpose leads to supporting family life which in turn helps families become engaged with the community.
It is also a good idea to have discussions with students, especially those who are entering middle school or above. My questions would frequently be:
“Why do you want to be part of the school community?”
“How do you think you will benefit from being part of the community?”
“What will you contribute to the community? In what ways will our community be enhanced by your presence within it?”
If we see Leadership as “taking the initiative to serve” – then every student has a leadership role in the community.
How can we develop this even further by assisting our students to be involved in leading in significant ways? How can we help them to see that some are given the gift of leadership and that when God gives gifts to people there is an expectation that they be used for His glory? How can we help them to develop healthy ideas about leadership? How can we help them to see that there are “good works that God has prepared in advance for them to do?”
The simple answer is through mentoring in addition to guided opportunities that are aiming for greater expectations in initiative.
Sep 18, 2019 | Teachers Talking
God created us to be disciples and disciple-makers (Matthew 28:18-20). If our goal is to raise disciples of Jesus who build culture that reflects love for God and love for one’s neighbour, enacting His truth and wisdom, then we must ask the question “In what ways can you link teaching and learning to the ways students use their gifts wisely?”
In answer to this question in a discussion group, one teacher said that she placed students in her class who love Mathematics and are gifted in this area next to students who were struggling. By structuring these student interactions, she was sending a message about the purpose of gifts and the nature of learning. This assists students to imagine the world in a different way. Are our classrooms more about individual achievement and competition, or places where all students can teach each other as well as learn from each other?
The design of our teaching and learning activities should provide opportunities for discipleship. The structure of our class, the resources, assessment and student participation linked to service are channels through which character and Godly wisdom are formed and sustained.
As we draw these understandings together, we can know that deeper learning will flourish in classrooms where teachers love their students and engage them in ways that recognise their uniqueness and differences. It won’t be static learning about individual achievement in learning information but the immersion of students in exploring meaning in the reality of their complex lives.
The learning in the classroom and school culture that comes from stories, knowledge, ideas and experience will be enacted in the shalom community and will contribute to the formation of our students for the Kingdom of God. When we as teachers see this as our priority, then we can rejoice in the knowledge that the Spirit of God is at work in our school. As Jerome Bruner writes, the way we teach and learn are “a major embodiment of a culture’s way of life.”
The question for us to reflect upon is “Does our pedagogy demonstrate our identity as citizens of God’s Kingdom?”
May the Lord richly bless you as you fulfil your calling to raise disciples of the Lord Jesus who make a difference in His world throughout their lives. May you rejoice as you see God at work in the lives of your students. A teacher once said:
“I teach because I see people grow and change in front of my eyes. Being a teacher is being present at the creation, where the clay begins to breathe. Nothing is more exciting than being there when the breathing begins … I occasionally find myself catching my breath with them.”
“….. all learning worthy of the name – is a matter of being invited as disciples to know God and the fulfilment that God has for God’s creatures.” (M Higton)
Grace and Peace
The Team
The Excellence Centre
Sep 12, 2019 | Care Conversations, Uncategorized
“Over ninety percent of Christian schools are not intentional in developing student leaders.
Athletic leaders and student government leaders were present but the vast majority of Christian schools were letting (leadership) happen by default.”
[1]
John Maxwell, in various surveys, found that ten percent of leaders rose to leadership as a result of their natural gifting, five percent as a result of a crisis, and eighty-five percent because of the influence of another leader.
Most schools include, somewhere in their documentation and vision thinking, the importance of developing leaders. However there appears to be a lot of research and anecdotal evidence to show that this enrichment is often not carried out in very intentional and purposeful ways.
At a fundamental level we can define leadership as “taking initiative to serve”. Using that definition, leadership can be developed in every person to some degree. There will be some students who, as a consequence of God’s gifting and the character and personality that He develops within them, will be highly effective leaders.
We, as school leaders, must develop a culture where “taking the initiative to serve” is a foundational norm.
We must provide good mentoring opportunities to enable leadership development.
We must help our students to understand that “taking the initiative to serve” is very much a part of being made in the image of God. The Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit have always loved and served one another. It is therefore part of every persons created DNA. It is why students find satisfaction and joy when they Lead to Serve.
How are we developing a culture that develops student leadership?
[1] Developing Student Leadership: Is it Intentional at Your School? John W. Storey, EdD, (One-time director of the ACSI Mid-Atlantic Region.)
Sep 8, 2019 | Care Conversations
If we assume the ideas that we have outlined so far; that the nature of the communities in which our young people live and learn has enormous impact, how do we intentionally lead our communities to be authentic and effective?
What are some of the intentional cultural “norms” that we must develop in our schools?
I recently watched a promotional video for a Christian school which finished with this statement: “Come and visit our school so that you can feel the difference.”
What we “feel” when we visit a community is the culture of that community. If it’s a school, can we sense its purpose, what it values, how people are regarded?
Culture generally happens in three ways:
1. By default; in which case everyone just does their own thing and there is little, or no, coherence. Any cohesion happens almost by accident.
2. Or it happens by way of imitation; we’re a school so we do schooling like our neighbours; we adopt the proven practices of others.
3. Or it happens thoughtfully and intentionally; this is what we set out to be, therefore this is how we live and relate.
One of the major tasks of a school leader is to be an intentional culture shaper. Leaders create, develop, enhance, shape and reinforce culture. A community’s ability to shape its culture is determined by:
1. The strength of its belief and purpose and
2. its degree of intentionality.
So, the leader must be continually leading the community to understand WHY it exists, WHERE it is going and how people are loved and valued. There needs to be a clarity that students are being equipped to engage redemptively, with grace, in all aspects of life.
Leaders should have a positive and profound impact on the beliefs of the school community, as well as its convictions and culture, its vision and values.
Leaders in Christian learning communities must be keen students of the Scriptures. They must be helping the community to understand the Triune God and what He is like; to understand the innate dignity of every person as an image-bearer of the Creator. The leaders must help the community to have a clear vision of our world and what it is like and what it is meant to be.
The way the Leader articulates these truths shapes the way the school community thinks about God, humanity and the world. Intentional leaders who communicate with clarity, consistency, and courage in order to shape the culture are fulfilling a critical aspect of their responsibility.
Intentionally shaping the culture according to our Biblical Christian understanding will determine HOW things are done. Policies, pedagogy and practices will all be informed by the culture that we see as important. These practices, in turn, will reinforce the culture.
Sep 3, 2019 | Teachers Talking
The movie Chariots of Fire is the true story of a Scotsman, Eric Liddell, who was to run in the 1924 Olympic Games. He was committed to Christ and due to his convictions, he chose not to run in the 100 metres race as it was held on a Sunday. He later went on to win the 400 metres race and went to serve as a missionary in China where he died in an internment Camp in 1945. Eric said “God has made me fast and when I run I feel His pleasure.” Harold Abrahams, an English runner, went on to win the 100 metres race. He had said “I have 10 seconds to prove my existence.”
As a teenager, Eric learnt to run as an act of worship to God. Harold ran to find the meaning of his life. Both were very gifted but one life was shaped by God’s grace, the other by their own performance. One’s heart was orientated to the Creator, the other was to self-advancement.
In Australia, we tend to have a ‘win at all costs’ mentality in sport which manifests itself in aggressive behaviour by players towards the opposing team and spectators who rage at the referee when a decision does not go their way.
Our culture and the curriculum places a high value on individual fitness and sporting success. How do we reframe the teaching and learning so that the love of neighbour informs our pedagogical practice in the teaching of physical education and sport?
In his recent book “On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the classroom”, David Smith cites the example of, James, a PE teacher who set about teaching his students through the lens of “love within a team framework.” He designed an activity where students worked in pairs to learn the push-pass skill for field-hockey. They practised the skills with each other, with one alternating between being the player and one being the coach. They helped each other by discussing strategies. This was followed by a whole class discussion around the different approaches to encouragement. A game played at the end of the lesson showed how attention to practice enabled them to see their opponents in a new way. By working together and learning from each other there was opportunity for each individual team to build their capacity. In this way, sporting competition was fostering the building of relationships, creating a shared vision and strategy and developing the virtue of being able to win and lose well and rejoice in the victories of others.
This approach was embedded in the ethos of the school’s physical education department and embodied in the lives of the teachers.
For your reflection:
- 1. Can you think of an example where the design of a learning activity contradicted the Kingdom values that you are seeking to teach the children?
- 2. How does the physical education example challenge the way you think about pedagogy in a Christian school?
- 3. Consider a unit of work that you are currently teaching. How might you structure the learning to reflect Kingdom priorities and orientate the students’ minds and hearts to their Creator?
“. . . teaching itself is always telling a story about how we inhabit time
– about who we are,
where we are now, and
where we are headed.”
(D Smith)
Grace and Peace
The Team
The Excellence Centre
