CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) AND SCSBC’S RESPONSE: Find the lastest updates here for students, faculty and staff.
CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) AND SCSBC’S RESPONSE: Find the lastest updates here for students, faculty and staff.
God’s very nature is found in the Trinity: a mystery of three-in-one, always giving and receiving, never running out. Embedded in the fabric of creation is a similar reality of interdependence. No matter how small scientists break down creation, others will discover a smaller, interconnected whole that sustains the part being studied.
If the very essence of God reflects interdependence, our learning design should likewise reflect this reality.
Implications for Education
A. Subject areas should be tolerated, not celebrated or reinforced.
Subject areas serve an important purpose in organizing learning, but they should not come at the expense of interdisciplinary and interdependent learning. Breaking knowledge, skills, and understanding into manageable parts is helpful. However, learning more fully reflects the order of creation when knowledge and skills are brought together, applied across subject areas, and used in new circumstances to serve others and creation.
How might summative assignments allow students to serve others while applying newly acquired skills and understanding in unique and unfamiliar environments?
B. School is not preparation for life; school is life.
If our whole world belongs to God, our whole lives belong to God as well. Learning should focus on how to be faithful today, how to be kind today, and how to persevere in our academics today. Not simply because these things will help us in the future, but because we are invited to live each day fully.
Do students have opportunities to struggle together, make mistakes, show kindness, and practise resilience? Do the practices at your school invite Grade 8 students to act justly and love mercy because it is right for today, rather than simply because it will prepare them for the future?
C. Every practice has a formative impact.
Every decision an educator makes tells students a story. When we take attendance, decide how to begin a lesson, or welcome students into the classroom, we are forming learners. Are we forming students to see themselves as known, loved, and capable?
How might you use openings and closings to remind students, through your words and actions, that God knows and loves them?
D. Everything is sacred.
Sin does not create something new; it redirects something that has already been created good. Learning should reveal the amazing breadth of thought and creativity found in God’s creation. Each leaf, insect, cell, and well-crafted phrase can reveal something of the Creator.
How are we using learning to help students see something of who God is in every area of human experience?
Each person you encounter each day is an image-bearer: some have something to offer you, and others seem to take from you. Each person is loved by God, and God longs to be in relationship with them. Each person is invited by God to see themselves as beloved, even before they achieve anything.
If this is true, then the way we understand and respond to every learner matters.
Implications for Education
A. There are no bad students, low students, or dumb students.
When we label students as “low” or “dumb,” we risk suggesting that the Creator has made an error in the creative process. Specific language focused on learning goals is more faithful to the dignity of the learner. For example, saying that a student currently knows the letter sounds for a, d, g, and m describes what the student knows without making a value judgment about the student.
Our language should reflect the reality that every learner bears the image of God.
B. Relationship is foundational to learning.
Relationship is at the heart of the Christian understanding of God as Trinity. Through relationship, connection, and interdependence, students learn that they are not their own, but are connected to God and to one another.
The formation of a healthy relationship between God and the learner begins, in part, through healthy relationships between learners and the people entrusted with authority over them.
C. Constructive struggle is possible when a student is known and supported.
Struggle without hope leads to helplessness. Constructive struggle, however, can become a place for deeper learning when students know they are valued and supported.
Consider Jesus’ interaction with Peter following Peter’s denial. Jesus does not simply let Peter off the hook. He confronts Peter by asking him three times whether he loves him yet affirms Peter’s place in the work that lies ahead.
How do we walk with struggling students in ways that affirm their value while calling them forward into the important work ahead?
D. Increasing accessibility to meaningful learning is an act of justice.
If every learner bears the image of God, every learner should have access to meaningful learning that meets them where they are and helps propel them forward.
Pursuing accessibility through the learning environment, lesson design, and skill development acknowledges that every student is worthy of this effort because every student bears the image of God.
No matter what you are doing, you are worshipping. The question is not whether you are worshipping, but what you are worshipping.
Each learner is created to worship through thoughts, desires, and actions. What we worship is developed through our rhythms and routines. It is formed by what we value and repeatedly give our attention to.
So what is your school teaching students to worship?
Could some of our practices invite students to worship intellect, compliance, competition, or influence rather than God?
Implications for Education
A. Interacting with students and colleagues in the hallway is an act of worship.
Every interaction with another image-bearer can become an opportunity to acknowledge God through kindness, attention, and connection.
As we move through the hallways, are we worshipping efficiency, control, and our schedules, or are we willing to slow down enough to notice the good and beautiful in the people we encounter?
B. Our use of technology can reveal what we value.
When I am with others and choose to scroll on my phone, I may be prioritizing the immediate reward of my device over the people in front of me. What does that communicate about what I value?
Is the staff room one of the only places in the school where adults regularly use their phones? What might that teach us about how we interact with one another?
C. Even our complaints can become acts of worship.
There is always something to complain about in education. The book of Psalms gives us a rich example of how to bring our frustrations before God. The psalmists complain, question God, demand answers, and sometimes express their anger in startlingly direct language. Yet again and again, these complaints return to a recognition of God’s faithfulness.
We do not need to pretend that everything is fine. We can bring our frustrations honestly before God while still allowing our complaints to become an act of worship.
There is not a corner of a school that does not need reconciliation and restoration. Consider something as ordinary as scheduling a test on a Monday. A decision that seems insignificant from a classroom perspective can affect family life over the weekend. Or consider a parent who complains on Facebook rather than speaking directly with a teacher. Important relationships may need restoration.
Christian education in Canada was established in part from a desire to be a beacon of reconciliation and restoration within its communities. That calling remains relevant today.
Implications for Education
A. Important learning does not end with a test.
Learning finds its fullest expression when it moves beyond the classroom and contributes to making some small corner of the world better.
Students should have opportunities to apply what they have learned in ways that serve others, address real problems, and participate in God’s work of reconciliation and restoration. The school should value this kind of learning transfer and reflect it in how we assess learning.
B. Reconciliation and restoration require practice.
Reconciliation is hard, and everyone makes mistakes along the way. Learners therefore need opportunities to use their learning as agents of change. When students take risks and make mistakes while extending their learning into new and practical situations, our response should encourage growth rather than simply penalize failure.
C. Reconciliation grows through relationships and shared responsibility.
Whether kindergarten students bring encouragement notes to the finance team at year-end or middle school students collect primary students before an all-school assembly, these small acts can become practices of reconciliation and restoration.
Schools that understand reconciliation as an outworking of God’s story create opportunities for students to care for one another and recognize that their responsibility extends beyond themselves. Over time, these small acts can help students mature into people who care for others and contribute to their community’s flourishing.
Darren Spyksma
SCSBC Associate Executive Director
