Thursday, February 24, 2022

The "Real World": Learning, Home, and Refugees

 “How do your students do when they enter the real world?” 

The manner in which the question was asked suggested that at least to some degree, the inquiring family presumed that the learning journey for students at LCES is not linked in a direct way to what happens in the broader world outside of the school day. I firmly believe it does. 

Take for example our student service project this spring. After wrapping up our learning connection with Indwell, our students are being challenged to learn about what “home” means, especially to those who don’t have one. LCES will be learning about refugees throughout the world, but also locally right here in our city as they read through books specifically chosen to help them understand the journey of those who have fled their home. 


Christian education has as its goal not to isolate students from life, but to enable them to fully understand what they are actually seeing around them: God’s amazing world! We seek to have students be able to peel back the confusion and distortion of that good creation caused by sin in order to see creation as it was originally meant to be, and one day what it will become again. The “real world” without the story of the mighty acts of God isn’t real at all, since it tells an incomplete story of what life is really all about. As C.S. Lewis said through one of his characters, we seek to provide students ample opportunity to “…go further in and go further up” as they deepen and widen their understanding of all things. Mixed in between math facts and poetry, gym class and art, Christian education grounds students with the chance to sort through a messy world to find what is real, true, valuable, honorable, faithful, and praiseworthy. 



SJ

Saturday, February 12, 2022

Wonder: Sleeping With One Eye Open

"Mr. Janssen, did you know that dolphins sleep with one eye open?



Frequently, I have reason to speak with our students. In most of the occasions I have the pleasure of celebrating things with them; a birthday, a recent creation or project, a story from their life outside school, something they have just recently learned, or something they think is “amazing” about God’s creation.

Loose or missing teeth, holiday plans, counting in French, and many other parts of their lives are readily shared with joy and excitement. Life at every turn offers something new to take in. This is the joy of the Christian elementary educator: we pace with our students who are seeing God’s world as something brand new, like an undisturbed field of snow they have never visited before.

Life is amazing. Though our often-jaded attention as adults tends toward areas of frustration, worry, or lament faster than it goes to wonder – our world is an astounding place. Your child’s days are filled with seeing, appreciating, and attempting to understand many brand-new things for the very first time. “Wonder creates awe, and awe creates worship” a friend of mine used to say. While eyes and ears are focused to see these things, what a perfect opportunity to be telling the mighty acts of God and answering the big questions of life like “Who am I?”, “Where am I?”, “What’s my purpose?”, and “What is this world really all about?” This is one of the ways that we attune our students to the kingdom that Jesus taught his disciples about.

I’m thankful for Christian education which not only draws our children’s attention to an amazing creation, but also to worship its creator. All of life (including learning at London Christian Elementary School) is sacred.

Praise God!

SJ