Balancing Spring: Faithfulness in Planning

Snow was flying outside my office window earlier this morning, despite it being the first day of spring. I was at a local hardware store recently and witnessed a very cold truck driver unloading thousands of bags of cedar mulch. The windy day with sub-zero temperatures seemed to make the start up of the outdoor garden center a very optimistic concept. But to guarantee future readiness, preparation for the upcoming surge of purchased mulch, lawnmowers, grass seed, fertilizers, and much more began months ago as factories ramped up production and purchase orders were created in anticipation.

Bringing a new school year from concept to reality is much like that process. Not yet knowing everything about September of 2016, the LCES Board, administration, and Finance Committee have been working intensely on this process of creating a plan for continuing to offer quality, Christian education at LCES this fall.

At the core of these first conversations, budget and otherwise, that set the stage is how to respond to two questions: “What is the most accurate information we can gather to do the diligent work of making a sound plan?” and “Where, how much, and in what ways do we remain hopefully expectant that our faithful God will deliver and abundance of blessing that we can’t fathom from where we stand?”

To answer both calls – to be diligent in our work of planning and be faithful in our stance of trust –
places us in a very vulnerable and humble position as a community. We don’t want to come short on
either aspect; working with dedication and praying with trust becomes our task. Investing in our children’s future is always an exciting time for us because our present actions become linked with a much larger story, that of our children’s future. May God bless us with much wisdom to follow in faithfulness!

SJ

Tell Me a Story: Teaching Toward Wisdom at London Christian

“Knowledge and wisdom are sort of connected, but they are definitely not the same thing.”                          - LCES Grade seven student - 

I heard the above sentence from a student expressing his thoughts while I listened in on a literature lesson underway in grade seven last week. The class had just been reading from a collection of short stories in which characters face challenging situations that leave them with a decision to make. For this particular story, their response to the decision was the focus of a discussion as students wrestled with simply knowing something vs acting on it with wisdom. It was a pleasure to be in the room and hear the group build on fellow classmates’ first reactions and identification of decisions and their wisdom (or lack of wisdom) for characters they seemed to be able to connect with.

I am thankful for teachers who create and sustain a classroom environment that welcomes students to think in these ways. I am also thankful for curriculum that supports both the teacher and the learner well, in this particular case as organized by the Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools.

Here is a short excerpt for the teacher’s guide for the unit being studied that may help you get a sense of the perspective of valuing stories as a way of teaching wisdom:

Rationale: Why Teach Short Stories?

Enjoyment is an important aim for reading short stories. The short story writer’s prime motivation is to take one aspect of human or animal life and by crafting with the tools of the narrative (character, plot, setting, theme and point of view) invoke the emotions and intellect of the reader to laugh, to cry, to look up expectantly to God in the heavens, or to look sadly at the brokenness of our world.

Short stories can expand the mind’s horizon, since some short stories offer new insights as well as fresh ways of viewing things already known.

May the story of our children’s growth include the addition of much wisdom every day. SJ

Guides to move our school forward

It is a constant task of our school to be looking at what we do and how we do it, checking for purpose, relevance, value, and efficiency. One of the most frequently asked questions of people new to our school is how we stay up-to-date on matters like curriculum, best practices of teaching, governance, provincial legislation, human resources, and much more . There was a time in the past when a Christian school was like a boat on its own in a vast sea. That is no longer the case! We are blessed at LCES to have a network of support from many other key players in Christian education in Ontario and beyond that help us greatly in these matters. Short forms of these organizations are used freely by many in our community. In case you are unfamiliar with them or need to be reminded, here are four of the most commonly reference ones:

We also have neighbours: The Prairie Association for Christian Schools and Society for Christian
Schools in British Columbia are very helpful in making our school a great place to be. What a time to be connected to a Christian school with so many tremendous support structures!

We have a bright future ahead. SJ

What is it we do here?

Have you ever been on a unique trip or taken in an especially meaningful experience and been asked afterward “What did you do?” or “What was it all about?”. Without being able to recount the entire experience in one sitting, it’s challenging to share the event in a way that does it justice.

One LCES school year, or the succession of many of them, are very “full” and their impact is hard to share. To the captive ears of families who are often inquiring at this time of year, my answer to “What is it you do here?” often goes something like this:

Bible is a course of study here. Starting with the rich narratives of the mighty acts of God in the Old and New Testament right from JK onward, our students hear daily from God’s Word. In an overlapping, cyclical rotation, students continue to expand their understanding of who God is and what he calls them to do as they mature in wisdom and faith.

There is a devotional nature to what we do here. Each school day begins and ends in prayer in a group setting. Before everything from mealtimes to leadership meetings, from parent-teacher interviews to camp trip excursions – we ask the Lord to lead us and the Holy Spirit to guide us. Monday morning chapel sets the tone for the week and staff bookend every week with time together with God.

All curriculum is taught as being connected and whole. Every square centimeter of this earth belongs to God and declares his glory. In each subject area, we consider the world as a whole – a broken, sinful world – but a world fully redeemed by Christ. Art, science, geography, language studies, music all of it is part of God’s good creation and we study it with love for our creator.

Community is a part of what we do. Families at LCES gather together with the common wish to be part of the Joshua’s expression of “...as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) Conflicts and problems happen within us, but with the starting point of God’s command to love one another we work for healing and enjoy surprising unanimity.

Our teachers are professionals with faith. Who is with your child for 30 hours per week? At LCES, the answer to that question is this: our committed staff not only happen to be trained and qualified to teach, they see their task as their life’s calling given by the Lord. They are not simply free to be openly Christian in their interaction – it’s a requirement.

Praise God for the opportunity to be part of quality, Christian education. SJ

Christian Schools as Greenhouses

As I shoveled snow many times this weekend and felt the icy blast of wind chills that took my breath away, I attempted to distract myself with the reality that mid-March is one month away. It may still snow at that point, but the serious part of winter will be over. Beneath these mounds of snow lies the potential for green grass, daffodils, tulips, and more. I can hardly wait.

I heard an analogy for Christian Education recently that that I thought was helpful.

In order to give a young plant every opportunity to thrive in its eventual home, a wise gardener starts the plant off in the very controlled environment of a greenhouse. Temperature, sunlight, and moisture are closely monitored to ensure the plant thrives in its first stages. Fertilizer, pruning, and close monitoring accelerate the plant toward being ready to leave the greenhouse for the natural world when ready, equipped to flourish where planted. The greenhouse start is never intended to keep the plant from being able to experience the outdoors; it is a step taken to give the best opportunity for future success of that plant in its eventual setting.

Christian education’s long-term goal is much the same. Students are planted in an environment rich with opportunities to flourish. The nourishment of learning about who God made them to be and what God asks them to do is liberally showered every day on young hearts and minds. The pruning shears of a controlled environment where certain habits of faith are encouraged and others are discouraged direct the plant to grow in a certain direction. The warmth of stimulating stories and ideas is sustained to give every opportunity to create disciplined minds and committed hearts for both the present and future soils they will be planted in. The long term goal of Christian education is not isolation, it is integration.

I look forward to spring. I can’t wait to see how our plants will do. SJ

Our Students and Their Connected World

On Google Maps my parents pointed out to my children recently where they were both born in Europe. The two very small towns were less than 100km from each other, however they lived in two very separate experiences that may as well have been worlds apart. Only after travelling thousands of kilometers to a new land called Canada did they meet and eventually get married. I could see that it was challenging for my own children to understand that they lived
so close together but were yet so far apart.

If I contrast that with a recent LCES event, I come up with some interesting conclusions and observe how much things have changed. Over an internet connection our grade three students joined many others across the country as they met and interacted with Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian to walk in space as an astronaut. The live event allowed a prominent person to directly interact with students in a very memorable way.

If I want to check out where my parents lived, or what the hotel I am about to book looks like, I can virtually “walk” down the street to take a look. 360 videos, a more recent phenomenon on YouTube, allow you to walk around within a video and look wherever you wish, not only where the camera man chooses to aim the equipment. Surgeons are doing live consults with people who are half a world away. Voice recognition to tell your device to search for information is becoming more than a party gimmick, it is a viable way to use a computer, tablet, or phone.

Here is something that I keep returning to as I notice these changes. Although we as parents and grandparents feel the whiplash of how fast these things change and how it can possibly work, and how different it all is from a world we once knew, for our students there is little remarkable about this technology rich landscape. This is their normal, what they consider their starting point.

We are wise to follow those before us who have faced change and chosen to boldly say “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105) Training our student’s hearts and minds toward biblical wisdom remains our task and our best way to equip them to live in ways that are faithful in a world increasingly own past experience. I`m thankful for our Christian School who aims to do just that. SJ

Justice Seekers

“That’s not fair” said a student this morning as they encountered the first conflict of the day. I took a moment to help said student recognize that fair doesn’t mean everyone gets the same thing, it means everyone gets what they need.

At a conference on Christian education that I attended a few years back, a speaker summarized the central task of what Christian schools are called to. Beyond simply “filling” students with information, his summary was that “Christian schools ought to seek to recapture the first loves of our students and redirect them to the core of the gospel.” By first loves he meant the things that students long for, the priorities they organize their growing understanding of the world by, the objects or experiences they find value and identity in, and ultimately what it is they think they are living for.

This morning I listened in as a classroom re-visited the familiar story of Christ’s pathway to the cross. Students were led to consider the trial at which Jesus was accused of falsely teaching and leading people away from what was considered true and right in the eyes of the Sanhedrin. The students were both stretched and surprised as they saw the unjust nature of that particular trial, and the importance of valuing and maintaining justice as a society. Connections to stories of injustice, either personal or more public like those highlighted by the high-profile court case starting today, were meaningfully connected. This is the stuff of significant learning that changes lives.

Jesus speaks to us at length about the importance of taking up the plight of those who experience injustice in its many forms. It is our prayer that LCES works alongside the efforts of family and church to train the habits of our children to not only know the gospel, but as part of their core-being response “be” the gospel to a world that needs it. That’s a habit worth practicing! SJ