Who Do We Teach?: Patterning For Peace

“Blessed are the peacemakers… for they will be called children of God.”  Matthew 5:9

Two easy answers to that question might be “students” or “children.” An answer that speaks to our greater purpose at LCES is “Kingdom builders.” Last week I observed a few moments of a classroom meeting where a guided classroom discussion was taking place in a circle format. Disagreements and tensions around how a recess game was being played were being taken on with a strong direction toward establishing a peaceful, communal, and joyful way to interact. It struck me in the moment that while the intricate details of the particular problem will long be forgotten in the future, the process they were going through was transformational in learning how to walk the hard road of not avoiding conflict. Patterns were being intentionally former here.

A former parent shared with me that his now adult child had attended our school decades ago, and was quick to share how influential the school’s program was in shaping his child’s further education and vocational decisions. That child is now working overseas to actively pursue peace through reconciliation in cultural settings where deep-rooted tensions cause conflicts to repeatedly simmer to the surface. Specifically, he attributed the Peacemaker program (still running here at LCES) with cultivating a significant awareness of the reality of a conflict and strategies to resolve conflict.

When peace and reconciliation overcome conflict, the Kingdom is built.

When grief and sadness are chased away by faith-nourished hope, the Kingdom is built.

When loneliness and desperation are washed away by communal joy, the Kingdom is built.

When apathy and disillusionment are replaced with passionate purpose, the Kingdom is built.

How do you build God’s Kingdom? One class, one child, one moment, one lesson, one conflict at a time.

SJ

Learning as Serving: The Love of God School

What’s behind that name?

“École L’Amour de Dieu” – or the Love of God School. What a beautiful expression of purpose!

This week in chapel Ms.Wassink shared details of a visit she made to Children of the Promise and Lagossette Christian School that has this expression as part of their name. (See childrenofthepromise.org).  This organization works to be a faithful, life-sustaining presence in the country of Haiti as it works with very sick or orphaned children. In a context where the average Haitian receives less than five years of school, the youth literacy rate is 38%, and undernourishment of the very young is a very real challenge, we are excited to partner with this organization as all LCES students and staff collectively build God’s kingdom in a tangible way. 

What does a student service project look like at LCES?

Each LCES classroom selects an activity, event, or means whereby they give of their time and effort to raise funds that are passed over to an organization at the close of that school year. In classrooms and chapels, our students learn about this part of the world and the organization we are partnering with.  Examples of these efforts include a fun fair organized entirely by students, running a a Poinsettia

sale, or selling refreshments at a school play or smoothies in the hot days of late May.

Why do we do this?

There are two main reasons that we take on a whole-school service project each year:

• To challenge our students to carefully and continually consider that not everyone in the world lives an experience identical to their own here in the London, ON area. God’s very big world includes a diversity of culture, language, and expression of faith, and the distribution of resources, wealth and opportunity is often very different than what our children know here.
• In a frequently “me-first” centered culture, we want to pattern our children’s hands and hearts to be quick to serve others and see themselves as being a blessing as they are blessed.

SJ

On Mixing Colours and Making Sense

I observed a student in one of our classrooms this week so wrapped up in a task that they didn’t seem to notice anything else going on. There is such a joy watching a child deeply connected and focused on what their curiosity has led them to. A few pots of paint were at hand and globs of unusual colours were on various parts of large piece of paper. When I asked for help to understand what she was was doing, the response was priceless:

“There’s no green paint. I’m trying to figure out how you make green! I’ve heard you can make it, but I don’t know how to yet.”

What a wonderful answer! There are several things in it that reveal to me the beauty of a classroom committed to exploring God’s world.

Learning is making sense of an amazing creation. Exploration and inquiry are such a vital part of enabling our children to not simply passively observe, but also actively play, create, and do things with the “stuff” God has made.  Excellent learning has a component of facilitated discovery – encouraging a healthy desire to know how and why things work, and marvelling at the creator who put it all in place.   

Learning is often about process, not necessarily the final product. While the finished product of the page of this young painter may not have looked like much was accomplished, an understanding of how colours work together has grown significantly. Excellent learning builds on previous learning, always moving from where you are to where you can go. 

Learning takes time, and commitment to see it through. I loved the last word in the reply – “yet.” Countering an age of instant gratification, we do well to encourage students to see past the first failure and instead look forward to what next step they can take even if they were not first successful.

LCES is a place with learning opportunities around every corner!

SJ

Stories of New Things

What a joy to hear of all sorts of new things at the start of this week! One student shared with me that they had a new tooth. Another talked excitedly about meeting a new teacher this year. Another was bursting with descriptions of a new cousin. Throughout the day I was told about a new pool enjoyed over the summer summer, shown new lunchboxes, and asked to join in on delight of a fresh, brand new set of pencil crayons or markers. The school felt like the first few pages of an intriguing story all week long. 

We all love to tell stories. In the last weekend of the summer my family went camping and, no surprise, stories around the crackling campfire were unpacked again like treasured collectibles even though we’ve all heard them before. Perhaps we like stories so much because they remind us that present problems will eventually be resolved and even the most incidental of things can find meaning when we are able to look over our shoulder and place them in a broader context. Lots of things make much more sense years after they happen.

These stories include hardship and challenge, but even more so tales of provision beyond what seemed possible, unexpected joy, and prayers that the made the seemingly impossible a reality. Well-told stories about the past often affirm for us what is most important, most trustworthy, most valuable. What are the stories we will tell about this year?

As we move in to this new year, we know that more stories will be created. We also boldly proclaim that God’s faithfulness will be known in them as another generation learns to walk faithfully before the Lord. The same faithful God who went with us before is still with us, indeed He “hems us in, behind and before.” (Ps. 139).  May we be open to the new things the Lord will do this year and be encouraged by the overwhelming stories of his grace and care in the past. 

SJ

Faithfulness in a River of Change

I recall a grade ten English class in which we considered the following truism:

“Change is like a river; you’re always in it.”

No doubt true, but we don’t always stop to consider it. In many ways, this week is about deliberating noticing change. In chapel this morning, we recognized our grade eight students who will change from being elementary to high school students very soon. On Friday we will recognize a change in staffing as we will see Mr. VanHarten (Grade 4/5) depart from us to follow the next steps of his career.  We know that some families are very soon heading toward a change in the form of a move related to work, family, health and other situations. Report cards distributed to our students on Friday will suggest a grade change to a new opportunity of learning in September.

The pace of daily life with pressing tasks, the important but not necessarily remarkable, call for our attention, and even sometimes in our own short-sightedness we are not reflective about what is changing around us and what that change means.  Often change tends to frighten, worry, or even frustrate us because it reminds us that we are not able to fully control our world as we might like to do.  And yet, in change we also often meet some of the plans the Lord has for us that are perfectly timed and masterfully created for our good.

At our closing assembly on Friday we will be reminded of the ways 2016-17 has been a year of God’s faithfulness and blessings experienced as a community of learning.  Indeed, we easily and boldly say “…the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” (Psalm 100:5) Praise God for that!

Have a rejuvenating summer filled with many safe memories as you rest, travel, and work, and play.

After a rest, we can’t wait to see what the Lord has ready for us around the bend.

SJ

Road Trips and Responsibility

“Your word is a lamp for [our] feet, a light on [our]path.”  Psalm 119: 105

I've just returned from the “near north” of Ontario with our grade eight students who took in an outdoor adventure camp for three days.  I can assure you our students were outstanding in their attitude, conduct, choices, and supportive efforts to ensure everyone had a great time. One of the things they did was to learn a new skill of finding their way from place to place using a hand-held GPS device with very specific longitude and latitude coordinates. 

Paths will diverge in just a few weeks. Many of our families have shared with me details of summer travel plans that are in place. People pour over travel brochures, websites, maps, and talk to others who have already traveled to desired destinations to ensure the experience will be all that it can be as a family holiday. There is joy in preparing for an experience that one knows will go well when adequate preparations have been made. There is also joy in finding unexpected treasures, spontaneous opportunities, and memorable coincidences along the way.

A school’s path might also be compared to a journey with bends, turns, unexpected challenges and delights. We are nearing the end of multi-month planning process to ensure that 2017/18 will be added as another great year of living before the Lord as a school committed to biblical wisdom. We know full well that we have responsibility to make steps to prepare for a great year; we also realize that we need to leave room for the Lord’s provision and the Spirit’s prompting to direct us on the right paths, some of which we don’t even know exist yet.

Please join me in praying for God’s provision of a great meeting in which we can move forward the vision of the school, “To educate children, equipping them for a life of faithful, Christian discipleship.”

SJ

Children as Living Messages: Christian Schools and the Future

“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”  N.Postman

Neil Postman penned these words in 1982 in response to what he believed to be the disappearance of childhood as result of media influence. If I think of the era my elementary years in Christian Education, and then the reality of the world I now live, work, and am busy raising children in today, I am quite sure my own teachers back then could never have predicted many parts of daily life in 2017. A connected global world, technology innovation and the deep challenge that comes with it, population surges, global water shortage and excess, and so much more. Even though the world has changed a lot since my last day of being an elementary school student, the education I received then has been one of my greatest tool in making sense of my world today.

So how does Christian education help, if we are not so sure about what the future will look like? Consider these statements I have heard from our teachers as I joyfully visit classrooms throughout the week:

“Things are beautiful and valuable, because God made them, not because we like them.”

“Language helps us value each other.”

“Compassion means that we suffer alongside others.”

 “Helping others helps us understand how we were made by God.”

“Better things happen when we follow what God asks us to do.”

“All truth is God’s truth.”

These are the building blocks that are universal for your child’s future! Know that your children are being encouraged and prepared to think deliberately, carefully, and faithfully about life. Join us in praying that the Lord will lead us as we aim to train our children to “acknowledge him in all [their] ways and make [their] paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:6)

SJ