Where is the water meter? Connected Learning at Our Christian School

Two grade eight students knocked on my door and asked me this question. They explained that they are getting organized to do a water audit of our school for the next two weeks in an effort to better understand how a community uses water. I was happy to walk them to the mechanical room and show them where it was, how to read it, and talk through first ideas about how to organize the study. Learning about units of measurement, place value of numbers on the meter, variables in a study, sample size of research, and more followed out of necessity. What a relevant, memorable way to learn these things in a process that instantly has purpose!

Kindergarten students are creating thank-you cards for some local businesses that have helped us in maintaining and improving our school building. They have an intended audience for their recently learned communication skills (learning to write) and the beautiful artwork they create.

A junior student has been captivated by data management techniques learned at school. A sample of truck traffic was taken and was interesting enough that the next step was for the student to reach out to the Ontario Trucking Association with questions about what was discovered. The student is interested to see if the letter carefully written and re-written will get a response from this real-world office.

Grade seven geography students recently heard a presentation about a country in Central America they had limited knowledge of from someone who has been there. Elsewhere, three classes will be meeting a falconer tomorrow at school following study of habitats and biodiversity.

This is connected education! While there will always be need for introductory skills and concepts to be taught and practiced, it is exciting for our teachers and students to bring them to meaningful use and purpose in God’s amazing world. Inquiry is a powerful tool that we are interested in using to lead students to learn more about how God’s world works and how they connect to it.

SJ

I Am His: A Story About Belonging At Our Christian School

Our Leaders-In-Training team of grade seven and eight students led chapel recently. Every student was given a dot sticker on the way into the gym. In advance of bullying awareness, the students challenged our student body to recognize what bullying is, what its impact looks, sounds, and feels like, and what can be done when it is observed.

They also led us to sing “Christ is Enough.”  That song contains the following refrain:

Christ is enough for me

Christ is enough for me

Everything I need is in You

Everything I need

Finally, we heard the story of Max Lucado’s “You are Special.” In it, the main character of Punchinello learns to understand that his creator make him uniquely, and with a specific purpose.  He comes to understand that other people’s labels or “dots” only stick to those in his village if they let them. On the way out of the gym, all of the students were invited to remove the dots they had on them and place them on a large banner which read “I made you, and I don’t make mistakes.  -GOD” They left for the remainder of the day with a new nametag on them which read “God’s” or “His.”

I am proud of our students and delight in them hearing this important message at the start of their week together in the classrooms and on the playground. There are loud voices and pressures in our children’s lives and they start early. They want our students to define themselves in foundational ways that are far from the truth that they are first and foremost, God’s children. What a wonderful way to start a week ready to grow in wisdom, love, and service to our faithful God. I am grateful for LCES.

SJ

A Twisted Railway and Remembrance at Our Christian School

We will remember.

“The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.” Czeslaw Milosz

Camp Westerbork in the Netherlands was originally a safe haven for Jews fleeing Germany just before WWII. After Germans took hold of it, it became a gateway for Jews and others to be moved through to other concentration camp locations throughout Europe. Desiring compliance and control, an illusion of a good, civilized life was created by music, sports, a school, hospital, and more. Each Tuesday more than a thousand left the camp by rail and eventually died at the hands of those who believed absolute power and tyranny could create a better life for some. It was a place of deceit that lead to death for more than 100,000.

When the camp was torn down, a decision was made that the railway line that carried so many in, never to return, should both stand as a memorial and act as a public statement to the future. The two rusty railway tracks were visually made impassable by bending them up to the sky in memory of the loss of life, and so badly mangled to say “this will not happen here again.”

There is great pain in remembering the high cost of peace and the atrocities of war each Remembrance Day. Those who have personally and directly felt those costs have experiences that awaken remembrance within them all the time. Those who have not, which includes most of our students who have no such direct connection or experience of present or past pain, depend on others to prompt them to listen to the stories of sacrifice and the gift of peace. We need to know their story.

Growing in wisdom means teaching the value of remembrance for our students who will live in a time we will not see. Remembrance Day reminds us of a world torn apart by the depths of sin, and yet entirely loved by its creator and rests in his care.

We will remember.

We will participate in a special assembly from 10:45-11:15am on Friday. The LCES community is welcome to come and join us in the school gym. 

We will remember.                                        

SJ

Faces of the Future: Learning in 2020

Last week the “principal brag book” arrived on my desk. It’s a happy coffee break each year for a few moments when I get to review every student on each page, enjoying the unique pictures. Big grins, quirky expressions, and a few smirks made me smile as I enjoyed their unique personality. Our children are precious in our sight, and are dearly loved by the Lord. While we may want to pace them in a holding pattern so they don’t grow older they are steadily moving toward being independent adults.

Surely future tradespeople, service providers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, therapists, pastoral care workers, statisticians, mayors, and a thousand other possibilities are present in our classrooms today. We know and trust that God has a specific role and task for them as part of his Kingdom.

The future for the students pictured in my album is different than my own, and that of my parents, and many past generations. The World Economic Forum has named the most desired skills for employment in 2020. They are:

• Complex Problem Solving
• Critical Thinking
• Creativity
• People Management
• Coordinating with Others
• Emotional Intelligence
• Judgement and Decision Making
• Service Orientation
• Negotiation
• Cognitive Flexibility

I see the first steps of the formation of many of these capacities in our LCES classrooms, starting already in kindergarten with the ways that students are given different ways to explore and learn. I notice students learning about the process and themselves as much as they learn about the “right answer”. I recognize students and their own inquiry shaping how they can solve problems they observe. A teacher as lead learner is a powerful means to increase a student’s readiness to tackle these future ways of working.

How is your child’s world different than yours at his/her age? It is an interesting question to consider.

SJ