Leaving to Learn at Our Christian School

As principal, I’ve seen a steady stream of class trip planning sheets coming across my desk in the last months as teachers anticipated May and June. As I read them and consider the unique experiences they will be for our students, I can’t help but be excited for them. Each one opens wider a world made for them by the Lord’s hand.

God formed sky, land, and sea;

stars above, moon and sun,

making a world of color, beauty, and variety—

a fitting home for plants and animals, and us—

a place to work and play,

worship and wonder,

love and laugh.   Our World Belongs to God: A Contemporary Testimony

The length, educational focus, and structure of the class trips are always different, but one thing remains the same. These memorable experiences are highlights of learning. Why does LCES send students on class trips? I can think of several reasons:

·         These experiences help our students to see God’s world as a place of beauty and offer experiences to develop wonder and praise for an amazing world of people and places.

·         Taking the classroom on the road creates invaluable “touchstone” moments for our students to connect previous learning or prepare working examples for future learning as they see God’s world as a connected, purposeful, and intricate place prepared for his children.

·         Students see their teacher, classmates, and even parents in a different way as they respond to different topics and ways of learning. They understand each other’s interests, passions, and talents more fully, and emerge a stronger community.

·         Students can see the world in its brokenness, and yet see hope in the ways to redeem it.

Taking the classroom on road is part of the bold assertion that indeed, Our World Belongs to God!   SJ

"Lack of Inner Compass"

While working this weekend I heard an amazing tale to learn from via a radio interview.

Leo Koretz was a financial wizard who “made” 400 million (in today’s money) around 1910 by convincing people to invest in worthless Arkansas rice farms, Panama timber operations, and then later Panama oil extraction. He was so persuasive that people begged him to take their money to invest in his financial empire. One person even threw a bundle of money over an office wall, with written instructions pleading for him to invest the funds! Every bit of the operation was fake, however, as investors who travelled to Panama found out when they showed up expecting a bustling oil empire and found nothing there. The entire operation was a fraud. He “hid” in Nova Scotia for a time before being sent back to face charges in Chicago.

The interview with the researcher got very interesting after the story was told. How could someone so talented and effective go so far astray? The response was “the lack of an inner compass” that didn’t guide him correctly. Abruptly, the interview ended to my dissatisfaction. So, why am recounting this to you

on our Christian School newsletter?

First, it is essential to realize that we aim to much more than deliver the content of learning. We seek to impart knowledge that is always accompanied with wisdom. Wisdom orients action. Our present students will eventually be charged with key leadership pieces in their life that offer, much like Mr. Koretz, the opportunity to use it for God’s kingdom or for something else. We are the training grounds for making future decisions well.

Second, the need for our children to be equipped with discernment and critical thinking to choose well in a sometime confusing world of choice and “opportunity” is essential for their future well-being. Unlike the many who were duped and hitched their dreams to Mr. Koretz’s imaginary wagon of success, we want our students to be critical thinkers with good questions that pursue truth and God’s kingdom.

What a joy that we can give our students more than a compass to find their way. 

SJ