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

Encouraging Excellent Questions at our Christian School

I had the joyful experience of observing a unique lesson last week. The students and teacher were viewing a large picture of a curious scene they had never seen. (Picture linked here) Student questions started simple, but grew in complexity and awareness as a sustained look at something together created more observations and wondering thoughts. What are they doing? Why are they colouring the water? Is it on purpose, or is this an accident? How did they know it was safe to land the helicopter there? Where did the helicopter come from? How far away is the land? Should I be worried about what they are doing?

By watching this interesting lesson, I learned that being able to ask good questions is, like all parts of learning, something that a student can practice and get better at. I also learned that asking questions in a group setting helps everyone learn. At a recent curriculum and development meeting our teachers spent time learning about questions. Harnessing the power of student inquiry as way to shape learning is receiving a lot of attention in education circles today, for good reason. How you ever watched a child who won’t give up on something that has sparked their curiosity?

Reading the New Testament stories of Jesus interacting both with his disciples and those who challenged his authority, it is striking how many times Jesus asked questions in response to a question he was asked. Those questions led to learning. They were ways of teaching that communicated purpose, direction, truth, and understanding. They often cut through human limitations of understanding, or “traps” that were being set. Christ’s questions brought those around him deeper and further into God’s truth and invited a clearer understanding of faithful obedience.

May our students experience the same as they grow in faith, wisdom, and love.

SJ

The "Why" of School Choice

Giving school tours to interested families is often a highlight for me. I appreciate that it helps me to see our school in a new way through their eyes. Talking with them makes me think about why we have a Christian School in East London.

It’s not because our academic program is superior to all others. We work hard to ensure we provide students with a diverse and robust student program at LCES delivered by qualified staff who use the best wisdom of our age, but we are aware that other schools also are capable of this.

It’s not because class sizes are smaller. We do enjoy small classes which produce excellent opportunities for learning with 20 students on average per room, however, numbers alone do not accurately forecast the success of a child in school.

It’s not because sin has parked itself on the street. Although we do enjoy an above average degree of harmony and unanimity here at LCES, we do face problems, conflict, and the results of poor choices.  We frame our response to them around the idea of forgiveness, restoration, and growth.

It’s not because it is easy. The long road of the oldest child starting JK or SK through to the youngest completing grade eight or beyond is full of challenges of all sorts– financial, social, and faith and more. For both students and parents, its a journey. And yet, in the words of a grandparent who shared their take with me, “there is no money I have spent in my lifetime with greater joy and satisfaction – both then as we participated and now as it bears fruit”

It’s because it is a package deal. Life at LCES is flurry of living and learning in grace. Having students at LCES makes them aware of the reality of a world affected by sin, but redeemed by the incredible love of God. It is the intertwining of faith and fact, wisdom and learning, knowing and doing. It is the daily presence of a teaching staff entirely committed and vocationally called to the craft of Christian teaching. They love each child and see them as God created them – talents, weaknesses, abilities, and passions included. It’s the preparation for our students to be salt and light – in their circles today, but also in their wider communities of tomorrow. It’s a vibrant community of believers, committed to a common goal and to each other. It’s a daily pattern of faithfulness that has implications into eternity. 

SJ

An Unusual Thanksgiving: Trials and Faithfulness

If you do social media, and if your feed was anything like mine, the last week has been a steady stream of warm fuzzy Thanksgiving type posts. Family gatherings, food, pumpkin spice lattees, happy people smiling, and fall colours. A few even went so far as to name lists of what they were thankful for – all positive blessings like safety, food, health, relationships, and employment. These are all good things indeed worth praising and thanking our gracious Lord for.

One post stood out in particular because it was such a contrast from the others. A friend expressed his thanks for trials. I know this friend’s life story enough to fill in the blanks of what trials are being spoken of.  They are big picture trials of the vocation, health, and relationship kind.

Taking a lead from the story of Job in the Old Testament, this friend explained that true, deep, and abiding faith holds by the Lord’s faithfulness not only when the barns are full, friends are a plenty, and prime health is enjoyed. This deep, life sustaining faith holds fast even the lowest depths through which life can present. Job cried out “Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him.” (Job 13:15) This is the faith that is mostly highly valued since it keeps us in step with our Saviour and the hope of heaven.

Whether life is thick with prosperity or thin with adversity, we want our students (and our school!) to grow in faithfulness. I appreciated the reminder that both are formative and have the ability to draw us toward Christ in all we do and say. What a delight that we can frame our student’s learning with this truth in our Christian school.

SJ

Cultivating A Faithful Presence At Our Christian School

This phrase was a part of my life for three days of listening and reflection last week. Two hundred leaders from across Canada and twenty guests from Australia, Africa, and Central America gathered together for a biennial conference hosted by Christian Schools Canada in Ottawa.

The “how to” of being a faithful presence as a Christian School community, both for those within it and those relative strangers to it, is worth considering.  It starts with recognizing who we serve and the context they are in.We are living in what many authors are starting to call a Post-Christian era – an age of disillusionment, fear, and relativism.  Canadians seem to bounce between apathy and indifference all the way to other extremes of hatred and hostility toward ideas different than their own.  The middle ground seems to be fast disappearing.

Here are three statements that I captured that gave me pause to think about our school’s context and role:

We can engage the world with hope, or amplify disillusionment and despair already present.

God works through and on behalf of the most vulnerable.

Grief is the place for newness to be born. Hope has its first beginning in grief.

It has been a joy this morning to return to London Christian Elementary after being away. I appreciate the warmth I heard in teachers showing appreciation for their student’s good choices, the student pride shown in new understanding and beautiful work shared with me, patient service to others in need, a moment of vulnerability handled well by an older student, and an act of selfless giving that will benefit our students this year.

May our school continue be a place that cultivates hope, conquers fear, and treasures respect and love for neighbour.

SJ