(38.) S is for Servants in Charge Jesus once mentioned a mini-parable with maxi-meaning. It is a little story about a regal homeowner who left his servants in charge of his property during an extended trip away. (Mark 13:34). This seems to be a clear picture of the in-between time in which we are living …
(37.) R is for Relationships Learning is all about making connections, between people, within each person and within the studies themselves. Education is a complex web of these relationships which then capture the truth and enable the learner to pounce on it and digest it. A school’s web of relationships might include: Teacher with student: An …
(36.) Q is for Quest “Tell the truth, but tell it slant,” says Emily Dickenson. Be real, but communicate reality from the side, through the imagination, I think she is saying. And that’s how life lessons are learned. There is no better way to prime a student’s mind and spirit for the challenges of life …
(35.) P is for Personhood “Yahweh God shaped man from the soil in the ground and blew the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living being… God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” (Genesis 2:7, 1:27, …
(34.) O is for Old and New “A disciple of the kingdom of Heaven is like a householder who brings out from his storeroom new things as well as old.” (Matthew 13:52, NJB) Effective teachers, much like that wise householder, develop a big bag of tricks as they gain experience. Not only do they keep …
(33.) N is for Nature “To see a World in a grain of sand, and a Heaven in a wild flower.” (William Blake). If there is a mortal sin in science education, it would be killing a student’s natural wonder at the world: Taking art out of science; Reducing creation’s miraculous complexity to an abstract …
(32.) M is for Museum Imagine for a moment that every day in school was like a field trip to a great museum. Dream this, too, while you’re at it, that the school was a place set apart to provide a stimulating, thoughtful, multi-sensory learning atmosphere that was created solely to inspire interested students; that …
(31.) L is for Labor of Love The Incarnation is the best model on the market for Christ-centered teaching. Master teacher Jesus could have chosen any method whatsoever to reveal and communicate the truth. He somehow decided that the Word had to become flesh. He chose not to remain abstract or distant, but personal and …
(30.) K is for Knowledge Here’s a basic question, but if we don’t get it right, we’ll never even leave the station. One’s knowledge is made up of whatever one knows, right? So what does it mean to know something? The Bible has a lot to say about the meaning of know, including the usual suspects: …
(29.) J is for Joy “Be of good cheer,” says Jesus. To which many students reply, “except in school.” Too many schools are hamster wheels, an unending race to compile and retain information, teaching our students to be young workaholics in the process. But what does this supposed joy of learning look like? Actually, we already …
(28.) I is for Imagination Why does it seem that education in general, and Christian education in particular, are going out of their way to starve the imagination of their students? Schools are producing split personalities: all work and no wonder; all logic and no intuition; all explaining and no exploring; all rubric and no …
(27.) H is for Humility “O God, what have you done? You have made one who is ignorant a teacher, one who is blind a leader, one who errs a guide.” Anselm’s words of humility are striking, especially when you consider these lowly words were his own, prayed at his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury …