(37.) R is for Relationships

(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 unsurprising connection here, but vital, and easily overlooked as it competes with machines, class size, and the increasing high pressure system;

Teacher with parents: Home support remains crucial to student success, and is best accomplished when parents and teachers cooperatively seek a partner’s covenant, not a consumer’s contract;

Teacher with teachers: Ideally, faculty members are loyal teammates who support each other for the student’s good, and worry less about protecting their own turf than strengthening the broader school culture;

Students with students: Healthy friendships are a foundation for a satisfying school experience, fostered by a school culture that nurtures kindness and mutual respect;

Students and teacher with truth: An inspired classroom has everyone in hot pursuit of a deepening relationship with truth, goodness and beauty;

Within each student: An integrated personality within each learner has reason, conscience and imagination all working together and functioning as one full mind;

Within the studies: Teachers are inspired to host a daily re-union of the segmented content areas, thus cooperating with creation and revealing the interconnectedness of knowledge and life.

In light of all these relationships in a Christian school, the truly learned person is one who perceives that he is studying in a connected universe, not a disconnected multiverse.