Download Philosophy of Christian Education

Philosophy of Christian Education
Written by Amanda Klint
October 25, 2011
My background is slightly abnormal. I attended Christian schools from pre-school
all the way through my undergraduate studies. My parents saw it as important and
sacrificed many things in order for my siblings and me to be able to go to school with
teachers who loved the Lord. Many now ask me why I teach in a Christian school. It
doesn’t make sense according to worldly standards. Why is Christian education so
important? This caused me to sit back and think.
In college I was asked to write a philosophy of education, and it included things like
“children are unique” and “my job is to find the tools needed to help each unique student.”
These things are all true, but I was missing the key ingredient: God. It is He who made each
of us unique. It is He who knows the tools necessary to help each of us. It is He who knows
our full potential. Without including God in my philosophy, I am missing the core thread.
But can’t this be taught at home or in church? Public schools can teach the basics and
parents and Sunday school teachers can enrich these things. This is a common rebuttal to
Christian education. In this paper I hope to address four basic questions in response to
this: Why is Christian schooling important? What is the goal of Christian education? What
is Biblical integration? What should a Christian school classroom look like?
Why is Christian schooling important?
Proverbs 22:6 instructs us to “train a child in the way he should go, and when he is
old he will not turn from it.” The Bible teaches us the importance of training up children.
Children are in the process of creating their worldview as they grow up. They are taking in
information, creating patterns, and constructing a mental map of how the world is put
together and works. It only makes sense, then, to infuse Scripture and Godly teaching into
this training. As children grow up into adulthood they are faced with many difficult
decisions. If they have not been trained in the right way to go, it will be easy for them to
take the wrong path.
Infusing this training into children at home and church is not enough. God says in
Deuteronomy 4:9, 6:7 and 11:9 that we should be teaching our children about God’s truth
all the time. At least six hours a day are spent in school. In New York State we are required
to have 180 days of school each year. That means every year a child will spend at least
1,080 hours in a classroom. When graduating from high school, assuming that he or she
started in kindergarten, that child will have spent well over 14,000 hours in the classroom
as a captive audience to his or her teachers. 14,000+ hours is a great deal of time for
someone other than a parent or Sunday school teacher to dedicate to the education of a
child. If we are to take God’s instructions seriously, then we need to be thinking: what do
these teachers believe? What is their worldview? As much as the public school claims to
separate religion and education, it is impossible for any individual to keep from depositing
their values onto their students. How can one truly love without the love of God? How can
one truly show mercy and grace without the knowledge and experience of God’s mercy and
love? How can one present the entire truth without a personal relationship with God, who
is THE truth?
It is no secret that teens struggle with self esteem. They’re insecure and want to fit
in. They need purpose and meaning. They need a reason to wake up each day. We all do. I
woke up the other morning and thought, “if I didn’t have God why would I continue?”
Christian education provides that meaning and purpose for students. Christian school
students are able to see God in everything around them. They’re able to go back to the
truths that they’ve learned from their teachers as well as their parents and church leaders.
They’ll know the truth that God loves them. He created them unique on purpose. He gave
them all the desires and passions that they have for a reason. They are the way they are by
design. Everything they learn in school will help them to perform whatever tasks He has in
store for them in their future. A parent can tell a child this. A youth pastor can do a sermon
on this. These are both helpful. But a well rounded training comes from all fronts. Our
children deserve this training so they better know who they are and why they are here.
A heartfelt desire of Christian parents is that their child will develop a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ. I would guess that this goal is more important than any
other goal that a parent has for their child. It’s more important than playing on the best
soccer team. More important than using the most advanced technology. In a public school,
a child is repeatedly hearing that whatever you believe is okay for you. He’s hearing that
Buddha, Allah, and God are all the same. How can we, then, expect this same child to realize
that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6)?” If salvation is a passion, then
children should be given all the resources and truth that we can provide for them.
What is the goal of a Christian education?
If you are to look up the word “education” in any dictionary, the definition will say
something about the giving and accepting of information from a teacher to a student.
However, if the transferring of information is the only goal of education, then there is no
hope for the future. A Christian education is one that is focused on uncovering the full
potential of a student. All students need to be chipped at in order to uncover the beautiful
gems that God has made in them. Educators are not producing, but uncovering. Each
“gem” is going to look different, because God didn’t make all of us to be diamonds.
Every year I get new students. My job as a teacher is to look at each of them for
their God-given strengths and help them learn how to use them for God’s glory. The
student who is a perfectionist has a gift for desiring God’s best. The student who always
notices when I forget something has a gift for detail. The student who gets on others
nerves for being bossy has a gift for leadership. These qualities, if misused, can become
weaknesses. As a Christian educator I need to help them refine those gifts, to chip away at
them and uncover them for the facets of a gem that they are.
Well, then, if our only goal is to “uncover full potential,” why bother teaching or
studying Math, English, Science, or Social Studies? What does one have to do with the
other? Let’s look at these Biblical examples: Moses’ education helped to chip away at him
and create an individual ready to face Pharaoh. Nehemiah was a learned man, and God
used him to rebuild Jerusalem. David was a shepherd boy, but he knew how to read, write,
make music and lead a country. But were those people just isolated examples? Maybe only
some people need to be educated. On the contrary, Solomon says in Proverbs 1:7 “fools
despise wisdom and instruction.” He instructs us to desire wisdom and understanding, to
increase our learning for guidance and discernment.
Scripture tells us that God is revealed through His creation (Psalm 19:1, Romans
1:20). His creation was more than just the trees and the sun. It included gravity. It
included photosynthesis. It included how fish breathe underwater, yet humans cannot.
God’s creation included multiplication and division. It included everything! If we want to
help children reach their fullest potential in their relationship with the Lord, then we need
to teach them the core subjects with God as the focus. He made it all.
What is Biblical Integration?
As was mentioned in the last paragraph, God is revealed through His creation. He
can be found in everything because He made it all. The science behind a rainbow is
astounding. The math behind the seeds in a sunflower is incredible. The music sung by a
robin is gorgeous. The challenge for a Christian school teacher is to integrate all of these
things into their teaching. They are teaching the same facts, the same information, as a
public school educator. However, the Christian school teacher is also infusing that
information with meaning and purpose. It’s no longer a disjointed piece of information, but
a crucial piece of the puzzle.
Integrating the Bible/God’s truth into teaching is more than just tagging a verse onto
a lesson. For example, a teacher may be teaching a lesson on multiplication. In order to
attempt Biblical integration the teacher throws Genesis 1:28 on the top of a worksheet,
when God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. Tagging a verse on a page isn’t
really Biblical integration. Biblical integration gives purpose to learning multiplication.
God is a God of patterns and organization. He didn’t create a universe of chaos, and so the
patterns found in multiplication show this. He’s also a dependable God and so His math is
the same in NY as it is in China. They may use different looking numbers, but the same
patterns are going to work. Multiplication has a reason within His creation. He uses it in
nature. The swirl of a snail shell increases using multiplication. The construction of
pinecones and plant leaves also reveal a design of multiplication. Students can be
encouraged to look for examples of multiplication in the world around them, but are
reminded that God created that pattern. We live in a world with one creator. It’s only
natural that He reuses a pattern that He likes.
When I was in high school I was part of the jazz band. We would play all sorts of fun
musical pieces, but one thing that our director asked us each to do at some point in the
performance was to improvise. Improvisation is tricky because it not only involves
creating a new piece of music, but one that stuck with the same basic theme of the song
already being played. If I changed keys drastically or altered the basic feel of the piece it
would ruin everything and leave people confused. The improvisation needed to point the
listener back to the main melody of the piece, not to detract from it. A teacher is much like
a musician in this way. Our main theme is God’s truth and our variations on this are math,
English, social studies, science, etc. Each of these variations are unique and different,
however the goal is to use them to point back to the main theme.
What should a Christian school classroom look like?
A Christian school classroom is one in which God is the main theme of the room.
This is impossible, however, without teachers that not only claim to be Christian, but also
exemplify a life characterized by godly passion and the fruit of the spirit. These teachers
must be committed to Christ and His Word. If a teacher is not daily in the Word, daily
asking God to grow in him or her, daily seeking God’s direction and discernment, then that
teacher will be unable to recognize God’s hand in everything. That teacher will fail to show
the class how to be a disciple of Christ. That teacher will fail to see the gems that are inside
of his or her students. It is the staff that makes the Christian school so important, not the
size of the building or the amount of sports teams available.
2 Timothy 3:16+17 says, “All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work.” A Christian teacher is able to expect God’s best
out of his or her students. When there is disobedience, the teacher is able to point the
student back to Scripture. The child is then able to see that the rules that are in place
within the classroom are drawn up not because the teacher is mean, but because the
teacher desires to help the child become an individual who makes God proud. The teacher
and the parent are working together, with the same basic rules and expectations for the
child.
A Christian school classroom is one that is exemplified by compassion and love for
each and every individual walking through its doors. God’s love looks beyond the outside
and looks into the heart. This involves not only the heart of the child, but also of the family
as a whole. A Christian teacher understands that they are not the only part of the equation
in training up a child. It’s a partnership between the family and the school, as well as with
the church. The flow of ideas, conversation, and compassion for each other needs to be
open and honest.
“Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from Him (Psalm 127:3).”
Children are a reward from the Lord. They are on loan. A partnership between the church,
the parents and the Christian school can arm a child for their future. In my introduction I
mentioned my background in Christian schools. It is through this schooling that I was
encouraged to become who I am now. I was pushed in my knowledge of Scripture. I was
encouraged to take classes that would challenge me. I recognized Christian teachers who
really poured God’s love on the students. They were my mentors, and I still look up to
them. It was their passion for the Lord that I strived for. It is that passion for the Lord that
I strive to impart on my own students. As their teacher I desire God’s best for each one of
them. That is why I am a Christian school teacher, and that is why I believe it is essential
for students to be educated from a Christian perspective.