Christian Educators Journal: December 2022

Christian Educators Journal December 2022 Vol. 62 No. 2

Engaging Communities, Loving Neighbors Reservation Community Seeing Restoration amidst Nervous System Falleness Professional Learning through Community Engagement Art Education Toward Community Engaging God’s World for the Sake of the Kingdom

Future Issues February 2023—This Is Our Father’s World Because the first instruction God gives his people is to care for his creation, that task is part of our mission as Christian educational institutions. How do classroom teachers teach environmental stewardship at different grade levels and in different subjects? What building practices and procedures do schools use to conserve resources and model care for God’s world?

How is the glory of God’s creation celebrated in school activities, student activities, and curricula? We’ll publish articles from classroom teachers, administrators, custodians, architects, cafeteria managers, student environmental clubs, and community garden tenders about the way they’re having a positive environmental impact on God’s world.

April 2023—Resource Review Each year we highlight the best books, films, websites, teaching tools, and other resources for Christian school teachers. We publish reviews of student-facing materials (like which books to stock in your classroom library) as well as materials relevant to school staff (like curricula or books about teaching). This issue is accepting submissions. Proposals are due January 2. Articles are due January 30.

Contents

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Editorial Reservation Community DAN MEESTER

Seeing Restoration amidst Nervous System Falleness CLAYTON LUBBERS

Professional Learning through Community Engagement: A Partnership between a Local FaithBased K–12 School and a Teacher Education Program KEVIN MIRCHANDANI AND NINA PAK LUI

Effective Communication by School Leaders: A Case Study from COVID-19 SIMON BRAUN

Art Education Toward Community ADAM LANCASTER

Engaging God’s World for the Sake of the Kingdom DAVE LOEWEN

Ten Lessons Protestant Schools Can Learn from Our Catholic School Neighbors GINA ROBLES

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Christian Educators Journal Vol. 62 No. 2, December 2022 cejonline.com Editor Abby Zwart cejeditor@gmail.com The Christian Educators Journal (CEJ) encourages letters to the editor in response to articles presented in the CEJ. Letters must be accompanied by the author’s name and email address. The CEJ reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Where a letter addresses issues raised by the author of an article, the CEJ reserves the right to invite the article author to respond to the letter.

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Editor Abby Zwart Copyeditor Bethany Murphy Design Editor Klaas Wolterstorff Business Manager Klaas Wolterstorff Web Shepherd Heather Altena Board of Trustees Dr. Henry Algera Heather Birch Justin Cook Sara Leo Albert Kok (Chair) Gayle Monsma Ed Noot Jim Rooks Sean Schat Christine Scholma Tricia Stobbe Edith Van Der Boom Heather VanDyke Christine Webb Supporting Institutions Calvin University Edvance Christian Schools Association Institute for Christian Studies The King’s University Redeemer University Trinity Christian College Tyndale University Subscribing Organizations Christian Educators Association Christian Educators of British Columbia Prairie Centre for Christian Education Printed back issues (if available) can be purchased for $7.50 per copy (cost of shipping to be added to total).

Some back issues may be available in digital format.

Editorial

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hink for a moment about the buildings you pass on your daily journey to school. You likely pass many houses—perhaps even some of the houses of the students you are on your way to teach. There are also businesses—coffee shops, corner stores, factories processing packages or making computer chips, locally owned boutiques or grocery stores, and office buildings of everything from law firms to insurance agencies. A third type of building you pass provides social or governmental services—churches, other schools, libraries, the post office.

You probably hardly notice these buildings anymore. It’s early, you’re tired, you have other things on your mind . . . but what if these buildings had something to offer your school? With a little creativity, that auto body shop could be a hands-on extension of your engineering classroom. That frozen yogurt stand might appreciate a student-designed mural on the wall facing their parking lot. That mayor might love to come talk to your class or even give you a tour of city hall.

These buildings are not just buildings, of course. This is your school’s community. Our issue this quarter focuses on many creative ways that schools in our readership have reached out to their communities and found ways to love their neighbors and their neighborhoods—and they’ve provided great learning experiences at the same time. These teachers and leaders talk about science projects that get kids talking to adults in their lives (Clay Lubbers). They reflect on the ways their school served as a resource center during COVID-19 (Dan Meester, Simon Braun). Others think about the ways that schools—be they universities or K–12 schools in different denominations—can partner for the betterment of both parties (Kevin Mirchandani, Nina Pak Lui, Gina Robles). Still others think philosophically about how particular subject areas, like art, can create stronger communities (Adam Lancaster) and about why we should even engage with our community at all (Dave Loewen).

This issue is chock full of great ideas about how to get your students and staff outside the four walls of the school building and into the community.

The next time you pass that corner store on the way home from work, we hope you’ll think of it as more than a place to grab a snack.

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Reservation Community DAN MEESTER

C Every morning, a fleet of propane-powered buses departs from Rehoboth Christian School to pick up students over an area of three thousand square miles, representing dozens of neighborhoods in small towns throughout Northwest New Mexico and Northeast Arizona.

onsultants will ask a classic question to help schools, churches, or other non-profits wrestle with their mission and vision: If you closed tomorrow, would your community miss you? The idea behind this question is that an organization like a Christian school should have a meaningful, noticeable impact on its community; that desired impact should shape decisions schools make about curricula, instruction, physical spaces, co-curricular activities, and all the little things that go into the day-to-day work of the school.

Most schools born out of the Reformed tradition of Christian education profess a desire to engage the communities of which they are a part. What this looks like for each individual organization depends on how they define community, along with the history and context of their local environment.

Every morning, a fleet of propane-powered buses departs from Rehoboth Christian School, near Gallup, New Mexico, to pick up students over an area of three thousand square miles, representing dozens of neighborhoods in small towns throughout Northwest New Mexico and Northeast Arizona. Seventy-five percent of Rehoboth’s student body is Native American—mostly from the Navajo Nation—which brings with it distinctive perspectives on what defines a local community. In this unique and challenging context, what does it look like to learn about the community, engage with it, and make a positive impact on it?

Meeting Pandemic Needs

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Navajo Nation was hit hard, but the built-in trust people have for schools made it clear that Rehoboth could take a significant role in relief efforts.

One of the interesting demographic characteristics of the Navajo Nation is that many of its residents don’t live in what most Americans would recognize as traditional neighborhoods. Homes are often miles away from each other out on the reservation with physical addresses like “400 yards past mile marker 118.” That kind of isolation makes it incredibly difficult to build infrastructure for electricity, water, or phone service; in fact, 75 percent of the homes in the United States without those services are located in the Navajo Nation.

The Navajo Nation government is organized into 110 different geographical units, called chapters, and each chapter has a central chapter house that is used for a variety of community activities. Those chapter houses, along with schools, are some of the few places where Navajo people can go to receive important communications and instructions for tribal activities.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Navajo Nation was hit hard, but the built-in trust people have for schools made it clear that Rehoboth could take a significant role in relief efforts.

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Kevin Ruthven serves as the chaplain for Rehoboth Christian School, and he’s also a respected member of the Navajo Nation Crisis Response Team. Rehoboth’s location in the border town of Gallup meant that, whether by train or interstate, supplies could reliably make their way to the school.

When regular in-school classes were suspended during the spring of 2020, Ruthven helped the school campus become a staging ground for all kinds of provisions needed to fight the pandemic.

Rehoboth students and families, along with local and nationwide volunteers, signed up to help with the relief work. One of the school’s gymnasiums became a temporary warehouse for dry goods, fresh fruit, cleaning supplies, paper products, and warm clothing. The daily volunteers would assemble care packages for families who were sick or unable to provide for their own basic needs. In all, over ten thousand of these packages went out for distribution at churches and chapter houses throughout the eastern Navajo Nation, thanks to drivers and bush pilots. According to Ruthven, Rehoboth’s efforts reached sixty-five of the chapters, with another similar staging area near Flagstaff, AZ, reaching the remaining forty-five chapters.

But care packages weren’t the end of the school’s efforts on behalf of the community. Students and families could spend their afternoons and weekends chopping wood to be delivered out to the reservation’s elderly for use in heating their homes. Students alone have chopped over two hundred truckloads of firewood over the past two winters, representing $30,000 worth of fuel, and they’ve helped deliver that wood—meeting their elders and honoring them with care in the process.

Finally, the school became a site where families could come for clean water, a resource all too scarce on the reservation. Residents typically drive many miles to wells or other water sources, where they can fill up massive truck-mounted tanks for their animals and for home use. When frequent hand washing became vital to contain the spread of COVID-19, people’s water needs increased, but with the school serving as a water source, people could fill up and receive food and relief supplies all in the same place.

One of the school’s gymnasiums became a temporary warehouse for dry goods, fresh fruit, cleaning supplies, paper products, and warm clothing. The daily volunteers would assemble care packages for families.

Intersection of Culture and Kingdom One of the ways anthropologists characterize people groups is by a culture’s tendency toward either individualism or collectivism. Unlike most Anglo-Americans who tend to emphasize personal rights, freedoms, and responsibilities, Navajo people see themselves very much as interconnected and responsible for each other. During the pandemic, the Diné (their native language name for themselves) willingly changed their routines to meet curfew requirements and wore masks without complaint. Driving through small reservation towns, one would see signs reading “Stay Home. Protect our Elders” or “Their lives are in your hands. Wash your hands. Stay home.

Stay safe.”

That sense of collective responsibility for the group is a cultural value that resonates with the way God wants his people to put him on display for the world. Caring for the marginalized—whether that’s the aliens, orphans, and widows described in the Torah or the elderly and those without water or heat during a pandemic—shows others the character of God. “At Rehoboth, we call that being Living Images,” says Ruthven. “And for our students, Christian Educators Journal

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Unlike most Anglo-Americans who tend to emphasize personal rights, freedoms, and responsibilities, Navajo people see themselves very much as interconnected and responsible for each other.

Serving the community actually builds community, especially in times

living out the roles of a kingdom of priests can make them more willing to embrace that identity and belief for themselves.” Serving the community actually builds community, especially in times of crisis—reinforcing the history of resilience cherished by the Navajo people.

of crisis—reinforcing the history of resilience cherished by the Navajo people.

The real fun started when the owners shared the things they wished they could do for their business but had neither the expertise nor the time to accomplish.

Real Work, Real Needs, Real People Like dozens of other Christian schools, Rehoboth has embraced Teaching for Transformation—a model of education that meshes pedagogical best practices with powerful faith formation for students. One of the hallmarks of this model is the use of FLEX (Formational Learning Experience), in which students take the skills and knowledge they have acquired and put them to use doing real work that meets the real needs of real people.

High school teacher Kellie Wright speaks of a unit from her senior economics class in which she wanted students to connect with local businesses in a meaningful way. “There aren’t a lot of entrepreneurs or business owners in the Gallup area,” says Wright, “because it’s challenging for people to find the start-up capital needed for a sustainable business.”

It just so happens that two Rehoboth staff families created a local business called The Water Store, which sells clean, reverse-osmosis filtered water in large jugs for home and business use. In an area plagued by ­uranium-contaminated water, thanks to the largely unregulated mining operations from the 1950s to the 1980s, even residents of larger towns like Gallup need water purer than their taps can provide.

Wright invited the owners of The Water Store into her class to describe their business to the students—including their mission and desire to provide a living wage for their employees. But the real fun started when the owners shared the things they wished they could do for their business but had neither the expertise nor the time to accomplish. “A lot of that discussion was about outreach marketing and using social media to get the word out to more people about The Water Store.”

The three-week assignment asked students to learn about the store’s needs and then come up with a product for the store, a new service, or a way to engage with potential customers on Instagram. The owners revisited the class during those weeks to coach students and make sure they were pointed in the right direction, and finally the class presented their ideas—Shark Tank style—to the owners as the culmination of their work.

“There are still a bunch of thirty-second spots on the store’s Instagram account because of this assignment,” says Wright. “What I ended up liking about this FLEX was the way it helped students get to know a layer of the community they don’t often think about. Small business success doesn’t come easily in an area like ours, but it has real power to improve the lives of employees and customers. I also appreciated the way students got to consider how a business owner’s faith should impact the way that business operates.”

Clean water made its way back into the high school curriculum for another FLEX project when chemistry teacher Braden Homan had his students learn about water testing in connection to uranium contamination.

The class read the book Yellow Dirt, which details the long-term effects of uranium mining on the region’s water supply, and they discovered that one 6

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of the worst impacted places was Church Rock, NM—just a couple of miles from Rehoboth’s campus.

To finish that unit, the students created informational videos about the Church Rock mine and its continued impact on the local area, and those videos became resources that Rehoboth could use to orient the hundreds of volunteers who come to campus from around the country each year. The school seeks to provide some history and context of the area for these volunteers to help make their work more meaningful and to strengthen their connection to the school and its students. That, in turn, builds the Rehoboth “community” far beyond the borders of the Navajo Nation.

Little Activists In Becca Yazzie’s third-grade class, students experience an integrated curricular unit about endangered species and the environmental factors like climate change that threaten them. This unit requires students to do thorough research and write about the Navajo Nation’s endangered species in a way that’s meaningful and helpful for others. Leveraging the power of authentic audiences, Yazzie spurred her students on to new levels of effort when she had them present their work publicly.

“I contacted the Church Rock chapter that is closest to school to see if they would be willing to hear from our students,” says Yazzie, “and I was kind of shocked when they said we should come to present to the chapter president and the mayoral candidates at an upcoming evening meeting for the general public.” The students were nervous about presenting in front of these important people, but their remarks were so well received that members of the audience started questioning the candidates on how they would help combat climate change.

The following year, Yazzie had students present their findings to the staff of the Navajo Nation Zoo in Window Rock, AZ. This time the panel also included university biologists, forestry workers, and newspaper reporters.

The World Wildlife Federation got wind of the presentations, and they conducted a fundraiser that sent half the proceeds to the zoo in an effort to protect New Mexico Gray Wolves.

“To see our students so proud of the work they had done is a very grati­ fying experience. I could also tell that after these assignments, the kids became far more aware of the local and national news featuring stewardship of the planet. They couldn’t believe that more adults weren’t fighting to save animals and the environment. We’ve got some real little activists on our hands now, and that will only benefit their local communities in the future,” concluded Yazzie.

The example of Rehoboth shows us that a Christian school’s community does not have to be defined geographically. It doesn’t have to include only the people whose children attend the school, either. Staying on the lookout for opportunities to meet authentic needs as they present themselves is a practice that will enrich the mission of our schools and ultimately increase the impact of the kingdom of God.

Students experience an

All interviews in this piece were conducted with Rehoboth staff by Dan Meester.

the school, either.

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integrated curricular unit about endangered species and the environmental factors like climate change that threaten them.

A Christian school’s community does not have to be defined geographically. It doesn’t have to include only the people whose children attend

Dan Meester lives in Gallup, New Mexico, with his wife and two children. He has spent nearly thirty years in Christian education and currently serves as the principal at Rehoboth Christian High School. Dan helps coach boys basketball and loves getting to know the stories of Rehoboth students and their families.

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Seeing Restoration amidst Nervous System Falleness CLAYTON LUBBERS

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teach middle school science in a Christian school, and a key component to my science teaching has always been the Belgic Confession article 2, “The Means by which We Know God.” It states: We know God by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: God’s eternal power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.

All these things are enough to convict humans and to leave them without excuse.

Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for God’s glory and for our salvation.

The thing I always like to point out to my students is that the first way by which we know God is through creation—namely, science! That usually is a bit of an eye opener for my middle school students who naturally assumed the number one way is the Bible. Many of them have never thought about general revelation.

At Byron Center Christian School we utilize Teaching for Transformation (TfT), a tool that really helps us as teachers focus on creating Christian servant workers (“practicing Christians”) in our society. As Nicholas ­Wolterstorff says, “It is nothing but a pious wish and a grossly unwarranted hope that students trained to be passive and non-creative in school will suddenly, upon graduation, actively contribute to the formation of Christian culture” (31). It is this idea of having students actively work and practice living out their faith in school that drives us.

In Teaching for Transformation, we also write “deep hopes.” A deep hope is the guiding principle for who we are and what we do in our classes. It Christian Educators Journal

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The thing I always like to point out to my students is that the first way by which we know God is through creation— namely, science!

Students identify someone with a nervous system disorder, they research information about the disorder, they interview the person with the disorder, and they present their findings in a peer group.

We also research whether there are support groups or other ways to “walk the path” with the person who is struggling.

really is our greatest goal for our students. In my science teaching, my deep hope is that “in everything we do we see the story of God in creation—his creation of the universe, our fall, our redemption, and his restoration—and we use that story to become his agents of restoration in our fallen world.”

I lay this out at the beginning of this article because as a science teacher I use these principles to drive what I do in the classroom. How do we recognize fallenness? How do we see that and work toward restoration?

In class we spend a fair amount of time looking at human body systems—how they work and how they are organized. Not only do we do activities and seek information to learn about the human body, but we also practice seeing the fallenness (which is usually pretty easy) and seeking ways to work toward restoration. Often we have speakers come in to talk about the issues they have faced; sometimes we partner with organizations to help with restoration in a particular arena.

We spend a lot of time in our nervous system unit. We learn about how the system works by doing experiments and exploring it, but one of the greatest things we do there as a part of seeking restoration is to work with someone who has a nervous system issue. This is the biggest project my students do in eighth-grade science. In a nutshell, they identify someone with a nervous system disorder, they research information about the disorder, they interview the person with the disorder, and they present their findings in a peer group.

I always start off this project by reaching out to parents. Parent buy-in is a huge help with this project. I want to educate them about the upcoming project, and I want them to try to identify someone they know who would be safe and willing to be interviewed by our students. Most importantly, I want them to understand the goal of the project—to try to build empathetic Christian stewards who learn to walk alongside those who struggle. If parents don’t know of someone available, I have accumulated a list of people who have done this in the past and are willing to be interviewed by students.

I often hear the question, “What counts as a nervous system disorder for this project?” That’s a pretty wide-ranging question, and over the years my students have had great experiences with all varieties of disorder. I have had students interview people who deal with addiction, trauma, traumatic brain injuries, depression, paralysis, hearing impairment, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and PTSD. I have also had students interview caretakers of those who have had things like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Really any nervous system disorder that adversely affects a person or their caretaker is effective.

Once the parents (or myself) have identified a person to interview, it’s time for the student to research the disorder. We research what the disorder is, how it is acquired (if known), and what the treatment or cure is. We also research whether there are support groups or other ways to “walk the path” with the person who is struggling. The goal of the research is to give our students understanding of the issue in order to help them come up with quality interview questions.

After they have researched, we brainstorm in class what good interview questions are. We spend time gathering general and specific questions about the nervous system issue. Some of the most powerful questions students often ask are “How have you seen God in this issue?” “How have people helped?” or often more importantly, “How have people hurt?” It’s amazing 10

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to my students that fellow Christians sometimes say something that they think is helping, when actually it causes hurt. These are valuable lessons for our students to learn.

After we have come up with some quality, specific questions, we schedule and conduct the interview. One of the things I try to clarify with parents early on in the project is that it is much better if students can have a faceto-face interview with the person. Phone interviews can work, but there is a lot of non-verbal communication that we miss with a phone call. It’s always best to actually sit with the person and chat. The goal of the interview is to have the person tell their story and describe how this issue has affected them, and then have the student fill in any blanks with questions. This is usually an eye-opening experience for our students—they see what a difference people can make in a tough situation. They see how we as Christians can make a difference in the struggles that people face. One of the most interesting things I hear my students talk about is how much it mattered to have someone there; just having someone show up has a huge impact.

During this portion I have my students take notes. Occasionally I have had parents ask to record the interview because the person talking has special significance to them and they want to preserve the story.

After all these parts are done, my students present the stories to each other in small groups. Generally in a presentation they talk about the issue (the research they did early on), then they tell the story they heard, bringing up relevant or interesting points. During this time each team member has to not only fill out a rubric but also take notes and give both written and verbal feedback to the presenter. Finally my students fill out a reflection on this project. It includes basic questions, such as “What was the purpose of this project?” (for me to evaluate), “What will you remember about this project?” and “What do you still wonder about?” Here are two examples of student feedback: “This interview with my parents really helped me realize that God’s plan is the best plan. When my [older two] siblings had [Spinal Muscular Atrophy], my parents didn’t understand why this was happening to their children. But God used my siblings to prepare my parents for us [younger] kids. Without them having SMA, I would not be here on this earth. The hardest part about the interview was seeing my parents cry, but they are happy because they know someday we will all be together as a family in heaven, in our heavenly, disease-free bodies.” And, “I won’t ever think about my aunt in the same way. She opened up to me in a way that none of my aunts or uncles have ever done. I remember that even though she might not constantly be on meds for her depression, she will still sometimes struggle with it.”

The feedback from this project has been overwhelmingly positive from parents as well. Here are some samples: “Both of my students did their interviews this evening. My son with a friend about her mom’s dementia and my daughter with my mom about my aunt’s ALS. They are so insightful and special, the conversations that are being had.” “The kids are asking such good questions and gleaning really, really authentic responses. Very mature and thoughtful. And the sharing of history and experience is amazing.

Brought tears to both of us parents.”

In summary, this has been a great way for my students to see the fallenness that we experience on earth, but more importantly, they have a chance to see how they can be a part of restoration both through this project Christian Educators Journal

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One of the things I try to clarify with parents early on in the project is that it is much better if students can have a faceto-face interview with the person.

During this time each team member has to not only fill out a rubric but also take notes and give both written and verbal feedback to the presenter.

The feedback from this project has been overwhelmingly positive from parents as well.

This project has been a really tangible way for

and through understanding how they can make a difference in the future.

It truly has been one of the great joys of my teaching experience so far and a really tangible way for my students to begin restoration in the place where God has placed them.

my students to begin restoration in the place where God has placed them.

Works Cited Belgic Confession. 1561. Translated by Faith Alive Christian Resources, Christian Reformed Church of North America, 2011, https:// www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/belgic-confession​ #toc-article-2-the-means-by-which-we-know-god.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas P. Educating for Life: Reflections on Christian Teaching and Learning. Edited by Gloria Goris Stronks and Clarence Joldersma, Baker Academic, 2002.

Clayton Lubbers is a middle school science teacher currently placed by God at ­Byron Center Christian School. Clay regularly meets God in creation. Lubbers@ bccs​.org.

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Professional Learning through Community Engagement: A Partnership between a Local Faith-Based K–12 School and a Teacher Education Program KEVIN MIRCHANDANI AND NINA PAK LUI

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s educational researchers and practitioners, we have identified the following challenges for teachers in the K–12 Christian school context: capacity building, professional learning opportunities, and sustainable infrastructure to support goals of lifelong learning. The needs in our local teacher education program include finding appropriate field placements, engaging in collaborative community partnerships, and connecting course learning to the complex realities of educational practices. We believe that bridging theory and practice and creating a culture of transformative professional learning cannot be accomplished in isolation. Jeanne Maree Allen states that “in-field and on-campus components of teacher education will remain disjointed while they are taught and overseen by people who have little ongoing communication with each other” (742). Research indicates that “educational stakeholders, including universities, school districts, schools, and governments, need to work collaboratively to spur change” (Schnellert et al. 2). For this reason, when educators in K–12 school communities and local teacher education programs work collaboratively, their partnership can strengthen professional learning and their respective school’s vision and mission.

In this article, we offer a narrative of how faith-based K–12 schools can work with their local university, drawing on shared principles from Indigenous ways of being, Christian relationality, communities of practice, and community-based research. We will first situate ourselves, then describe the co-created relationship between the university and the K–12 school, and finally share the outcomes from this collaborative partnership.

Situating Ourselves Trinity Western University (TWU) is a small, private, faith-based liberal arts institution, located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie, and Stó:lô First Nations in British Columbia (BC). Post-degree pre-service teachers have the opportunity to participate in a two-year teacher education program in the School of Education at TWU that culminates with professional certification. Langley Christian School (LCS) is a K–12 independent Christian school located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Matsqui, and Semiahmoo First Nations people.

I (Nina) am currently an assistant professor of education in the School of Education at TWU who is actively engaged in a province-wide professional learning network. Teacher educators in this network explore new Christian Educators Journal

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When educators in K–12 school communities and local teacher education programs work collaboratively, their partnership can strengthen professional learning and their respective school’s vision and mission.

Teacher educators in this network explore new ways to strengthen the teaching profession as a whole through listening, critically questioning, and challenging processes of teacher education.

We entered into conversation about relationality, location, and how to co-create spaces in which pre- and in-service teachers, university fac-

ways to strengthen the teaching profession as a whole through listening, critically questioning, and challenging processes of teacher education. I am particularly interested in the journey toward decolonizing the self and reflexively transforming practices in teacher education and beyond. My relationship with the university’s Siya:m (a word from the Stó:lō people describing a leader recognized for wisdom, integrity, and knowledge) deepens my understanding of how local Indigenous principles and my Christian faith can respectfully guide the co-construction of new pedagogies with pre- and in-service teachers and communities.

I (Kevin) work as the K–12 director of the Instruction and Christian Foundations department at Langley Christian School and adjunct professor in the School of Education at TWU. I am particularly interested in the intersection of Christian faith-informed leadership and how we think about sustainable educational improvement. I am also an educational change thinker, which means I spend a lot of time thinking about past and present realities that people and their faith communities experience and how to approach problems formatively with theological, communal, and strategic ideas. I believe there are distinctly Christian ways of being that are crucial for leadership aimed at educational change and professional learning.

It was the late fall of 2020, when we were planning our respective teacher education courses (Nina: EDUC 401 Assessment for Learning; Kevin: EDUC 465 Middle/Secondary Instruction) in the School of Education, that we identified a need for understanding the realities of the classroom and making meaningful connections to course learning (OECD 93). Nina was also inspired by fellow teacher educators across universities in BC who approach teacher education through developing multi-partner communities of pedagogical inquiry (Schnellert et al. 2). Given that our respective institutions are situated within ten minutes of each other geographically, we entered into conversation about relationality, location, and how to co-create spaces in which pre- and in-service teachers, university faculty, and school leaders could learn from and with each other. Our deep hope was to see transformation of educational thinking and practice and provide an opportunity for members of our communities to thrive in professional learning together (Schnellert et al. 2).

ulty, and school leaders could learn from and with each other.

Guiding Questions The questions that guided us in all of our thinking and planning were the following: • How can course learning in the university context be closely aligned to local school practices during initial classroom experiences?

• What would be the impact on both of our communities if we worked collaboratively toward professional learning?

Underpinning Principles of the Community Partnership We found the following four principles to be particularly helpful when planning our community partnership.

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1. Indigenous Ways of Being We believe that “Indigenous principles offer new ways to think about teacher education” (Sanford et al. 31). Therefore, our understanding of relationality is informed by “Indigenous wisdom, grounded in a tradition where understanding is about relationships with other people and ideas in interconnected ways” (Schnellert et al. 4). Our community partnership program borrows ideas from the “four Rs” of holistic Indigenous education: responsible relationships, reciprocity, respect, and relevance (Cull et al. 26; see fig. 1). Professional learning for pre- and in-service teachers at LCS and TWU is mutually respectful and beneficial. Relational accountability occurs by continuously reflecting on the potential impact of our intentions on the community (26). Our partnership also aims to honor the knowledge and gifts that each person brings and strives to create meaningful and sustainable community engagement (26).

Figure 1

2. Christian Relationality Christian community and relationality grounds itself in the mystery and learning community of the Trinity (John 10:30; 14:16–17). Pedagogically, the community of the Trinity is understood in Jesus’s example of incarnational teaching in the apprenticeship of his disciples (Mark 3:13–15; Matt. 4:19), in his instruction about God’s community of creation (Matt. 5:1–12), and in the reflective and experiential dialogue that takes place between Jesus and his disciples (Luke 9). We also ground our beliefs about community partnerships in the biblical notion of shalom (1 Pet. 4:8–10), which is a description Christian Educators Journal

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Christian community and relationality grounds itself in the mystery and learning community of the Trinity.

of how both individuals and communities acknowledge the truth and engage in reconciliation, healing, and restoration as they thrive in a deeper peace that comes from God (Woodley 10).

3. Communities of Practice

Some of the challenges we have found in teacher education are how power is inequitably distributed among community members and how knowledge is transmitted rather than co-created.

Social learning anthropologist Jean Lave and social learning theorist Etienne Wenger in their work on situative learning describe communities of practice as an intrinsic set of conditions that provide support to make sense of a community’s social structure, practices, relational dynamics, and motivations for learning (98). In the language of Lave and Wenger, when newcomers to a field furnish their social worlds in their communities, they transform into practitioners associated with the identity and motivations of the community (122). Some of the challenges we have found in teacher education are how power is inequitably distributed among community members and how knowledge is transmitted rather than co-created. We believe that deep and transformative learning takes place when learners in the community are cared for and honored as whole persons.

4. Community-Based Research Community-based research (CBR) is a collaborative and decolonizing approach that equitably involves all partners in the research process. CBR recognizes the unique strengths that each person involved brings (Caine and Mill 15). Partners identify an issue of importance to the community and combine knowledge and action in achieving change. Core elements of CBR include the following: mutual trust and respect, capacity building, empowerment, accountability, and ownership (16). Local knowledge and co-creation of knowledge is useful to the community (27). Mutual respect and trust are at the center of the partnership between TWU and LCS, as well as building pedagogical capacity among pre- and in-service teachers. The level of participation of both community and academic partners is dynamic and continuously negotiated because power is a shared responsibility (31).

The Story of Our Co-created Partnership Fall Semester 2021

Kevin and Nina taught Trinity Western University education courses in situ: reflective seminars took place on site at Langley Christian School where pre-service teachers made thoughtful connections between their field experiences and university course learning.

The two-year post-degree program at TWU’s School of Education was composed of twenty-four pre-service teachers who completed their undergraduate degrees at various institutions. We launched the partnership in late September 2021 by offering an orientation for pre- and in-service teachers.

Throughout the fall semester, pre-service teachers were arranged in pods across the K–12 campus so that they could explore different classroom realities, observe various approaches to teaching and learning, and facilitate co-teaching opportunities. The fall semester included five whole-day classroom visits for observation, small-group instruction, and participation in the life of the LCS school community. Kevin and Nina taught TWU education courses in situ: reflective seminars took place on site at LCS where pre-­ service teachers made thoughtful connections between their field 16

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experiences and university course learning. The partnership extended further in that Nina and the elementary school principal co-lead professional learning opportunities for the K–12 teachers. These sessions supported LCS’s action plan goals for the year and its professional learning around research-based assessment practices. At the end of the semester, community partners celebrated by organizing a breakfast and sharing reflections.

Spring Semester 2022 In the spring semester, Nina taught the EDUC 401 assessment course and guided student teachers as they co-developed a three- to four-lesson ­sequence with in-service teachers. University classes were canceled with permission so that pre-service teachers could engage in a full-week immersion field experience at LCS. Kevin instructed the EDUC 465 course on secondary teaching practice, which included a number of post-degree students who were a part of the partnership placement at LCS. Pre-service teachers applied key tenets of two planning and assessment practices they had studied at the university: Understanding by Design and Standards-Based Learning. This meant that in-service teachers had opportunities to engage in conversations around quality assessment practices. Pre-service teachers met with in-service teachers and university faculty to receive feedback around their curriculum and assessment planning. The three- to four-lesson sequence was implemented during the full-week immersion; Kevin, Nina, and the LCS leadership team made short observations, provided feedback, and conducted conferences with pre- and in-service teachers.

It was our hope that pre-service teachers in the TWU teacher education program might experience the realities of what it is like to be an educator by participating in the full-curricular life of a K–12 Christian learning community for a whole week at LCS. We ended the year-long partnership by sharing a meal and giving thanks for all that we learned with and from each other, in the true spirit of hospitality and relationality.

Collective Outcomes of the Community Partnership TWU post-degree pre-service teachers, LCS in-service teachers, and LCS leadership were invited to complete a qualitative survey to reflect on the impact of the community partnership. In our analysis, we identified the following emergent themes: 1. Learning from hospitality and relationality: We clarified the purpose and dynamics of the community partnership by identifying our respective needs (Schnellert et al. 3). Pre-service teachers shared with us in the reflective survey how welcoming and hospitable the staff and faculty were at LCS. They noticed that in-service teachers were keen to build authentic relationships with them. They appreciated how accommodating in-service teachers were toward their emergent understandings of what it means to be a teacher.

2. Holistic experience and relevant context: We supported pre- and in-service teachers by providing timely feedback in situ, at the K–12 campus, and thus the learning in education classes closely aligned with experiential learning in the field. In the survey, comments were made about how the Christian Educators Journal

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It was our hope that pre-service teachers in the Trinity Western University teacher education program might experience the realities of what it is like to be an educator by participating in the full-curricular life of a K–12 Christian learning community.

We broke down the barriers between theory and practice by inquiring, co-planning, co-teaching, providing feedback, and revising together.

full-week immersion helped pre-service teachers “to really see the rhythms of a school day and the pace of classroom learning.” One of the LCS leaders articulated that pre-service teachers are “getting more than what are often experienced as disconnected snap shots with a short session once a week.” A pre-service teacher explained how they really enjoyed the length of the week-immersion at LCS because it allowed them to see so much more of what goes on in a classroom, particularly the social dynamics among students.

3. Bridging theory and practice collaboratively: We broke down the barriers between theory and practice by inquiring, co-planning, co-teaching, providing feedback, and revising together. Pre-service teachers found it valuable to be at a school like LCS where they found that many in-service teachers were on a journey toward learning and implementing instructional and assessment practices that were being taught in the pre-service teachers’ education courses. One pre-service teacher stated that they were “learning a lot about the theory behind teaching, and it was a great experience to see the theories in practice.” Numerous pre-service teachers discussed how they learned the value of collaboration through co-planning and co-designing learning experiences with in-service teachers, peers, and university faculty.

4. Safe space for risk taking: One of the pre-service teachers expressed that the week-long immersion fostered a safe environment for applying course learning. They shared that without collaborative efforts, we do a disservice to students. Greater emphasis toward lifelong learning emerged in some of the reflections from LCS teachers and the leadership team: “I have seen student teachers attend our professional development, staff meetings, and professional learning communities as it fits their schedule.” There was evidence that the partnership created mutuality, where in-service teachers could share about their own professional growth as inclusive and reflective practitioners.

5. Commitment to lifelong professional learning: We realized that there are multiple ways for educators to engage in lifelong learning. Evidence from the survey confirmed the importance of reflective, reflexive, and iterative learning in the teaching profession. University faculty and school leaders can co-lead professional learning around curriculum, assessment, and instruction. In the words of one of our participants concerning the transformation they observed: We have truly been able to form a professional relationship, learning from each other. . . . [In-service teachers] have a much greater presence on our school campus and are able to connect with staff. It is in these moments where meaningful and formative conversations are able to happen.

In-service teachers who were learning about competency-driven curriculum found new ways to gain knowledge from pre-service teachers. From co-planning to co-teaching, the partnership explored new ways to engage in professional learning across educational contexts.

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Concluding Thoughts In an age where networks and connections reign supreme, we believe hierarchies can be flattened by developing communities of inquiry as “catalysts for change’’ (Schnellert et al. 18). Such communities would disrupt the hegemonic ways of knowing and being in education systems. We have experienced how collaborative partnerships widen what counts as knowledge, where learning might take place, and what counts as pedagogy (Schnellert 6). The community partnership described in this article demonstrates a broader vision of localization and how professional learning experiences can be informed by Indigenous ways of being, Christian relationality, communities of practice, and community-based research. Community members at LCS and TWU benefited from learning with and from each other. Collegial friendships were formed. Professional learning networks were extended.

New possibilities for shalom were created.

We must find ways for educators to engage in communal learning. If professional learning efforts are isolated and only about transmission of knowledge, then we miss what can be learned in, with, and from communities. If professional learning only aims to introduce instructional and assessment strategies, then we miss the opportunity to build capacity and provide deeper and more meaningful ways to grow as educators across contexts. Collectively, we can better meet the needs of the learners in our care (Schnellert 2). Lastly, if we can provide richer and fuller views of relationality and hospitality through community partnerships, we too partner with God as shalom is shared, practiced, and learned.

Note: If you would like to see an artifact of learning from the community partnership, please visit the following link or scan the QR code below: https://bit.ly/StudentTeacherArtifact. We share this artifact of learning from one of the post-degree pre-service teachers with their consent.

Works Cited Allen, Jeanne Maree. “Stakeholders’ Perspectives of the Nature and Role of Assessment during Practicum.” Teaching and Teacher Education, vol. 27, no. 4, Jan. 2011, pp. 742–50, https://doi-org.ezproxy.biola.edu/10.1016/​ j.tate.2010.12.004.

Caine, Vera, and Mill, Judy. Essentials of Community-Based Research. Routledge, 2016, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315545004.

Cull, Ian, et al. Pulling Together: A Guide for Front-Line Staff, Student Services, and Advisors. BC Campus, 2018, https://opentextbc.ca/ indigenizationfrontlineworkers.

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We have experienced how collaborative partnerships widen what counts as knowledge, where learning might take place, and what counts as pedagogy.

Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). “Innovative Learning Environments.” Center for Educational Research and Innovation. OECD Publishing, 2013, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264203488-en.

Sanford, Kathy, et al. “Indigenous Principles Decolonizing Teacher Education: What We Have Learned.” In Education, vol. 18, no. 4, 2012, pp. 19–34, https://doi.org/10.37119/ojs2012.v18i2.61.

Schnellert, Leyton. “Exploring the Potential of Professional Learning Networks.” Professional Learning Networks: Facilitating Transformation in Diverse Contexts with Equity-Seeking Communities. Edited by Leyton Schnellert, Emerald, 2020, pp. 1–15, https://doi.org/​ 10.1108/978-1-78769-891-820201004.

Schnellert, Leyton, et al. “Developing Communities of Pedagogical Inquiry in British Columbia.” Networks for Learning: Effective Collaboration for Teacher, School and System Improvement. Edited by Chris Brown and Cindy Poortman, Routledge, 2017, pp. 56–74.

Sharma, Umesh, and Jahirul Mullick. “Bridging the Gaps between Theory and Practice of Inclusive Teacher Education.” Oxford University Press, 2021, https://doi​.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1226.

Woodley, Randy. “Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision.” Eerdmans, 2012.

Kevin Mirchandani, PhD Student in Educational Studies at Biola University, is the K–12 director of Instruction and Christian Foundations at Langley Christian School and adjunct professor of Education and Leadership Studies at Trinity Western University. The focus of his studies is the intersection of Christian faith-­ informed leadership and sustainable educational change.

Nina Pak Lui, PhD Student in Community Engagement, Social Change, and Equity at the University of British Columbia, is an assistant professor and the post-degree program coordinator in the School of Education at Trinity Western University. The focus of her studies is a journey toward decolonizing the self and reflexively transforming practices in teacher education and beyond through community-based research.

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Effective Communication by School Leaders: A Case Study from COVID-19 SIMON BRAUN

S

chools are not immune to crises. Whether it be an earthquake, wildfire, shooting, or global pandemic, schools will always be required to react to crises. School leaders need to be prepared to communicate quickly, efficiently, and effectively with their communities in stressful times. The COVID-19 pandemic created an exceptional urgency for schools to practice and refine crisis communication strategies over an extended period of time.

In the spring of 2022 as part of a master’s thesis, I had the opportunity to interview leaders (principals, heads of school, etc.) to reflect on the past two years and what they learned about communication during this time.

My goal was to examine the practices and experiences that helped leaders to better communicate with their communities, both inside and outside their schools. Our conversations were focused on the positive lessons that have come out of the two years of pandemic communication. While these findings were from leaders in British Columbia, I expect they can be useful in your context as well. There were four main findings that came out of our conversations.

My goal was to examine the practices and experiences that helped leaders to better communicate with their communities, both inside and outside their schools.

The Supremacy of Email One of the most significant things that came out of the study was that email continues to be the most effective way that leaders can get their messages out. While this may initially be surprising given the number of emails that are unread or ignored, especially by younger generations, other platforms may not be as accessible to staff, community, or students.

This means that email often remains a central platform for official communication. Furthermore, when an email is sent from someone in a position of power and has a clear subject line conveying the importance of what it contains, that message usually has very high rates of readership and follow through.

A main factor that also plays into whether an email will be read or ignored is the frequency with which emails are sent. The more frequently emails are sent out, the less likely they are to communicate effectively. One participant referred to this as “inbox exhaustion.” For this reason, many schools ensured that their official communication came from the overall leader (head of school, principal, etc.) or from a spokesperson for a leadership team. This person may have had a whole communications department aiding them or even writing the messages for them, but leveraging the position of people at the top of an organization helped to ensure that communication got out effectively.

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A main factor that also plays into whether an email will be read or ignored is the frequency with which emails are sent.

Email is a bit of a double-edged sword: used poorly it can be ignored and is ineffective. However, when used carefully, email continues to be an extremely effective tool to reach a very broad, but also targeted, audience.

Top-Down Crisis Response Knowing that there is one person who is in charge (or that there is a spokesperson for the leadership team) can help to streamline the actions of school staff when time or complexity are challenges.

Organizations that deal with high levels of stress and crisis situations often have a clear hierarchy built in. Military, police, and many emergency services have clear structures to ensure that everyone knows who is in charge and where to go for information. School leaders discussed the need for a central point of contact and official information. In other crisis incidents around the world, many school staff have taken on the roles of first responders for their students, and schools have become crisis recovery centers.

Knowing that there is one person who is in charge (or that there is a spokesperson for the leadership team) can help to streamline the actions of school staff when time or complexity are challenges.

Focus on Your People

Prior to sending, they had all broad communications read by members of the school board or specific parents who had a good understanding of the feelings of the wider community.

The leaders I interviewed underlined the importance of working together to utilize their respective strengths and consider how a message will impact their staff or community. Messages were also more effective when they were clear and understandable to all readers. Translating critical documents into other languages was, for example, one process that many leaders found important.

Knowing the strengths of the members of a school’s internal community can help leaders to delegate tasks so that they are handled more effectively. Staff input can also keep school leaders from making critical mistakes in communicating with the external members of the school.

The culture of the external community is another consideration when developing communications. Leaders discussed finding key people to aid in communicating beyond internal staff. One leader was very new to the school community during the pandemic and needed to learn the ways that the community received and understood information that was sent home.

In order to make sure their messaging was effective, prior to sending, they had all broad communications read by members of the school board or specific parents who had a good understanding of the feelings of the wider community.

Understanding the platforms and channels that spread and amplify misinformation, rumors, or controversies is another area that was identified as important by some participants. One principal highlighted that, by focusing on these platforms, community members began to diffuse misinformation on a parent WhatsApp group by using official school messages. A different principal understood that controversies around regulations would come from certain community members and targeted them with personal phone calls in addition to the more general messages. One participant also identified that their community tended to be very anxious about case numbers and so, to ease tensions, broke with official health authority protocol and posted the number of cases in the school every week. By using clear 22

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statistics, this leader eliminated many rumors about who might be sick or away from school, when in fact the reason for their absence might have nothing to do with illness.

Know What You Stand For School leaders had an instinctive desire to revert to their values and principles. Retreating to a foundational point during a crisis ensured that they knew what unified their community during this time. It also showed the people outside the immediate community who they were and what they stood for. The school leaders I interviewed were unified in their attempts to project care to their communities in whatever way was most needed for their context. School leaders tapped into the founding values of their schools to unify community members at a time when so many issues were divisive and controversial.

A surprising result of my research was the focus of leaders on the values and beliefs of their schools, even in the midst of a crisis. Leaders saw communication as a way to further their school’s mission and vision but also as a way to promote unity among the community. School leaders who were able to stay rooted in their values found it easier to have difficult conversations with community members because there was a set of agreed-upon values that functioned as a starting point for discussions.

The values of the school provided a firm foundation for working toward a compromise when it was needed, since both parties had an agreed-upon mission. One principal discussed how they worked hard to ensure that, even during conflict over regulations such as masking and vaccines, they attempted to find common ground in the beliefs of the school. This principal found that centering on shared beliefs helped remind everyone that they ultimately wanted the same things for their children. Furthermore, once a common mission was reinforced, it became easier for all parties to work together or compromise when needed.

Done well, communication has the potential to reduce risk, unite community, and better serve students; done poorly it has the ability to do the exact opposite. James 3 warns Christian teachers and leaders that we are held to a high standard and cautions us about the words we use. James implores us to examine how we speak and how “out of the same mouth come praise and cursing” (James 3:10). COVID has given us an opportunity to examine how we communicate with our communities and ensure that we are doing so in a way that glorifies God and furthers the missions of our schools.

Simon Braun is a teacher in Agassiz, British Columbia, where he lives with his wife and three sons. He recently completed his masters degree at Royal Roads University and is looking forward to the new adventures that await him and his family.

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School leaders tapped into the founding values of their schools to unify community members at a time when so many issues were divisive and controversial.

Done well, communication has the potential to reduce risk, unite community, and better serve students; done poorly it has the ability to do the exact opposite.

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Art Education Toward Community ADAM LANCASTER

C Art teachers train students to find beauty and meaning in the world, to create images that express those visions, and then to present them in order to connect with others.

Plato was convinced that art could make virtue into a habit, and that good choices would follow.

ommunity is not a place; it’s a people. It’s persons sharing. Artists can make communities more positive because art forms character. Character is choosing good rather than bad, beauty over what’s ugly—the connection to art education is clear. Art teachers train students to find beauty and meaning in the world, to create images that express those visions, and then to present them in order to connect with others. And connection is a step toward community. But art in and of itself can’t really share: it can give, but it can’t receive. If community is about mutuality, artists must take the next step and become good neighbors, giving and receiving for the sake of the community.

Unfortunately, many expressions aren’t healthy or creative, and they never land. They miss the mark because they lack character. In this short essay, I’ll suggest that art should not be an end in itself, that art is rather for community, and that the implications for art education are important, even urgent: teachers must discourage students from indulging in emotions and instead encourage expressions that facilitate personal relationships— neighbor to neighbor.

Art education began with Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher. He emphasized virtue over vice, pleasure over pain in preparing young people for adult citizenship in the community. Beauty was good and the lack of beauty was bad, and students should learn the difference early on. “If our youth are to do their work in life,” he wrote, they must “make these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim” (Republic 85). The pattern for character was found in nature’s balance and proportion, specifically in music’s rhythm and harmony: “There can be no nobler training than . . . musical training,” where “rhythm and harmony find their way in the inward places of the soul . . . making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful” (Republic 86). For Plato, character training was practicing the arts, and not just music, but also “the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art . . . weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every kind of manufacture” (Laws 85). He was convinced that art could make virtue into a habit, and that good choices would follow.

Art educator Herbert Read adds a modern perspective to Plato’s philosophy. Humans are organic beings, and “aesthetic laws are inherent in the biological processes of life itself. . . . They are the laws which guide life along,” he writes, “and it is our business as educationalists to discover these laws in nature or experience and make them the principles of our teaching” (Redemption of the Robot 23). Read believes change comes as a result of the students expressing themselves: We know that a child absorbed in drawing or in any other creative activity 26

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is a happy child. We know just as a matter of everyday experience that self-­expression is self-improvement. For that reason we must claim a large portion of the child’s time for artistic activities, simply on the grounds that these activities are, as it were, a safety valve, a path to equableness. (­Redemption of the Robot 24–25)

Art is the release that restores balance or equilibrium to the student. Their artwork expresses “an instinctive knowledge of the laws of the universe, and a habit or behavior in harmony with nature” (Education through Art 70).

But are expressions naturally character forming? Do they guarantee students will grow into good neighbors? Read may be too romantic. Expressions aren’t always cathartic, and many are, in fact, unhealthy.

Sociologist Robert Witkin suggests that expressions must resolve, complete, or “cancel out” the impression if they are to be effective. Many of our expressions, unfortunately, are merely reactions, simple reflexes that don’t reciprocate. “By reciprocity,” Witkin explains, “is meant here a relationship in which the response is literally the counterpart or reciprocal . . . [in the way that] my scratch is said to be the counterpart of my itch. It is its reciprocal and will be effective in the sense of canceling it out” (12). Flinging paint on a canvas or pounding clay with fists may use up the energy involved in the impression, but they ultimately fail to satisfy. Those over-reactive expressions disregard beauty and meaning. Rather, they amount to Read’s obedience to aesthetic laws—all animal instinct and mostly superficial. This is the problem with much of the postmodern art that some teachers are using as exemplars in art class today. Most classic, traditional, and even some modern art, on the other hand, has been raised from the depths of the human spirit. These spiritual expressions better form the character that builds community; the ones that will transform art students into good neighbors.

Human (spiritual) expressions that can relieve what itches deal honestly with emotions, yet even when in the depths don’t despair—they remain hopeful. Honesty and hope are healthy. Adolescence can be difficult, and it’s often easier for young people to indulge their feelings rather than try to understand them. But it’s only in understanding emotions that they can be authenticated and expressed satisfactorily. Additionally, human expressions have the capacity for creativity. Creativity is not being unique or original, as we sometimes suppose—it’s not really about the creator at all, but about things coming together. Healthy, creative expressions aren’t turned in upon themselves but rather reach out to the world: they make connections.

Still, even healthy, creative expressions that make connections—while positive—are limited. Art is powerfully expressive, but it’s not the fullest expression of our humanity. Philosopher John Macmurray explains, “The artistic attitude is that of the looker-on, admiring . . . but not participating in the life that it contemplates. . . . The artist cannot co-operate in his activity.

He is solitary in it” (Reason and Emotion 33). Art by itself lacks mutuality.

Artistic expressions are too individualistic. Furthermore, the artist is indifferent to whoever receives the message; any audience will do. He or she “gives [them]self, not to anyone in particular, but to the world at large,” Macmurray writes. “That is not a fuller but a narrower experience; because personally, to give yourself to everyone, is to give yourself to no one” (Reason Christian Educators Journal

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Flinging paint on a canvas or pounding clay with fists may use up the energy involved in the impression, but they ultimately fail to satisfy.

Healthy, creative expressions aren’t turned in upon themselves but rather reach out to the world: they make connections.

Artists must move on to becoming good neighbors.

and Emotion 92). Artworks may connect with audiences—they can give—but they can’t receive, and without mutuality there can be no real community.

Art must give way to relationship; artists must move on to becoming good neighbors. If art is contemplative, community, then, is relational.

“Communion is the key word,” Macmurray suggests, “in the same sense that contemplation is the key word of art. . . . One must stand aside to contemplate; one must not be personally involved. But a personal involvement is the core of [community]” (Religion, Art, and Science 43). Character is formed in students only when they go beyond art and get involved in the lives of others.

Art is for community—the fuller the experience, the fuller expression of our humanity. Art teachers form character in students by encouraging healthy, creative expressions that connect with others, who then go on to use those connections to build personal relationships. Young people, who will impact society in some way, have the opportunity to make it positive.

Art can help, and art educators play an important part.

Works Cited Macmurray, John. Reason and Emotion. Humanities Press. 1995.

———. Religion, Art, and Science. Mission Press. 1986.

Plato. Laws. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Dover. 2006.

———. The Republic. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Barnes & Noble. 1999.

Read, Herbert. Education through Art. London: Faber and Faber. 1964.

———. The Redemption of the Robot: My Encounter with Education through Art. Trident. 1966.

Witkin, Robert. Intelligence of Feeling. Heinneman. 1974.

Adam Shea Lancaster (DEdMin, MDiv) is a professional artist and art ­educator from Denton, TX. He works primarily in pencil and paint in a ­representational-figurative style. Lancaster teaches art to high schoolers in the Keller Independent School District. When not in the studio or in the classroom, he’s in the community championing art through the Visual Art League of Lewisville and the Visual Art Society of Texas (Denton). Lancaster has made it his mission to make art accessible, to remove unnecessary obstacles, and to encourage appreciation and participation for all.

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Master of Education Tracks: Administration •

School Leadership •

•

Administrative License

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Engaging God’s World for the Sake of the Kingdom DAVE LOEWEN

Why Should We Engage?

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As followers of Jesus we are people of the cross, people who walk in the world with a posture of self-sacrificial love for our neighbor.

he mission statement of Surrey Christian School is “Educating for wholeness by engaging God’s world in the servant way of Jesus.” Central to the statement is the idea of engagement, that we are called to be actively seeking the good of God’s world. Note that it is not simply the world, but it is God’s world, and this orientation helps sharpen our focus on engagement as an element of faithfulness. This call to work for the common good in God’s world has its deep roots in our Reformed heritage as a Christian school, specifically in the belief that we are meant to be image-bearers of God who actively seek to bring God’s redeeming love to “every square inch” of the domain of human existence. And our posture in this engagement is “the servant way of Jesus.” Biblical scholar Michael Gorman writes extensively on the idea of self-sacrificial love in his book Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality. Gorman reminds us that we are people of the cross; therefore, our posture of engagement should be cruciform. He explains that as followers of Jesus we are people of the cross, people who walk in the world with a posture of self-sacrificial love for our neighbor. Surrey Christian School believes engagement in the servant way of Jesus has the potential to form students into followers of Jesus who love their neighbors well and who are a people of shalom, or wholeness.

What If We Don’t Engage?

Retreating from the world can easily lead to a kind of tribalism that is counter to the gospel.

In our current Western cultural context, it is no secret that there is significant division, politically and theologically. In this context, it is tempting to retreat into our own silos, to strengthen our sense of community by narrowing it to those who think like us and maybe even talk and look like us. It feels safer and is easier, even cozier. However, this retreat can easily lead to a kind of tribalism that is counter to the gospel. In the book of Jeremiah, when all the leaders and elites have been captured out of Jerusalem and shipped off to Babylon, Jeremiah (who was still in cozy Jerusalem) had a prophetic word for those living in exile. God calls to them: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf ” (Jer. 29:7 ESV). In the midst of being under siege and captured, God calls the people of Israel not to fight or retreat but to engage for the common good rather than just their own good. This orientation to our world is echoed in 1 Peter, written to a community of people who were powerless and socially ostracized. Peter calls them not to withdraw but to stand up to the Roman Empire as the face of God in the face of Christ. They were to be known as benefactors in their community; they were to “do good” (1 Pet. 2:14–15), which Biblical scholar Scot McNight cites 30

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as the technical language of civic benefaction. This means they were to seek the good of the city, help drive down grain prices for the poor, build theatres, and refurbish civic buildings. McKnight states, “The fellowship of the Christians created a community wherein true justice was worked out, wherein healthy, loving relationships were the norm, and wherein response to society was one of benefaction and compassion” (122). It seems clear from Scripture that disengagement and withdrawal are simply not options for us.

So, while we are intended to be communities of atonement, the fruit of that atonement is to bear out in the broader communities around us. This requires our engagement. It does not mean things will be easy or simple, but they may become rich and beautiful. As Eugene Peterson puts it, “The aim of the person of faith is not to be as comfortable as possible but live as deeply and thoroughly as possible—to deal with the reality of life, discover truth, create beauty, act out love” (152). Inevitably, this will enlarge our world, and a large world needs a large God, for the larger our world, the less we can exert control over it and the more we need the master of the universe to be just that. Thanks be to God for his greatness! Let us then avoid the temptation of shaping God into a local, tribal deity, thus reducing his power over us and our communities. Instead, may we trust in his sovereignty over all of life and out of that trust engage others well with the belief that God is at work in their lives and in the life of his world.

Engagement does not mean things will be easy or simple, but they may become rich and beautiful.

How, Then, Should We Engage?

Surrey Christian School (SCS) has had its mission statement for over twelve years now and has spent those twelve years seeking to embody the mission in its day-to-day practices. There have been some successes as well as some missteps along the way. The following are just four examples of how SCS has worked to engage God’s world in the servant way of Jesus. A cultural norm we have tried to inculcate is to be a people of “try.” This means there is collegial and leadership support to take risks and venture out with students to engage.

First, Surrey Christian School (all four of its campuses) exists on the unceded territories of the Kwantlen First Peoples. These people are our living history and have stewarded this beautiful land for tens of thousands of years before we arrived. They suffered greatly under colonization, and sadly, much of that suffering was in the name of Christ and the church. Surrey Christian School has chosen to be friends with the Kwantlen people, to listen to their truth and to work toward redeeming the name of Jesus by being good neighbors and friends (this is the work of reconciliation). We started along this journey by employing Kwantlen artist Brandon Gabriel for a couple of months as an artist in residence at our campuses. We have now developed a strong friendship with Kwantlen storyteller Joseph Dandurand, who spends time on our campus on a regular basis. We are learning to more fully see the Kwantlen people as fellow image-bearers with whom we have much in common and from whom we have much to learn. These are the people in our particular context, the neighbors God has gifted to us. They too are on a journey as they move in our direction with offers of friendship and the willingness to engage our students.

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Surrey Christian School has chosen to be friends with the Kwantlen people, to listen to their truth and to work toward redeeming the name of Jesus by being good neighbors and friends

Surrey Christian School is working toward a deeper understanding of what it means to honor our diversity while maintaining our unity in Christ.

The temptation in dealing with something as challenging as the issues surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity is to revert to a fight or flight mentality.

largest city in Canada, and it is one of the most ethnically diverse. Surrey Christian School is no longer dominated by immigrants from Western Europe. We are increasingly populated by recent immigrants from Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, and that is reflected in our student population where 52 percent of parents speak English as a second language. Our staff and board are slowly reflecting the reality of the ethnic diversity. Here’s the hard part: we have not stewarded this gift well in the past. We had good intentions but no intentionality. The Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate movements were a wake-up call to our school. Surrey Christian School is working toward a deeper understanding of what it means to honor our diversity while maintaining our unity in Christ. For example, we have worked through anti-racism training as a faculty and staff and have been led by students in our high school campus in a focus on anti-racism. Truly stewarding our ethnic ­diversity is not easy work in a community made up of over 150 different churches. However, this mosaic of diversity is the beauty of God’s world crying out for our Christ-like engagement and enjoyment!

Third, sexual orientation and gender identity are divisive issues right now, and there are gay and transitioning students in our school. Surrey Christian School has chosen to give greater emphasis to a posture rather than to a position. As our mission statement says, we believe the gospel calls us to engage “in the servant way of Jesus,” a cruciform way of walking in the world that seeks the good of the other, or as Peter frames it in 1 Peter 2:17, we are expected to “honor everyone” (ESV). Surrey Christian School seeks to be known in the community by whom we follow and how we serve rather than simply by what we oppose. We believe this will give us greater authority when we need to speak against something. The temptation in dealing with something as challenging as the issues surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity is to revert to a fight or flight mentality. Either we join in the culture war party with the hope of defeating what we fear, or we withdraw into a safe shell and avoid and/or dismiss the issues altogether.

Both of these responses disregard our call to honor everyone as made in the image of God. A third option is prayerful and thoughtful engagement that centers on our moral duty of care for our students and our neighbors. It is not devoid of challenging conversations but approaches those conversations with the heart of Christ. It requires us to avoid the temptation of reductionism, wherein every person is reduced to their position and conversation stalls. Rather, we recognize the nuance of human experience and approach challenging topics with humility and a willingness to learn from each other.

We do not ignore challenging conversations, and we open ourselves to the possibility that we don’t have to be certain to be faithful.

Finally, designing formational learning experiences means we fully accept that the practices of schooling shape our students, and we therefore seek to be intentional about that formation so that it more closely points toward the kingdom. Significantly influenced by the work of Jamie Smith of Calvin University, Surrey Christian School embarked on a journey eleven years ago to design learning activities intended to form students as a peculiar people “fully alive in God’s story” (SCS vision statement). This formation is meant to counter the formation of the Western story that vies for the hearts of our students. It is the story of affluence and acquisition, of body image and careerism. It is the story of a hyper-focus on digitally mediated self-promotion. Surrey Christian School is hoping to resist the temptation 32

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of private schooling for upward mobility. Instead, we desire to educate for the kingdom by facilitating student engagement with our neighbors, by giving opportunities to care for creation, by befriending the stranger, by knowing and serving the poor, and by generally seeking the good of the other, individually and within the civic arena. And all of this is rooted in the gospel. So, our teachers are challenged to design learning experiences wherein students apply their skills, knowledge, and understanding in ways that involve real work that meets a real need for real people. Much of this vision was inspired by the work of Doug Monsma out of Alberta and led by our director of learning, Darryl Deboer.

As you walk your journey as a Christian educator, my hope is that you reflect deeply on the Reformed tradition of cultural engagement and the posture with which that engagement should happen. As the West struggles with deep divisions within and outside of Christianity, may we stand apart from that cultural norm with a posture that is willing to be the face of God in the face of Christ to those who are not like us. May our schools be places that form students who seek the good of the city beyond the good of their own interests, all for the sake of the gospel.

Works Cited Gorman, Michael. Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality. Eerdmans, 2001.

McKnight, Scot. A Community Called Atonement. Abingdon, 2007.

Peterson, Eugene. Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best. IVP, 1983.

Smith, James K. A. Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology. 2017.

———. Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation.

Baker, 2009.

———. Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works. Baker, 2013.

Dave Loewen is the executive director of the Society of Christian Schools in ­British Columbia. Prior to that he served as the superintendent of Surrey Christian School, comprised of three Christian schools and three early learning centers in British Columbia. He has served as a teacher and principal at both the elementary and secondary levels. Dave’s PhD focused on organizational theory and leadership studies with research interests in communicative ethics. He is an adjunct faculty member of Trinity Western University’s Master of Arts in Leadership program and is currently studying theology at Regent College in order to better inform his leadership. Dave is married to Sharlene and has three children, aged 24, 20, and 5 (yup!). He manages a growing suburban farm operation in his backyard, currently with three spoiled chickens and one lovely puppy dog.

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We desire to educate for the kingdom by facilitating student engagement with our neighbors, by giving opportunities to care for creation, by befriending the stranger, by knowing and serving the poor, and by generally seeking the good of the other, individually and within the civic arena.

Ten Lessons Protestant Schools Can Learn from Our Catholic School Neighbors GINA ROBLES

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My experiences working and teaching in a Catholic school taught me valuable lessons.

uring my first three years as an educator, I taught at a small Christian school connected to the church I attended. When I was hired as a high school English teacher, I had a degree in English and a few courses in teaching but no certification, student teaching, or other teaching experience.

Needless to say, the transition was difficult. After one year of struggling to teach high school English, I begged my principal to move me to a second-grade teaching spot for the following year.

I taught second grade for two wonderful years but could not afford to stay financially. As is the case for many small Christian schools, my salary was barely minimum wage and included no health insurance or other benefits. So when a colleague suggested I apply at the brand new Catholic school a few miles away, I was intrigued. Doubts quickly crept in, though.

What would it be like teaching at a Catholic school? Would they even hire a Protestant? I knew nothing about Catholic schools or the Catholic faith, for that matter. However, after much prayer, I applied and was called in for an interview.

Seventeen years later, I thank God for guiding me to accept a teaching position at that Catholic school. He provided me with many incredible mentors and growth opportunities during my time there. I can think of no better way to show my gratitude than to share with other Christian school educators some of the many valuable lessons I learned.

During my time in the Catholic school, I had the opportunity to teach in multiple roles and at several different grade levels. I began my years there teaching middle school language arts for grades 6–8, and, with the support of my principal and assistant principal, I received my Florida state certification for English 6–12 during my first three years. Later, I became the school library media specialist and taught technology for grades K–8. In my last four years there, I received my master’s in educational leadership and was promoted to assistant principal. My experiences working and teaching in a Catholic school taught me valuable lessons. While I cannot speak for every Catholic school or diocese, these are some of the most valuable lessons I learned while teaching in the Diocese of St. Petersburg.

1: Harnessing the Power of Numbers Protestant schools typically exist in isolation as single schools or possibly an elementary, middle, and high school trio. This fact, unfortunately, does not allow for the power of numbers. Protestant schools could increase their leverage in many areas if they teamed up with other Protestant schools as 34

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Catholic schools do. Catholic schools utilize their diocesan schools’ numbers to get better rates on curricula, electronic subscriptions, and even software.

Teaming up with other Protestant schools to create cooperatives, or mini districts, would create advantages for schools and teachers. It would allow for more access to professional development for teachers while simultaneously bringing down shared costs for training. Another significant advantage would be the availability of Christian educators to mentor or learn from in professional learning communities. One of the most difficult aspects of being a teacher in a small Christian school is often teaching in isolation.

The lack of other teachers with whom to work on improving one’s craft can be a struggle. If Protestant Christian schools partnered with each other, teachers could form learning communities to share best practices and seek advice.

Finances are always top of mind for small independent schools. Balancing between keeping tuition affordable and the school financially solvent is difficult. Catholic schools still struggle with this, but they have an advantage. In the Diocese of St. Petersburg, all Catholic churches support the schools that their parishioners attend, even if the school is not connected with their church. In addition, parish schools are supported financially with an annual gift from their parish church. This investment system by surrounding parishes establishes the interest all parishes have in maintaining healthy Catholic schools. I believe Protestant schools could do something similar, even if all churches and schools partnering together are not of the same denomination. Churches that do not have their own school could invest even more in those that do. After all, we all have an interest in the value of Christian education.

If Protestant Christian schools partnered with each other, teachers could form learning communities to share best practices and seek advice.

2: Establishing a Hierarchy of Leadership Another drawback for independent private and Protestant schools is the lack of a hierarchy of leadership. While some might think having one school principal or pastor as the school leader means less bureaucracy, it also means there is often no one to go to when trouble hits. Even principals need someone to go to for financial or legal advice. In cases where schools have limited leadership, there is also no system of checks and balances to ensure sound decision making for the school. Catholic schools do this through a system of superintendents, associate superintendents, and school advisory boards. Using the Catholic model, Protestant schools could remain nimble enough to avoid the trap of bureaucracy while taking advantage of the expertise available in the broader community.

3: Implementing High-Quality Curricula This lesson is very near and dear to my heart. As a former English language arts teacher and librarian, I believe Christian schools have a duty to provide high-quality educational materials to all students. Unfortunately, as my time teaching in Protestant schools taught me, this often is not the case.

Whether out of fear or social pressure, many Protestant schools cling to outdated curriculum because it is labeled as Christian. Most Catholic schools Christian Educators Journal

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Most Catholic schools use the same curriculum used in public schools, yet they still integrate their faith into every single subject area.

use the same curriculum used in public schools, yet they still integrate their faith into every single subject area. In Catholic schools, curriculum choices are made after careful review by committees who look at whether it meets academic standards, is engaging, and is easy to use. Studies have shown that improving the quality of a school’s curriculum is forty times more cost-­ effective than class-size reduction (Boser and Straus). Unfortunately, just because a publisher claims its curriculum is rigorous does not mean it is. I have seen, especially at the middle and high school levels, that many Christian curricula become less and less effective for higher grade levels. The rote memorization that many of these curricula rely on does not cut it when our older students need to be challenged to become critical thinkers and problem solvers. Protestant schools can do better.

Regrettably, there is very little research on the effectiveness of any popular Christian curricula or reviews of whether or not they meet or exceed public school academic standards. Beth Gordy Waddell conducted a partial study of the popular ABEKA curriculum in 2005 and was similarly confounded by the lack of research or references on this topic (20). Waddell states, “Christian schools should set the trend for using curriculum that not only meets but exceeds the state and federal standards when these standards have been soundly researched and do not compromise the Biblical teachings and values on which Christian schools base their educational foundation” (20). Yet without careful review of Christian schools’ curricula, how do we know we are reaching this aspiration?

Tools such as EdReports.org are available to do much of the work of reviewing quality curricula. Curriculum review is another area where using a team of community members with expertise in various subject areas (math, science, language arts) could assist Protestant schools in upgrading their curricula. Our students need to be challenged through rigorous texts and interactive learning environments.

4: Utilizing Data-Driven Decision Making and Instruction

Useful data does not only take the form of standardized tests. In fact, for teachers, lowstakes or even ungraded assessments while students are in the process of learning can be more powerful.

Data can be a powerful tool for teachers and administrators, but our teachers need explicit training in using data-driven instruction in the classroom.

When teachers strategically use formative assessments to guide their instruction and make timely decisions about teaching, student achievement soars. Useful data does not only take the form of standardized tests. In fact, for teachers, low-stakes or even ungraded assessments while students are in the process of learning can be more powerful. Many Catholic schools have moved to a formative/summative assessment model. With this strategy, students only receive two types of grades—a formative or a summative assessment. The only things that are graded in the classroom are assessments chosen by the teacher to help guide instruction (formative) or to evaluate mastery of a topic or standard (summative). This grading method eliminates the idea that students can ace classes simply by doing all their work and instead focuses on whether students have truly mastered concepts or skills.

All academic behaviors, such as turning in homework or class participation, can be assessed separately using an “Approaches to Learning” grade. In contrast, many Christian schools are still grading students using a formula of weighting that includes homework, classwork, quizzes, tests, and 36

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participation. The points given for these various categories are often random or chosen by the teacher. This form of grading can heavily favor students who are organized and hard-working rather than give an accurate picture of whether students have mastered standards.

Many Protestant schools assess their students using a standardized test and send the student results home to parents. Often, however, little is said or discussed at the school or classroom level about how those results should drive instructional decisions. Administrators can utilize these results to find trends or problem areas for the school and make decisions based on that information. Administrators can identify weaknesses in instruction and offer more effective professional development when making data-driven decisions. Christian educators can also use data to improve curriculum choices just as our Catholic school colleagues do.

5: Integrating Technology Effectively If schools desire to prepare their students with twenty-first-century skills, effective technology integration in the classroom is critical. While there are undoubtedly outstanding examples of Protestant schools integrating technology and preparing students for tomorrow’s jobs, many still adamantly refuse to incorporate technology. It may be that some Christian educators believe technology is only a distraction or that it can lead to unwanted behaviors. However, our job as educators is not to shelter our students from the world—it is to prepare them for it. Isn’t it better for our students to learn disciplined behaviors using technology in the safe environment of our schools rather than in a world where they have no limits? Catholic schools use technology to help students explore the world and to build good digital citizens who can harness the power of technology to serve God and others.

Ensuring student safety while online is a priority in Catholic schools as well.

Many outstanding device management systems allow teachers and administrators to monitor student online activity in real-time and place limits to protect students.

Limiting technology in the classroom also puts teachers at a disadvantage. There are so many innovative tools for teachers that make formerly time-consuming tasks more streamlined. Teachers with access to tablets, smartboards, or other digital devices can also be more creative with project-based learning, research assignments, and digital tools for assessment.

A technology-integrated classroom also allows for increased communication with families. Tools such as ClassDojo or Google Classroom enable teachers to communicate effectively with families and give parents a better understanding of what is happening in their child’s education.

6: Building Better Budgets One of the biggest lessons I learned from my time in a Catholic school is the importance of the school budget for the health and longevity of the school.

Administrators must prioritize faculty and staff salaries to attract and retain talented and qualified teachers. Also, keeping critical resources such as curricula and technology up to date must be planned for and budgeted.

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Isn’t it better for our students to learn disciplined behaviors using technology in the safe environment of our schools rather than in a world where they have no limits?

Schools should ensure budgets are carefully developed to align with the school’s mission and vision. Although many Protestant schools rely on volunteers for office staff, hiring a qualified bookkeeper with a financial background can help schools avoid financial missteps. A professional bookkeeper can also help schools take advantage of the many grants and government funds available for private schools.

7: Empowering Teachers

Protestant schools must regularly examine whether they are really empowering their teachers to take risks and be innovative in their teaching strategies.

Private school teachers have long decried the limitations put on public school teachers, and we often tout our freedom as an advantage and reason for families to entrust their children to our care in Christian schools. However, Protestant schools must regularly examine whether they are really empowering their teachers to take risks and be innovative in their teaching strategies. If limitations such as restrictions on technology and curricula are causing teachers to avoid taking risks, we are not upholding the freedoms we claim to embrace.

Catholic schools view the classroom teacher as the professional who can best make decisions for their students’ needs and empower them to meet those needs creatively. Teachers are encouraged to bring their students to mastery of standards using the resources provided (i.e., the curriculum). However, they are free to use supplemental resources as needed.

When teachers are supported with relevant professional development and coaching, the textbook is no longer the teacher—the professional in the classroom is.

8: Pushing for Excellence and Academic Rigor

Each school in the diocese completes its own data analysis and constructs a plan for improvement, including what professional development its faculty will need to implement change.

The only way to truly know if a school is reaching high standards is to have explicit standards in place and authentically assess whether students have mastered those standards. Using a packaged curriculum does not allow for differentiation for students who could move faster or reach higher. Nor does it allow for scaffolding for lower achieving students. While this point is closely aligned with the previous, empowering teachers to make decisions in the classroom also encourages a push for excellence and academic rigor.

One way that many Catholic schools build a culture of academic excellence is through planned, high-quality professional development based on school and diocesan needs. Those needs are determined through data analysis and a survey of teachers and administrators. Each school in the diocese completes its own data analysis and constructs a plan for improvement, including what professional development its faculty will need to implement change. Over the past few years, more and more Catholic schools are pairing professional development with coaching and developing leadership capacity in their faculty by training up instructional coaches within their faculty.

Studies have shown that professional development alone is not nearly as effective for change as it is when paired with coaching over time (Blazer, Kraft and Hogan).

Another innovation that has begun to take root in Catholic schools, which Protestant schools can benefit from, is the implementation of 38

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professional learning communities. Allowing teachers time and space to meet and co-plan, analyze classroom data, and share best practices for teaching strategies is a clear win for teachers and students (Jones, Gardner and Robertson).

9: Building a Growth Mindset While the concept of growth mindset has been popular in education for many years, numerous practices that detract from this scientific-based way of teaching and learning persist in Protestant schools. One of the biggest negators of a growth mindset is focusing on the grade. Public schools moved away from letter grades in early childhood grade bands years ago, and Catholic schools have done the same for the most part. Research clearly shows that attitudes toward learning change negatively when students focus on grades rather than on learning. Mistakes become something to be avoided rather than learned from, and students begin to believe learning ends when they get a grade back.

Another way Catholic schools encourage a growth mindset in students is by emphasizing cooperative and project-based learning. Students need to understand that they learn from mistakes and therefore that mistakes are valuable. Mistakes are an opportunity rather than something to be avoided.

Both cooperative and project-based learning highlight this growth-throughtrial-and-error process in ways traditional book learning cannot.

10: Widening School Communities One of the most significant ways my time in Catholic school changed my views on education was the emphasis on learning as part of a larger community. Catholic schools place a heavy significance on service projects for all students from preschool through high school. As a result, students learned more in one afternoon serving others in our community than they could in months of book learning. Through service, Catholic schools form partnerships with other businesses and organizations in the community, and those organizations are more likely to support the school in turn.

One example of a service project the middle school students at my former school took part in was at My Warrior’s Place in Ruskin, Florida, a retreat for current and retired armed service men and women and their families. While students helped with landscaping and cleaning the cabins, they saw the invaluable importance of giving back to our country and community.

In contrast to what I experienced in Catholic schools, many Protestant schools have slowly retreated into an “us versus them” mindset. While Christ indeed calls us to live differently than non-Christians, nonetheless, he commanded us to go out among them and show love to our neighbors.

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One of the most significant ways my time in Catholic school changed my views on education was the emphasis on learning as part of a larger community.

Conclusion Christian schools are critical in raising and educating the next generation of Christians in our country. We want these future leaders to be ready and prepared for their roles. Yet, when our Protestant schools don’t keep up with research-based educational changes, we are not doing our job or our duty.

However, there is much we can learn from our Catholic school neighbors on how to maintain our commitment to our faith without limiting the educational opportunities for our students.

Gina Robles, MEd, is an educational leader with over twenty years of experience teaching students from preschool through college. Gina is passionate about improving educational equity for students through better professional development for teachers and making high-quality educational materials the norm for all schools. Gina currently works with Catapult Learning offering teacher and leadership coaching and professional development for schools on a variety of topics.

Get in touch at gina.robles.edu@gmail.com.

Works Cited Blazer, D., M. A. Kraft and D. Hogan. “The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Casual Evidence.”

Review of Educational Research, 2018, pp. 88–91.

Boser, U., M. Chingos and C. Straus. The Hidden Value of Curriculum Reform: Do States and Districts Receive the Most Bang for Their Curriculum Buck?

Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2015.

Jones, Gail, et al. “Science Professional Learning Communities: Beyond a Singular View of Teacher Professional Development.” International Journal of Science Education, vol. 35, no. 10, 2013, pp. 1756–74.

Waddell, Gordy B. “Measuring Christian Education against National and State Standards: A Review of the Literature.” Perspectives in Learning, vol. 6, no. 1, 2005, pp. 20–22.

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