Christian Educators Journal December 2023 Vol. 63 No. 2
Parent Partnerships A Christian Community of Learners or a Christian Learning Community? When Parents and Schools Disagree Twenty-First Century Strategies for Effective Parent Communications Parents as Co-Teachers Out of the Helicopter, onto Common Ground Healthy and Honest Opportunities to Connect and Communicate Are Teachers Parents or Pedagogues?
Future Issues February 2024—Inclusive Education Christian schools have long been known as welcoming and supportive communities for students with a variety of learning needs. It has been more than a decade since CEJ has focused on inclusive education, and we are eager to hear how schools have found creative ways to include and support students with disabilities in the body of Christ. Ideally, this issue will include students with physical disabilities (e.g., Spina bifida, limited mobility, or visual impairments), cognitive impairments or emotional disabilities (e.g., Down syndrome, emotional impairment), or neurodivergences (e.g., autism, ADHD). What are the best practices for serving these students in the general education classroom? What unique programs does your school offer to enrich these students and those around them (sports, clubs, tutoring partnerships)? How do you train aides, parapros, and faculty alike? What physical spaces and adaptations do you offer? We’re hoping to hear from classroom teachers, support staff, inclusion coordinators, parents, and even students themselves. April 2024—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 material (like which books to stock in your classroom library) as well as materials relevant to school staff (like curricula or books about teaching). Articles may focus on one text or may be written in a list style featuring multiple texts around a particular theme. Proposals (informal—just email us your idea!) are due December 29. Articles are due January 29
Contents
3 Editorial 4 A Christian Community of Learners
or a Christian Learning Community? How a Podcast Brought Us Together KEVIN MIRCHANDANI
9 The Great Debate: When Parents and Schools Disagree about Curricular Choices
LESLEY DORHOUT, LAURA MAXEY, AND ERIN CONN
14 Twenty-First Century Strategies for Effective Parent Communications DANIEL MATHEW
20 Parents as Co-Teachers KELLY CAGLE
25 Out of the Helicopter, onto Common Ground YVONNE HARVEY
31 Healthy and Honest Opportunities to
Connect and Communicate with Parents TAMMY MAY
34 Are Teachers Parents or Pedagogues? ADAM LANCASTER
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Christian Educators Journal Vol. 63 No. 2, December 2023 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. Subscriptions Klaas Wolterstorff 2474 Westboro Dr NE Grand Rapids, MI 49506 business@cejonline.com Subscription Price (US dollars) US: $25.00 (one year, print) Canada: $30.00 (one year, print) Digital: $25.00 (one year) Beginning September 2021, all subscriptions outside the US and Canada are digital only. Please visit www.cejonline for subscription information. US Postal Information Nonprofit Organization Postage paid in Grand Rapids, MI Permit No. 657 Return postage guaranteed to: Christian Educators Journal 2474 Westboro Dr NE Grand Rapids, MI 49506 Address Correction Requested Canadian Postal Information Registered under Publications Mail Agreement: No. 40022165 at Norwich, ON Return postage guaranteed to: Christian Educators Journal PO Box 39 Norwich, ON N0J 1P0 Indexed in Christian Periodicals Index Copyrighted 2000 CEJ. All rights reserved. Christian Educators Journal (130630) is published quarterly by Christian Educators Journal Association. Scripture All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Statement of Purpose The Christian Educators Journal Association publishes the Journal as a channel of communication for all educators committed to the idea of Christian day school at the elementary, secondary, and college levels. The views expressed are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the association. Reprint Policy We allow free reprinting or photocopying of individual articles that have appeared in our journal, as long as the copied articles are used within the context of schooling and the source is acknowledged. 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 (Secretary) Tricia Stobbe Edith van der Boom Heather VanDyke Christine Webb Supporting Institutions Calvin University Edvance Christian Schools Association 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.
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Editorial
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s an English teacher, one of my main goals is to form students into effective and empathetic communicators. I teach them how to write clear arguments, how to organize their ideas, how to select the best tone for an email, and how to confidently present in front of an audience. I love teaching these skills because while I’m not always convinced my students need to know the plot of The Great Gatsby or how to write a sonnet, I know they need to be great communicators, especially in this era of so much technological communication. I’m so sure they need these skills because as an adult, I use this stuff every day. I send out agendas for department meetings. I let guidance counselors know that I have a student who is struggling. I present on the pros and cons of AI use to a group of colleagues. And, of course, I email parents. Many of you certainly have great lines of communication open with the parents of your students. You love sending home newsletters, you drop emails when a student has a great day, and you welcome parents into your classroom for parent-teacher conferences. But it’s likely that many of you find parent communication to be fraught with discomfort—you worry about being overly negative or critical, you fear your words will be misconstrued, or perhaps you feel that parent emails are pointless because they never get read. In this issue, we hope you will find some tips and solutions for communicating effectively and building partnerships with parents. Kevin Mirchandani and Lesley Dorhout explain two specific situations that have required parent communication, and then our next four writers give overviews of many methods their schools use to partner with parents. Adam Lancaster rounds out the issue with a more theoretical piece investigating the ideal relationship between parents and teachers. Good educators know that learning happens as often at home as it does at school, so effective parent-teacher partnership is vital to the academic and spiritual growth of all students. — Abby Zwart
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A Christian Community of Learners or a Christian Learning Community? How a Podcast Brought Us Together KEVIN MIRCHANDANI
I I had very little interest in engaging publicly in any discussion around controversial issues because they have often been the gravesites of Christian communities, due to our inability to navigate the dynamics of power, conflict, and change.
It was important to us that we support our teachers in conversations around biblical perspectives of gender and sexuality in a way that reflected an educational approach and a high level of care for all learners.
t was a Tuesday afternoon in early September of 2021. I had only recently started working at Langley Christian School (LCS) when I was passing by middle school principal Berkley Glazer’s office. Berkley and school counselor Dave McVety were having a lively discussion about something important that just needed to be done. They invited me in, and it was immediately apparent that I found myself in one of those uncomfortable but important conversations where I was faced with a decision: Are you in, or are you in? In a previous educational leadership role, I had helped design a curricular progression that ensured we were sufficiently covering topics around Christian identity, gender, sexuality, and healthy relationships as per our requirements with the Canadian Ministry of Education. In my new role, I had been following the narratives of other Christian school communities across North America that were struggling with such conversations. I had very little interest in engaging publicly in any discussion around controversial issues because they have often been the gravesites of Christian communities, due to our inability to navigate the dynamics of power, conflict, and change (see Langberg 7). In the conversation with Berkley and Dave, we talked about the need to train teachers for curricular conversations about sexuality and gender, so that they could facilitate learning among students that reflected Jesus’s compassion. I explained that in most cases, policy and curriculum development are put together before practice, and I cautioned them against this, as I did not want to get knee deep into an area that has been divisive in Christian educational spaces. However, Dave brought his years of practice as a school counselor, and Berkley brought his enthusiasm as an educational leader committed to care for all learners. Though my initial instinct had been to avoid taking a leadership role in the conversation, I paused to reconsider because I was starting my doctoral studies, and my desire to help Christian learning communities was an integral aspect of my learning. What was clear in that conversation was that it was important to us that we support our teachers in conversations around biblical perspectives of gender and sexuality in a way that reflected an educational approach and a high level of care for all learners. Berkley, Dave, and I were having a great conversation, so I pulled out my phone and started recording our conversation. Later, we decided to share our thoughts with the staff—to be awkward, to fumble our way through our thinking, to model that this is a difficult conversation requiring reflection, and also to show how much we care about being a community of faith, teaching, and learning. Berkley said that our larger community needed to hear this message, so 4
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we shared our first talk with the school community. We had no idea that what we were recording that day would be the first podcast episode of LCS Talks. We brought our short phone recording to our Media and Communications Manager at LCS, Dilan Bandara. Dilan found the content really compelling but was quite distraught at the distracting cacophony of school noises that impacted the audio experience. Even with his best efforts to fix the audio, our first episode reflected an unpolished but heartfelt desire to move from being a community of learners to a Christian learning community and invite our families into our learning journey. The next Tuesday, Dilan, who was now our producer, set up his own podcast mics to record us as we reflected on our Friday professional learning time. Since then, he has continued to refine our sound quality for a better audio experience. Berkley and I would meet each Tuesday following our Friday professional learning sessions, recording episodes with our staff in order to share them with our families. We recognized that we needed to communicate our distinct approach to our partnering families who are seeking to grow in their relationship with Jesus. We believed our community effort required transparency, sharing our professional learning and practices and cultivating stories of impact that enrich the learning experience. Recognizing the need to think about questions related to faith, identity, gender, sexuality, and education, this journey was not one of scripted perfection, but rather a willingness to be a compassionate and learning-focused community. This task shaped how we think about our families as members of our Christian learning community. Our efforts were catalyzed by learning for our community, but also with our community.
what we were recording that day would be the first podcast episode of LCS Talks.
This journey was not one of scripted perfection, but rather a willingness to be a compassionate and learning-focused community.
Toward a Christian Learning Community In Lynn Swaner and Andy Wolfe’s 2021 book, Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools, the authors propose that the three- legged stool model—a partnership of school, church, and home—perhaps no longer reflects the current reality of the mission of Christian schools. Instead, they argue, we need a table where the community can be invited into relationship, learning, and formation together (107). The main obstacles to this new model are the fear of sharing learning, and the uncomfortable nature of speaking publicly on divisive topics around faith, identity, gender, sexuality, technology, intercultural understanding, racism and diversity, and social-emotional development in a community of diverse perspectives. At a time when Christian schools are asking how we do this in a way that does not compromise beliefs and values, LCS has found hope in vulnerability, sharing, and inviting our community to learn. The mission of Christian schools needs to reflect what it means to be and become a learning community that is transparent, courageous, continuously asking new questions, caring for students in their relationship with Jesus and others, and practicing faith together. To accomplish this, school leaders need a vision of Jesus as a learning teacher and also a learning leader. When we read passages such as Romans 12:5, we need to recognize that we first belong together in Christ. Our belongingness is the reason why many members of different backgrounds can compose a community. When we have many members working together in distinctness, we can be united as one body. Christian Educators Journal
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School leaders need a vision of Jesus as a learning teacher and also a learning leader.
Works Cited Imes, Carmen J. Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters. IVP Academic, 2023. Langberg, D. Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church. Brazos, 2020. Lawson, Kevin E. “Proposal for ‘Right-Handed’ Christian Education.” Journal of Christian Education & Information Technology, 2006, pp. 81–110. Lingenfelter, Judith E., and Sherwood G. Lingenfelter. Teaching Cross- Culturally: An Incarnational Model for Learning and Teaching. Baker Academic, 2003. Swaner, Lynn E., and Andy Wolfe. Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools. Eerdmans, 2021. Kevin A. Mirchandani is the K–12 Director of Instruction at Langley Christian School and Adjunct Professor of Education and Leadership at Trinity Western University, British Columbia. He is also a third-year PhD student in Educational Studies at Biola University.
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The Great Debate: When Parents and Schools Disagree about Curricular Choices LESLEY DORHOUT, LAURA MAXEY, AND ERIN CONN
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isagreement and misunderstanding over curricular choices present perhaps one of the greatest threats to the parent-school partnership. Teachers and administrators engage in serious and often difficult conversations when parents question literature their students read and discuss in class. Through reflection and effort to promote best practice, schools can mitigate controversy surrounding course material and preserve the parent- school relationship. To reduce contention and build relationships, we suggest implementing a systematic process, while also planning for extensive, intentional communication coupled with abundant, God-empowered grace and empathy.
Through reflection and effort to promote best practice, schools can mitigate controversy surrounding course material and preserve the parent-school relationship.
School Dynamics The presence of sin is not exempt from Christian communities. Even covenant-model schools—Christian schools for Christian families—can experience difficulty in curricular implementation. Jesus binds, but doctrine and opinion can still divide. As a result, the parent and faculty partnership can become strained and even fractured. While questioning the curriculum, parents may voice distrust of teachers; teachers may feel their professionalism discredited; and administrators may grow bewildered as they strive to support teachers while also understanding curricular questions and parental concerns. This contingency for controversy applies to nearly all subject matters (e.g., science and evolution, history and bias, literature and censorship), and still teachers must strive to thoroughly equip students with what Gloria Ladson-Billings describes as culturally relevant curriculum (159). Teaching culturally relevant material, while simultaneously aligning with various walks of faith and opinions, necessitates a thorough curricular examination through the lens of multiple stakeholders, such as students, parents, school personnel, churches, and communities (159). Based on our combined and varied experiences as principal, professor, program director, department chair, classroom teacher, and parent, we recommend developing a process for adopting or refining a curricular canon, much like the one below.
Process for Curricular Implementation Because stakes are high and the mission to educate the next generation is critical, selecting texts and materials to train students with excellence and Christian Educators Journal
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We recommend developing a process for adopting or refining a curricular canon.
Twenty-First Century Strategies for Effective Parent Communications DANIEL MATHEW
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Even with the multiple tools and methods of communications available to schools and teachers, effective communications can still be challenging, due to language and cultural barriers, technological savvy or lack thereof, and information overload.
eport cards, interims, and parent-teacher conferences were once the mainstays of teacher to parent communications. An occasional newsletter or notice home or phone call was used to highlight or bring attention to something special. Schools have moved away from paper and use a variety of online methods to replace notices and newsletters. Yet, fundraisers and some formal documents can still require paper. Emails, texts, school-based apps, parent portals, and learning management systems (e.g., Google Classroom, Moodle, and Seesaw) now play a significant role in our professional responsibility to “communicate effectively and in a timely manner with parents/guardians” (British Columbia Teachers’ Council 4). Even with the multiple tools and methods of communications available to schools and teachers, effective communications can still be challenging, due to language and cultural barriers, technological savvy or lack thereof, and information overload. When we reflect on how Jesus communicated, we see that context and relationships played an important role. Jesus’s communication was rooted in the oral traditions of the day. And Jesus’s communication was always effective and timely. For example, the rich young man who wanted to earn his salvation was sent away sad because Jesus knew the precise words that would challenge his heart, and in speaking those words, he also challenged his own disciples. As teachers today with so many methods of communication available to us, we must remember to consider the relationships that we need to foster with parents and the context of what is being communicated. These principles should be applied to the three broad categories of school communications: those with the whole school community, the classroom community, and the individual families.
Whole School Community Technology has greatly improved whole school communications. There are many efficient and effective ways to communicate with your entire school community. Shared calendars, weekly summaries or posts, school-based apps, and social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter) or Facebook all help to disseminate information to your entire school community. With the plethora of options available for mass communications, it is important that schools use some strategic planning when communicating to the whole school. Parents are bombarded with electronic communications. Effective whole school communication practices need to keep in mind that parents should not be overwhelmed with multiple emails or notifications during a 14
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week. Having a web-based calendar of events is effective because the calendar link does not change, and it can be updated and maintained easily. Larger schools may need to consider different calendars for lower versus higher grades so that the calendar does not appear crowded and become difficult to read on a screen. From a web-based calendar it is easy to create a short weekly summary that is usually sent on either a Friday or Monday to give parents a snapshot of the week ahead. Use of social media platforms for whole school communications is beneficial if much of the community is engaging with the school’s chosen platform. However, parents can easily choose not to be part of a school’s social media. As a result, schools must consider the parent engagement level of social media tools and evaluate if communication goals are being met. Social media platforms are frequently used to communicate emergency situations like lockdowns. Given the fear and anxiety that real lockdown situations create, emergency social media messaging can have both positive and negative effects on your school’s community (for one example, see Claxton). Parent portals and school-based apps have some advantages compared to using social media sites for emergency situations. Since both portals and apps rely on messages being sent directly to a parent’s phone—rather than being widely broadcast on social media—schools have better control over the messaging. Direct text messaging platforms are another option and are becoming the standard messaging protocol for many schools. Checking our phones is habitual. In 2014, it was reported that “the average Canadian smartphone owner admits to checking their device six times per hour” (Bogart). High schools have found texting to be effective for reporting truancy. Some school-based apps and text messaging platforms also allow for tracking metrics to gauge the message penetration and response rates. Direct-to- smartphone apps, portals, and texts are likely to become more popular as the next generation of parents’ smartphone usage becomes more entrenched.
Effective whole school communication practices need to keep in mind that parents should not be overwhelmed with multiple emails or notifications during a week.
Direct-to-smartphone apps, portals, and texts are likely to become more popular as the next
Classroom Community
generation of parents’
How classroom communications are carried out rests primarily with the classroom teacher. Schools may designate which learning management system (LMS) is adopted, but ultimately, teachers will determine the extent to which the LMS communication tools are used to foster good relationships and communications within the classroom community. Most systems do require parent participation via email or a specific app. As a result, just like social media platforms, not all parents may choose to be part of a classroom community managed by the teacher. Despite this, teachers’ use of the LMS to keep parents informed about field trips, homework, deadlines, hot lunch reminders, learning samples, and—most importantly—celebrating success helps to foster greater communication between the school, parent, and child. An LMS allows the teacher to make short and effective daily communications to parents. For the primary grades, simple posts like, “Talk to your child about our walk today” help to create meaningful conversations at home. Homework expectations and reminders for intermediate grades help to foster accountability and responsibility for students. At the high school level, most LMS tools allow parents to keep track of assignments and tests online. (It is important, however, to consider how many siblings a student has so that
comes more entrenched.
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smartphone usage be-