CTJ 27.2 May 2019

The Christian Teachers Journal MAY 2019 VOL 27.2

Beyond Numbers Time and the Teacher Difference and Differentiation Design Thinking in the Christian School

ISSN 2652-0834

Re-imagining Practice in a Secular Setting

The Christian Teachers Journal May 2019

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EDITOR: Chris Parker EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: Dr Jill Ireland Judy Linossier Dee Little Dr Fiona Partridge Tim White EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE: Chris Parker +61 2 4773 5800 ctj@cen.edu.au

editorial

Christian schools will always feel a pull towards the cultural centre. A subtle tug that tends to draw away from vision and mission. Like a series of rubber bands constantly pulling to the lowest common (cultural) denominator. Executive teams experience this (whether they realise or not); boards and associations experience this (often without it being acknowledged by the community); teachers experience this every day in classrooms, all while these stakeholders seek to unfold distinctive, counter-cultural education that sees purpose, success, meaning, and truth flowing from the biblical story. Vigilant re-visioning, and re-imagining must be part of our daily focus.

The article by Steve McAlpine highlights some of the cultural forces that are pulling on us (and our students). He has us re-imagining a world (and an education) where God’s magnificence, and the Lordship of Jesus, have “swamped” all that we think and do. David Smith, in his article, has us re-imagining time in the life of a teacher from a biblically faithful framework.

A cultural voice can often be heard that much of what happens in schools (even a Christian school) is neutral. This can be one of the rubber bands that tugs on maths teachers. Peter Muddle’s book review and Ruth Watson’s article provide a clear revisioning and re-imaging for all primary teachers and maths teachers. Phil Cooney’s article provides a biblical framework for differentiation in the Christian school.

I commit this edition to you. I trust that the regular My Top Shelf feature from a Christian educator (Karen Hooper this quarter) as well as the second instalment of interviews with previous principals of the National Institute for Christian Education will be of interest and encouragement in your beautiful task as a Christian teacher.

Chris Parker, Editor

PUBLISHER: Published by Christian Education National COVER: Photo by Laura Pratt on Unsplash DESIGN: Taninka Visuals tanya@taninka.com.au PRINTER: Signs Publishing Victoria

contents

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Re-imagine There’s a Heaven, It’s Difficult but Try Steve McAlpine

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Design Thinking in a Christian School: A Case Study Christine Crump

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COPYRIGHT: All material appearing in the Christian Teachers Journal is copyright.

It may be reproduced in part for study or training purposes subject to an inclusion of an acknowledgement of the source and with permission of the publisher.

Philip Cooney

A JOURNAL FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATORS

An Authentic Life of Faith in the Maths Classroom Ruth Watson

The vision of the journal is to affirm the lordship of Christ in education. It aims to serve Christian educators, challenging them to a fuller understanding of their task and responsibilities; raising issues critical to the development of teaching and learning in a distinctively Christian way.

The Christian Teachers Journal is published by teachers as a forum for the exchange of ideas and practices for teachers to advance the cause of Christ in education.

Views and opinions of writers and advertisers do not necessarily represent the position of this journal nor of the publisher.

Dealing With Difference: Differentiation in the Christian School

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My Top Shelf Karen Hooper

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Teaching in Time Dr David I. Smith

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BOOK REVIEW Beyond Numbers: A Practical Guide to Teaching Math Biblically Peter Muddle

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Celebrating 40 Years: The National Institute for Christian Education Part 2 Dr Richard Edlin

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Re-imagine There’s a Heaven, It’s Difficult but Try

By Steve McAlpine

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The Christian Teachers Journal May 2019

I’m really looking forward to the release of the movie, Yesterday, a story about a struggling musician, Jack Malik in the UK who, after a bicycle accident following a planetary wide electricity blackout in which all the world’s lights go out, wakes up to discover that no one has heard of The Beatles.

Never heard of “Yesterday”. Couldn’t sing and sway with a “nah, nah, nah” of “Hey Jude”. Wouldn’t even conceive of an octopus living in a garden by the sea, never mind that particular mollusc owning the aforementioned plot of greenery. And as for yellow submarines? They’re all steely black or grey in this world.

The names John, Paul, George, and Ringo roll off nobodies’ tongues. Except his. Except this struggling musician who was about to give it all away because, although he’s good, no one’s backing him.

His last gig is a no-show—from the audience.

“If it hasn’t happened by now, it’ll take a miracle,” Jack laments to his schoolteacher friend, who, unbeknownst to him, is in love with him.

“Miracles happen,” she insists, ever the true believer. And with that, we are set on the path of a classic magical mystery tour of a movie.

The very next day, the miracle starts after the disaster of the night before. A real resurrection moment indeed. Jack wakes up in hospital after his accident in the same world, but with one important difference. No Beatles.

It’s a slow burn discovery. He strums and sings the song of the movie title to some friends, a lament to his now dead dreams of being a musician himself, and they are astonished.

Shook, even! This girl who loves him, but whom he merely considers a friend and whose hand he would probably never hold, is breathless upon his performance.

Which is nothing compared to Jack’s astonishment as his friends insist they have never heard of The Beatles, never mind the song. A frantic Google search at home, during an appropriately timed thunderstorm confirms it all. In the world he has woken up in, the Fab Four don’t exist. It’s all Coldplay’s “Fix You”—a spine-shuddering thought indeed.

All that exists is Jack’s knowledge of The Beatles. His and his alone.

And it sets him on the way to be a global superstar. Just think! A classic song-book of three hundred absolute bangers (well most of them anyway ), and you, and you alone in the world, know the tunes, the lyrics, the way to play them.

The results are instant. And huge. Jack blows up. He sets to ‘writing’ these classics and then delivering them in record time, with record results. Fame rushes at him.

It’s Beatlemania all over again, except for the fact that for everyone else on the planet it’s for the first time.

Jack gets signed up by a global recording company, feted around the world, scribbles down and performs my all-time favourite Beatles song, “Something”, on the set of a show that looks exactly like the kind of show James Corden would host, with James Corden hosting it, and history is (re)made.

Now I’ve got to say that I am super excited about seeing this movie. It’s a brilliant concept and I love The Beatles, always have. And my daughter, at 18, listens to The Beatles and George Harrison’s later music, on high rotation on vinyl on a retro record player.

It’s as if we’re trying to tap into something that we know about but have never experienced ourselves. A memory of a reality lived through stories we’ve heard. My mum is the Boomer generation who loved The Beatles (her maiden name was McCartney after all!), while I am an X-Gen brought up on The Cure and Nirvana.

But for me there’s something magical about The Beatles that has stuck in our collective subconscious. And every time my daughter takes out The White Album (okay, okay I know it’s actually just called The Beatles), and places down that needle, it takes her somewhere she loves but hasn’t experienced.

Which has set me to thinking. I wrote a piece earlier on my blog about how the world would be if one day we woke up and only we had heard of Jesus. No one else. Just me. Or just you. Apart from the world being dark, cruel, and cold, what would it be like?

How would we go about spreading the good news of our Saviour? What stories would we tell? What parts of church history would we leave out? Where would we start? Would it spread like wildfire like it did the first time? Would we make the same mistakes through history, like we did the first time?

I enjoyed that delicious and crazy idea for a while. But it was reading the myriad responses to the movie’s sneakpeak trailer from music magazines and websites that got me thinking deeper about it.

Many of the music journalists were discussing the likelihood or otherwise of The Beatles songs having the same response today if they were first written and performed by someone else. Would they stand the test of time?

On the whole, many of the songs were still considered classics, but the world is very different to what it was in the 1960s, the music world even more so. The consensus was that, while the movie is a great idea, imagining our current world as a world in which The Beatles music dominated the charts the way they did back then is a bridge too far. Too much has changed! Culturally, socially, and artistically for it to happen like it did the first time around is impossible.

But here’s the question. What if it wasn’t happening the first time around? What if it was the second time around? What if the world had not heard of The Beatles, but had merely forgotten them? What if it wasn’t a case of imagining The Beatles and their brilliance, but of re-imagining them?

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Our world still longs for transcendence; still aches for it in a sehnsucht way. Why? Because we were built for transcendence and our hearts are restless until they find their transcendence in Thee.

What if the collective consciousness was still there, but was suppressed and pushed down by the ensuing years; by the cynicism of the 1970s; by the epidemics (and discos) of the 1980s; by the nihilism of the 1990s; by the irony of the 2000s; by the despair of the 2010s?

In the same vein, what if Jack’s role in Yesterday is not to make a name for himself, but to remake a name for a brilliant group of musicians who people have had an inconsolable longing for again, but, until Jack’s appearance, have been unable to articulate it?

I think the better movie—and who am I to say that to legendaries such as director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Richard Curtis—would be about a world that has forgotten the romantic beauty and wild excitement of Beatlemania; a world that has the longing for a past, but has allowed it to slip its mind. A world in which Jack does not so much invent The Beatles, as invite people to rediscover them, and in the process rediscover that joy and purpose and excitement that made it so special in the first place.

What if Jack’s role is to help them re-imagine and rediscover?

What if his quest starts with him imagining himself being famous, before switching to him helping people to reimagine The Beatles being famous, and thereby discovering a longing that was always there, both for himself and others?

All the grunt work has been done by The Beatles, Jack’s noble task is merely to reignite the now smouldering fuel. I think it’s beyond the scope of the movie, but it’s a tasty thought.

(Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis, if you’re reading this, speak to my agent.)

Let’s move it from pop culture to something higher up the cultural totem. CS Lewis, the great Christian apologist whose works seem more prescient than ever, was fascinated by the idea of longing for something that we have not experienced, yet feel we should have. He utilised the German word ‘sehnsucht’ to describe it. Not a pretty word, but a wonderful concept: the intense, bittersweet longing for what always seems to be out of our grasp.

In his huge tome, A Secular Age, Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor, describes what he calls “the social imaginary”; those ideas and concepts that are deemed plausible in the public square, and that shape us at deep subconscious levels in matters of practice and value.

Needless to say the Christian framework in the West is no longer the primary social imaginary. Transcendence—the old view of it at least in which a world of gods and spirits animated our world—is no longer a public fact, but relegated to a private opinion.

Lewis called it “the inconsolable longing in the heart for we know not what”. And even if you don’t understand German, you’ll certainly get what Lewis is talking about. In fact it’s that very longing for something that drove Lewis himself to a theistic view of the world and then, ultimately, to bowing his knee to Christ.

Yet here’s the rub. Our world still longs for transcendence; still aches for it in a sehnsucht way. Why? Because we were built for transcendence and our hearts are restless until they find their transcendence in Thee. But failing Thee, most people will settle for all sorts of projects to do the transcendence thing for them.

For Lewis, much of his later writing was driven by trying to get himself—and his audience—closer and closer to that longing, and he was convinced that it was placed there by God in order to drive us beyond our mere mortal imaginings, towards re-imagining that crucial thing we had lost in our fallen state.

And the most transcendent project of all? The Me Project.

Whether it’s career, sexual identity, transitioning in gender, character, or relationship status, the Me Project is our new way of grasping at the transcendence we gave away when we stopped imagining God and started imagining ourselves alone in this universe.

Lewis experienced sehnsucht upon finding a copy of George McDonald’s book Phantastes on a railway station bookstall, and he claims, “What it actually did to me was to convert, even to baptize . . . my imagination.”

The results are pretty grim. Sure they look sparkly on the outside, but the cracks are starting to appear in our pressured culture; a culture in which the old religious language of saints and sinners, is transferred onto people and groups.

Our people, our groups, are the saints, other people, other groups, are the sinners.

Convert. Baptise. Big words. Big ideas. And where does he locate this? In his imagination. This stoic atheist academic was not re-intellectualised into the Kingdom of God, but reimagined into it.

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ITEC 2019 is entitled Re-imagining Practice. I will be calling my keynote address Practice Re-imagining. Why? Because as the people of God, as Christian educators living in a secular frame that is slowly, but surely covering over the Fab Three (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), our task is to help students reimagine a world where such ideas are possible. Where such ideas shape all that we are and all that we do.

The Christian Teachers Journal May 2019

It’s not so much a loss of transcendence in the social imaginary, but a replacement of one transcendence for

Put aside your own earthbound Me Project and its pretence at transcendence, and allow yourself, like CS Lewis, to have your imagination reconverted and re-baptised into the gospel story.

another. Meanwhile utopian ideals abound in a world in which we are purged of the ‘other’; of the Left or the Right; of the Progressive or the Conservative; of the West or the Rest. And that purging took terrible toll in Christchurch just recently.

But imagine. In fact, re-imagine, a world where God’s magnificence swamped us again. Where someone somewhere sang a song about yesterday and it caught a spark. And imagine if after that spark caught, we raced home and figured out ways to build upon it, to add fuel to this wonderful warming fire that excited people and stirred their re-imaginations for the songs that we were created to sing, but which have been swamped by so many lesser tunes? Not for our glory, but for God’s.

Imagine a world like that Imagine a world like that We go like up ‘til I’m ‘sleep on your chest Love how my face fits so good in your neck Why can’t you imagine a world like that?

Imagine a world Knew you were perfect after the first kiss Took a deep breath like, “Ooh” Feels like forever, baby, I never Thought that it would be you Tell me your secrets, all of the creepy shit That’s how . . .

It’s deeply ironic that John Lennon wrote and performed a song called “Imagine”, which calls us to imagine something that actually does not, cannot, and will not, exist in God’s economy. His desires are not misplaced; he wants peace and love and an end of killing. He’s singing a song for sure, but it’s lesser in so many ways.

If that’s all we’ve got to imagine, if that’s all that it takes, then perhaps it’s time to practice re-imagining before it’s too late.

Time to work as educators building that into our own lives first, then the lives of our students after that. Time to work on helping them rediscover the longing that the West has, but can no longer articulate.

Lennon longs for something better for the world; it’s a sehnsucht moment. But for the man who observed that The Beatles were more famous among young people than Jesus Christ, he must have known that something bigger than even themselves had to fill the hole left in the culture once they’d left the scene.

Re-imagine there’s a Heaven, it’s difficult but try. But the more you do re-imagine it, the less difficult it will be, and the more easily you will shape your life around what cannot be seen, rather than what merely can be.

It’s instructive that when I googled “Imagine” to get the lyrics, it was an Ariana Grande song of the same name that came up. All that tells me is that in the collective social imaginary of the Internet’s algorithms, Lennon’s utopian idea is slipping down the charts of our collective consciousness, replaced by the new social imaginary of deep individual desire. Grande’s song goes like this: Step up the two of us, nobody knows us Get in the car like, “Skrrt” Stayin’ up all night, order me pad thai Then we gon’ sleep ‘til noon Me with no makeup, you in the bathtub Bubbles and bubbly, ooh This is a pleasure, feel like we never Act this regular Click, click, click and post Drip-drip-dripped in gold Quick, quick, quick, let’s go Kiss me and take off your clothes

Re-imagine above us more than sky. Put aside your own earthbound Me Project and its pretence at transcendence, and allow yourself, like CS Lewis, to have your imagination reconverted and re-baptised into the gospel story.

Re-imagine all the people living life in peace in a Heaven that comes to Earth. Re-imagine it on that miraculous day when all the lights come on and The Beatles are upstaged by the King, and all the pain, sorrow, and tears feel like a bad dream from yesterday.

Steve is one of the keynote speakers at ITEC19. He is a pastor at Providence Church in Perth, part of a network of evangelistically minded churches in Perth. Steve also works for Third Space, a project run by City Bible Forum that creates content and training packages for evangelism for churches and individuals, as well as providing writing content aimed at non-Christians interested in the gospel.

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Design Thinking in a Christian School: A Case Study

By Christine Crump

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The Christian Teachers Journal May 2019

At first I baulked. I handed the brochure about the project back to our principal. I didn’t think I was the right person to lead it and the project seemed very demanding. Within a fortnight it was back in my hands.

I gathered a team, conducted a quick literature search, and wrote an application. We gained a grant; our involvement was spawned; we embarked on an adventure in NoTosh Design Thinking.

Design Thinking The NoTosh website suggests that “NoTosh Design Thinking is a process. A creative one, but a process nonetheless. But it’s also an ethos, an ideology and a philosophy. It works in every environment, from the classroom to the boardroom, helping you see things you hadn’t seen before and discover things you didn’t know you needed to discover”. The design process has five steps: immersion, synthesis, ideation, prototyping, and feedback. This makes Design Thinking sound simple.

It isn’t. Rather it is a complex web of interactions, tools, recursions, and processes.

In Design Thinking, ideas and solutions are constantly challenged in order to shape one’s thinking. There were many occasions when we were stumped; one such moment we described as being ‘shipwrecked’. The NoTosh Design Thinking process requires substantial intellectual energy and innovation. Therein lay much of its appeal for our team; we found joy in the contesting of ideas and prototyping.

Our team was heavily supported by NoTosh through online coaching, face-to-face visits, and three crucial incubator sessions where we met with other schools in Western Australia with similar project funding.

Christian Worldview Whilst I was excited about our proposal being accepted, I was initially cognisant that Design Thinking may not support our vision for Christian education. There is a constant panoply of ideas influencing education. Under the new covenant, every aspect of (school) life matters. As Carson (2002, p. 46) reminds us, “worship becomes the category under which we order everything in our lives” (emphasis in the original) and that since humans are fallen, “all human knowledge is necessarily perspectival”—our understanding is limited and subject to interpretation (Carson 2008, p. 10). Paul cautions us in this way, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8 NIVUK).

Further, we seek to underpin the life of the college with Romans 12:1-2.

Thus, before we attended our first incubator session, we spent time as a team thinking theologically about Design Thinking as an ideology. I adapted Justine Toh’s cultural studies approach to critique key tenets of Design Thinking.

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. . . our problem explored how to deepen thinking and engagement in the college across the curriculum, with different student cohorts and with staff.

Her approach is based around Kevin Vanhoozer’s theory of Everyday Theology. In this theory Vanhoozer (2007) argues, “culture is a lived worldview” (p. 37) and it, “communicates, orients, reproduces and cultivates” (p. 39). In other words, Everyday Theology is, “the biblically faithful attempt to understand everyday life,” an act of “cultural exegesis” (Toh, 2014, p. 136).

Our critique of Design Thinking, then began with a kind of cultural exegesis, identifying Design Thinking’s values and questioning whether these aligned with a Christian worldview. Using verbs like ‘exceed’, ‘affirm’, ‘challenge’, ‘reject’, ‘question’, ‘contest’, we compared some of the values of Design Thinking with the Bible.

Some of the values of Design Thinking we explored were: • humans are creative and imaginative • humans can solve their own problems • change drives success and contributes to human flourishing • collaboration, teamwork, and co-operation are imperative • humans can make the future brighter • decision-making is participative and co-led • failure is inevitable and risks are to be embraced • processes are recursive and change is the result of informed feedback In response, we explored Scripture: • God as Creator and the created order, Jesus and creation (Genesis, Psalms, Colossians) • The new creation (Revelation, Romans) • The future for humanity and our source of hope (Revelation) • The design building and purpose of the tabernacle (Exodus), and by default the temple (1 Kings 6), and more In this way, we designed our thinking about Design Thinking!

Of most importance, we reiterated that God is the ultimate creator, His moral order is part of creation, He is the source of imagination and innovation, and that although He has given humans skills to solve problems, we cannot solve the greatest problem of all—sin. We reminded ourselves that our hope is in Jesus and that a glorious future awaits. Theological discussion proved to be an important step; the development of a robust, transformative thinking faith in line with Swan Christian College’s vision. Later as the project unfolded, it was heartening to see how much Design Thinking was based on collective energy, in contrast to how community is undervalued (outside of sport) in contemporary Australia.

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The Christian Teachers Journal May 2019

Project Foundations Our target audience was middle schoolers (Years 7-9) and their teachers, working in tandem with the Swan Trade Training Centre. Our middle school has conceptualised learning as an adventure. Our drivers are active learning, formative assessment (Black and William, 1998),, and feedback (Hattie and Clarke, 2018), underpinned by a constructivist theory of learning viewed through the eyes of faith (Cooling et al., 2016; Holland, 2013; Toh, 2014). Our team believes that Design Thinking has strengthened and extended these foundations. We wanted to focus the project around the strategic plan and be part of what we were doing, not be an add-on.

Our strategic plan is mint-new. It is structured around three phases: imagine, awaken, and engage. Such success criteria as: “give timely and appropriate feedback that improves student learning” (imagine), “create opportunities to share a repertoire of skills, knowledge, experiences and reflections about pedagogy” (imagine), “demonstrate critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity” (awaken), “incorporate Christian worldview into more aspects of college life” (engage), have been explicitly commensurate with the project. Our ‘exhibition piece’ (final presentation) is in the form of a website, hyperlinked firstly to our strategic plan, then to NoTosh’s articulation of Design Thinking, and finally to explanations and images of our work in practice.

The Project As a team, we chose a difficult problem to solve. Whilst other schools began with concrete problems, ours was conceptual from the outset. Whilst most other schools began with early years or lower primary, we began with adolescents and adults. Whilst other schools began with a tight staff team, we began with a disparate one. We were adamant that our project needed to strengthen pedagogy and deepen thinking.

We were delighted that in our face-to-face coaching a Christian was allocated to our college and our coach Simon Keily listened to, and contested our theological approach.

He also acted as something akin to a nuclear submarine by challenging us to invert, convert, and reinvent our project.

In the end, our problem explored how to deepen thinking and engagement in the college across the curriculum, with different student cohorts and with staff. The latter was a unique aspect of our project, and personally one of the most rewarding.

The Results We realised we didn’t need ‘a project’. Instead we embraced a myriad of ways to use the Design Thinking process.

. . . we wish to immerse ourselves in the ideas Design Thinking seeks to affirm—to ideate, synthesise, prototype, and act on feedback.

Many of the professional learning activities we ran—either in pairs, small groups, large scale meetings, curriculum planning, or giving staff agency in decisions—used tools from the Design Thinking suite. These tools have zany names like: Crazy Eights, Everyone’s a Consultant, DarlingSafe-Bet-Moonshot, and 100 Reasons. Their purpose is to brainstorm quickly, allow all participants to have agency, generate positivity and energy, think through different lenses, prioritise ideas, form connections, invite regular feedback, and much more.

Year 8 digital technologies students used the complete Design Thinking process to plan and design a game for others; Year 11 construction students used the process to build a bench for junior school students. Both classrooms were other-person focused. Other-person centredness helped infuse the lessons with a Christian worldview as did our major professional learning day with staff in which they developed prototypes of an ideal wallet using work from Stanford University.

Different strategies were employed in a geology unit with Year 8, and in preparing Year 12 physics for their WACE (final exit) examinations. In English we used Design Thinking strategies to help Year 7 form and then connect ideas in preparation for an assessment task—a character analysis based on Tim Winton’s novel Blueback (1997). Students in each class reported the strategies had been engaging, buoyant, and/or had helped them think; the staff likewise.

The positivity of Design Thinking and its innovative nature have been fully commensurate with developing a growth mindset in staff and students—another aspect of our strategic plan.

Conclusion Even though Design Thinking has only been trialled thus far, we believe it gives teachers a powerful tool to balance instruction and construction, to be alive in the adventure of learning. Values of Design Thinking such as co-design (Sanders and Stappers, 2008) empathy, creativity, and reflection align with our Christian foundations. Other values require further scrutiny. The generativity of Design Thinking is a value we would like to explore in the future. Our next step includes presenting our website to various audiences, including the principal, the middle managers, and local Christian schools. As the strategic plan is implemented, we wish to immerse ourselves in the ideas Design Thinking seeks to affirm—to ideate, synthesise, prototype, and act on feedback. We wish to continue piloting strategies in a vast array of contexts, motivated to design our thinking.

Most importantly, we are keen to see if Design Thinking

can complement What If Learning as both seek to reframe learning—the latter in an explicitly Christian way. Despite the project’s challenging pace, we commend it to others as it requires vigorous cogitation, and stimulates change. In a post-Christian world, this is more important than ever as we seek to honour our Creator, Redeemer, and Saviour in Christian education.

References Black, P., & William, D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappa, 1–13. Retrieved from https://www.rdc.udel.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ InsideBlackBox.pdf Carson, A. M., & Hughes, R. K. (2002). Worship by the Book. In D. Carson (Ed.), Worship by the Book (pp. 7–63). Grand Rapids, USA: Zondervan.

Carson, D. A. (2008). Christ and culture revisited. Nottingham, United Kingdom: Apollos.

Hattie, J., & Clarke, S. (2018). Visible learning: Feedback. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Holland, R. (2013). Through the eyes of faith. Retrieved from http://www. edcomm.org.au/assets/documents/Exploring-Teaching-and-Learingin-English-Online-Version.pdf No Tosh. (2018, July 23). Design thinking. Retrieved from https://notosh. com/design-thinking Sanders, E. B. N., & Stappers, P. J. (2008). Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. Co-Design, 4(1), 5–18. Retrieved from https:// www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15710880701875068 Stanford University. (n.d.). The wallet project. Retrieved January 19, 2019, from https://dschool-old.stanford.edu/groups/designresources/ wiki/4dbb2/the_wallet_project.html Swan Christian College. (2018). Swan Christian College strategic plan.

Retrieved from https://www.swan.wa.edu.au/about-swan-christiancollege/strategic-plan-20182020/ Toh, J. (2014). Challenging individualism. In K. Goodlet & J. Collier (Eds.), Teaching well: Insights for educators in Christian schools (pp.

127–139). Barton, Australia: Barton Books.

The Stapleford Centre, & The Kuyers Institute. (n.d.). What if learning.

Retrieved January 19, 2019, from http://www.whatiflearning.com This article was written in conjunction with Leanna Gurney, Joshua Newland, Matthew Potts, and Andrew Twine.

Christine is head of middle school at Swan Christian College. Christine has a passion for poetry and story and relishes seeing young people engage with imagined worlds, thinking critically, learning about the Bible, and generally being alive in the adventure of learning. Christine admits to making lots of mistakes and is always ready to learn something new. Design Thinking is one of these new things.

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Dealing with Difference: Differentiation in the Christian School

By Philip Cooney

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The Christian Teachers Journal May 2019

Differentiation has become a key strategy for teachers. It recognises the influence that God-given individual differences have upon how children learn and demonstrate personal understanding. The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) defines differentiated programming in this way: Differentiation is a targeted process that involves forward planning, programming and instruction. It involves the use of teaching, learning and assessment strategies that are fair and flexible, provide an appropriate level of challenge, and engage students in learning in meaningful ways. Differentiated programming recognises an interrelationship between teaching, learning and assessment that informs future teaching and learning.

(NSW Education Standards Authority, n.d.)

Differentiation is about difference. This is significant because we often don’t handle difference well in our society, or in our schools, or in our churches. For children, the fear of difference can be a powerful motivator. Sometimes we call this influence peer pressure, sometimes the tall poppy syndrome, sometimes low self-esteem. Being different can drive both fear of failure and also fear of success in our students, as one or the other may make them less acceptable to their peers.

For Christian teachers, the recognition of differences in learning styles and learning challenges is an everyday reality in our classrooms. How we perceive and respond to difference should not simply comply with the expectations of educational authorities. Recognition of difference should reflect an understanding of our Creator and those made in His image. The aim of this article is to set out some biblical principles regarding difference to assist teachers in designing and evaluating differentiated programming from a Christian perspective.

Different by Design To understand difference, we begin with God’s Word.

Passages such as Genesis chapters 1 and 2, and Job chapters 39 to 41 speak of God’s delight at the diverse nature of His creation. The breadth of creation is a source of praise in Psalm 148, while passages such as 1 Corinthians 12:1-27 and Revelation 7:9 celebrate the diversity of God’s redeemed people—the body of Christ.

Rather than something to be feared, difference is something to be embraced as a gift of God for the building up of His people.

In the classroom, we can show our understanding of difference evident in Creation by:

Knowing and Being Known Knowing and being known encompasses the relational nature of teaching and learning, drawing upon the language used by Jesus in the Gospel according to John, chapter 10, and by Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13:12. Differentiation is about knowing our students, understanding their needs, and matching a student’s approach to learning with the most appropriate pedagogy, curriculum learning outcomes, and opportunities for displaying knowledge gained.

Differentiation recognises and celebrates the diversity of our students, created in God’s image. Ken Dickens puts it thus: “Teaching people requires that we respect the experience, needs, interests, gifts, weaknesses, temperaments, and learning style of those whom we teach” (Dickens, 2017, p.

10). Through experiencing differentiation, students will be able to learn and grow both in knowledge and in discipleship according to their needs.

Teaching and learning should enable our students to identify what they know and are yet to know. Too often, our teaching takes a one-size-fits-all approach that leaves some bored and some bewildered. Stephen Collis, the director of innovation at Northern Beaches Christian School, explains the benefit for student engagement of basing our approach on a student’s individual learning mode. “We should nurture student agency and student curiosity by working at the student’s pace, capacity and interest” (Humberstone, 2016).

Teachers need to know the starting place for each student’s knowledge and skill development.

Strategies such as pre-testing, providing tasters of subject content, holding introductory conversations, or conducting surveys to collect information about student interests, can enable teachers to discover what students know. From this information, teachers can set goals to expand student knowledge and guide learning.

Additionally, screening for learning styles or multiple intelligences can help students know themselves as learners and help teachers to design appropriate learning activities. Through the processes of meta-cognition and self-regulation, students reflect on their own way of knowing and can be involved in the setting of learning goals, planning learning strategies, the assessment of their progress, and the design of future learning to address their weaknesses.

However, it is important to note that differentiation is not about assigning students to boxes. It is about breaking down barriers and stereotypes to provide all students access to new knowledge (including self-knowledge), new challenges, and new opportunities for service.

• celebrating God’s good purpose and provision through the diversity of His creation

Challenge and Change

• modelling the mutual support and acceptance experienced within the body of Christ

• challenging students to learn

• encouraging discipleship through the faithful use of one’s ability to serve others • teaching wisdom to enable a right understanding of the world and how to live in it.

The role of teachers may be summarised as: • designing and guiding students’ learning activity • challenging students to question what they know and to ‘stretch’ their knowledge • providing feedback to help students consolidate and review what they have learnt.

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The teacher who knows their student will be able to provide the required level of support and encouragement.

As can be seen in the diagram below, the “zone of optimal learning” occurs when the levels of challenge and support are correctly balanced. The knowledge teachers have of their students allows them to meet each student’s learning needs, helping them to progress by devising the appropriate levels of challenge and support.

Zone of Optimal Learning High Challenge

The Renewing of the Mind

Learning/ High Support

engagement zone

Frustration/

(zone of proximal development)

anxiety zone

Comfort zone

Boredom zone

Low Support

Low Challenge

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi states, “When both personal skill level and challenge level are correspondingly high, adolescents experience a state of flow which allows for optimal learning” (Csikszentmihalyi , 1987, cited in Van Tassel-Baska, 1993, p. 366). Where does the concept of ‘optimal flow’ sit within a Christian understanding of the nature of learning?

Challenge and trial play a role in the development of Christ-like character and hope (James 1:2-4, Romans 5:3-4).

In 1 Corinthians 9:25, Paul uses the analogy of a physical challenge to describe the challenge of faithful living, “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever”.

While school learning is not synonymous with spiritual growth, if we view Christian education as training in godly discipleship, the benefit of challenge can be authentically applied. The purpose of challenge is not to frustrate or humiliate, it is to nurture growth and create change that benefits both the individual and the community.

Finding the correct level of support and encouragement has an important role in realising the benefit of challenge. The teacher who knows their student will be able to provide the required level of support and encouragement. However, this is not the exclusive role of the teacher. The Bible sets out the relational role of the Christian community in encouraging and supporting the growth and work of others (Hebrews 10:24-25, 1 Thessalonians 5:11), giving expression to the mutual interdependence of the body of Christ. Growth occurs when every member of the community or body contributes, and those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable to this process (1 Corinthians 12:21-22).

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Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow (1987) may be understood as both the engagement in, and the joy derived from, the task or the learning. The strength of connection or engagement is also fundamental to a relational epistemology in which a student’s depth of knowledge is linked to the strength of their connection to the learning process. Relationship and connectedness are central to biblical pedagogy, because relationship is central to the Godhead and connectedness is a characteristic of the design of creation (Fennema, 2014, p.

29). The source and experience of joy are not just intrinsic to the task but also to the purpose and result of the learning.

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Meeting a challenge brings with it the question of motivation and effort. Proximal challenge depends on the achievement being both desirable and attainable in the eyes of the learner.

Christian teachers will sometimes use expressions such as, “God-given abilities” or “God-given potential”. While correct in themselves, these phrases may give students the impression that they have no control over their own ability to learn. This may lead to an acceptance of a low level of ability and achievement as divinely ordained.

American researcher Carol Dweck (2008) identified two groups amongst students—those with a ‘fixed mindset’ and those with a ‘growth mindset’. Students with a fixed mindset believe they have a certain amount of intelligence, that it is ‘fixed’ for life. They perceive setbacks as evidence of their limited ability. Students with a ‘growth mindset’ believe that intelligence is something that can be cultivated. They believe that everyone can improve on their abilities. They believe that confronting challenges, learning from mistakes, and persevering in the face of setbacks become ways of getting smarter.

It is worthwhile remembering that the Christian life is characterised by the “renewing of our mind” (Romans 12:2).

Did Paul know or mean to imply that the brain can continue to grow, change, and take on new knowledge and skills? Or was he merely referring to a transformation of our way of thinking? Both are applicable to our students. They need to know that a fixed mindset often leaves them working hard for no reward. On the other hand being open to the possibility of change is not only beneficial in the classroom, it also helps them be open to the process of transformation by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:13). It is also to so focus and exercise the mind on the possibilities that God’s grace brings, that the brain is actually growing new synapses and pathways to facilitate this process.

Dweck’s research showed that students who were praised for specific effort or strategies they had used, were likely to outperform peers who were told that they did well because they were smart. Teachers should be careful to praise effort and strategy rather than ability or raw intelligence.

They should praise any aspects of the child’s work that are good, and develop meta-cognition and self-regulation by asking the student to point out which areas are missing or can be improved on. By focusing them on the process in which they’re engaged—their effort, their strategies, their

Teaching that celebrates difference recognises that all have a role in serving the needs of others. concentration, their perseverance, or their improvement—we teach our students that learning results from their efforts.

Provide opportunities for them to express their individual differences and experience joy through working diligently.

Wisdom and Transformation Sternberg, Jarvin, and Grigorenko (2011) in their book on giftedness, place importance upon teaching for wisdom.

Like the teacher in Ecclesiastes 12:12, these scholars have concluded that there is more to life than learning and achievement. “Teachers who teach for wisdom will explore with students the notion that conventional abilities and achievements are not enough for a satisfying life. . . . The teacher will further demonstrate how wisdom is critical for a satisfying life. In the long run, wise decisions benefit people in ways that foolish decisions never do” (Sternberg, Jarvin, & Grigorenko, 2011, p. 232).

For these authors, the concept of wisdom revolves around the capacity for empathy; seeking the common good rather than self-interest; and acting on principle instead of prejudice, populism, or peer pressure. While commendable and in keeping with the teaching of Scripture (Mark 12:31; Romans 12:2 & 15; 1 Peter 4:1-5), for Christians, wisdom has an even more profound meaning. Wisdom is “understanding how the world works so you can understand how to live in it” (Wu, 2017, p. 23). We recognise that the fear of the Lord is the way to true wisdom. He revealed it; He established it (Proverbs 1:7, 2:6; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16).

Differentiation is integral to transformative learning. We seek to know and to challenge our students in order that they may grow as learners and as disciples of Christ. We desire that they will be encouraged—emboldened and empowered—within the community of our classroom to discover, develop, and dispense their abilities and gifts to serve the learning and living of others.

Conclusion The school’s whole curriculum should provide all students with challenge and offer all students opportunities to achieve, by recognising and valuing the diversity of knowledge and experience of each student as God’s good gift to our learning community. This means recognising and accommodating the different starting points and learning rates of individual students or groups of students, and seeking to make new knowledge and understanding accessible to all. It means celebrating the diversity of abilities, interests, and service represented in our classrooms.

It models an attitude of thankfulness to God for the richness of creation expressed in the life of every student.

References Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1987). in Van Tassel-Baska, J. (1993). Theory and research on curriculum development for the gifted. In K.A. Heller, F.J. Monks, & A.H. Passow (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent. New York: Pergamon Press.

Dickens, K. (2017). Rethinking the language of excellence. Christian Teachers Journal, 25(2), 8-11.

True wisdom is only found in knowing God, and being in relationship with Him. This is the wisdom that is truly transformational in life and in learning. As Ken Dickens explains, “Excellence in teaching is about teaching for transformation. It engages with the mind, heart and hand. It ought to be intellectually rigorous. It also needs to challenge the will and fire the imagination. Excellent teaching inspires learning that is translated into action and ongoing lifestyle” (Dickens, 2017, p. 10).

Dweck, Carol S. (2008). Brainology: Transforming students’ motivation to learn. Retrieved from http://www.nais.org/publications/ ismagazinearticle.cfm?ItemNumber=150509

Transformative learning is learning that involves the “mind, heart, and hand”. It is learning that stimulates intellectual curiosity and imagination, stirs interest as well as belief, and supplies a practical purpose for learning. Stuart Fowler (1990) writes that to master something, “is no achievement at all if it shows no more than my powers of mastery” (p.

71). The exercise of this mastery is seen as the end in itself, rather than as a service of love to God and neighbour (Matthew 20:24-28). Rather than assessing mastery alone, Fowler suggests that we, “will want to assess how effectively these concepts and skills have been integrated in a wisdom that shows understanding and appreciation leading to responsible action” (1990, p. 72).

Humberstone, J. (2016). Module 1: Introduction to Northern Beaches Christian School. Music in twenty-first century schools [MOOC].

University of Sydney: Sydney.

Transformative teachers enable this by, “creating a context where young people can operate in practical and lifeenhancing ways and where joy comes through being other people centred, serving the needs of others whether tangibly or intangibly” (Winter, 2014, p. 111). Teaching that celebrates difference recognises that all have a role in serving the needs of others (1 Corinthians 12:21-26).

Fennema, J. (2014). Transforming education: Teachers. In R. Edlin, J. Ireland, & G. Beech (Eds.), Engaging the culture: Christians at work in education (2nd ed., pp. 21–36). Blacktown, NSW: National Institute for Christian Education.

Fowler, S. (Ed.). (1990). Christian schooling: Education for freedom.

Potchefstroom, RSA: Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education.

NSW Education Standards Authority. (n.d.). Differentiated programming.

Retrieved from syllabus.nesa.nsw.edu.au/support-materials/ differentiated-programming Sternberg, R., Jarvin, L., & Grigorenko, E. (2011). Explorations in giftedness.

New York: Cambridge University Press.

Winter, B. (2014). Learning for living in the first & twenty-first centuries.

In K. Goodlet and J. Collier (Eds.), Teaching well: Insights for educators in Christian schools (pp. 101-116). Barton, ACT: Barton Books Wu, D. (2017). How the world works. Southern Cross, 23(5), 22-24.

Philip has been serving the Lord in a variety of roles at Wycliffe Christian School for over three decades. His most important role is as an encourager. He continues to grapple with what it means to put Jesus at the beginning, middle, and end of all of life.

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My Top Shelf A Christian educator recommends five texts recently read As teachers and leaders, we give of ourselves constantly. Pouring ourselves daily into our various responsibilities and relationships, refueling our mind and spirit can often take a back seat to what seems more urgent in the moment. God has been teaching me that prioritising time for rest and refreshment is important for the nourishment and strengthening of the soul. Consequently, the ‘pouring’ can then come from a place of abundance and dynamic relationship with Father God. These books have been significant in my journey as a Christian teacher, leader, wife, and mother. I pray they encourage you.

By Karen Hooper

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Leading With a Limp: Take Full Advantage of Your Most Powerful Weakness Dan B. Allender (2006)

In this book Dan Allender boldly contends that our shortcomings and failures do not disqualify us from leadership, but can actually equip an individual in ways that are powerful, significant, and highly effective. This happens when the individual leads from a place of surrender, fully reliant on God. Allender calls out the falsehoods of our cultural story that accuse and condemn our failures as signposts of our inadequacy. He says, “The most effective leaders don’t rise to power in spite of their weakness; they lead with power because of their weakness.”

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Soul Rest: Reclaim Your Life. Return to Sabbath Curtis Zackery (2018)

Having had a season of rest imposed upon me due to an unexpected surgery in 2018, I felt the Lord had extended to me an invitation to learn about ‘rest’ and ‘Sabbath’ and how it could be better practised in my own life. In this book, Curtis Zackery teaches from his experience as a burnt-out pastor who suggests the need to examine the ways in which we have embraced wrong thinking in terms of our identity and value. When we build our lives upon the faith required to purposefully rest and tune into God’s voice, we move deeper into the life of abundance and fruitfulness He promised.

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Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling Andy Crouch (2008)

The cover suggests, “It is not enough to condemn culture. Nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture, copy culture or consume culture. The only way to change culture is to create culture.” This book clarifies and reiterates our role as culture makers and participants in God’s plan for restoration and ‘Shalom’.

It rejects the dualistic mindset of ‘sacred and secular’ and embraces the truth that even the mundane activities of life can be holy and glorifying to God. We are co-cultivators and co-creators made in the image of our creator God. This is our Kingdom purpose for life here on Earth.

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The Vertical Self: How Biblical Faith Can Help Us Discover Who We Are in an Age of Self Obsession Mark Sayers (2010)

I first heard Mark speak at an International Transforming Education Conference in 2015. His analysis and critique of culture and our need as Christians to be counter-cultural was captivating and inspiring. This book challenges the collective cultural thinking around identity and examines humanity’s compulsion to define and manufacture carefully curated identities that appear impressive to others across various forums, especially social media. Mark seeks to redirect our thinking back to a biblical view of identity and the freedom that comes with living purposefully as our ‘true selves’; image-bearers and beloved children of God.

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The Way of Life: Experiencing the Culture of Heaven On Earth Bill Johnson (2018)

I am currently just a few pages away from finishing this book. It is so laden with rich revelation and spiritual wisdom that I plan to immediately read it through again, but this time with a highlighter in hand! Bill Johnson is unapologetic about living, leading, and teaching from a deep conviction that we are designed to live supernatural lives that reflect the culture of Heaven, expecting the miraculous to be a part of everyday life. As Christian teachers who have the privilege of influencing young people each day, we are in a unique position to cultivate this kind of ‘Kingdom’ mindset in our students and within the communities we serve.

Karen is the teaching and learning advisor at Bayside Christian College. She is passionate about developing her skills as a Christian educator and supporting other teachers as they deepen their understanding of what it is to teach and live from a biblical perspective. Karen has been married to Nathan for 20 years and together are kept busy raising three wonderful young men, all who attend Bayside.

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An Authentic Life of Faith in the Maths Classroom

By Ruth Watson

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Zylstra (2004) identifies that true education grows out of biblically authentic faith and propels students towards comprehensive discipleship of the Lord. This type of education considers the Christian confession in order to explore the world and prepares students to live out its reality in every part of their lives. Helping students worship God through the learning of trigonometry is as spiritual as praying together. A teacher grappling with how to lead students on this journey is, in itself, a spiritual, worshipful activity, done by faith in the unseen (Hebrews 11:1). Roques (1989) highlights how an underlying philosophy of maths profoundly influences the teaching of maths. It is vital, therefore, to have a working and well-considered Christian philosophy of maths to help guide that which plays out in the classroom.

A philosophy of maths is my starting point, as I grapple with how to live an authentic life of faith in the classroom, and how to lead my students to do the same. My philosophy of maths recognises that aspects of maths point us to God. He has built patterns and order into creation. The discovery of these leads me to worship Him. Nature is always deeper, richer, and more interesting than you thought, and mathematics gives you a very powerful way to appreciate this . . . I’d say that my understanding of the geometry of rainbows adds a new dimension to its beauty. (Stewart, 2011, p. 250) As we reflect that we are made in God’s image, we also utilise these mathematical ides to cultivate culture, plan, predict, build, and create other mathematical ideas. Through which I can serve God and others.

Philosophy Applied: Before You Begin Prayer How often do we pray about our programs before we put them together? God cares even more about our students than we do! We need His wisdom to create authentic programs and unit plans that will bring Him glory. He knows how He wants to use us, and what He wants to do in our classroom space. It’s amazing how often, after a significant time of prayer, the ideas just seem to flow.

Self-reflection

A Philosophy of Maths?

One night, during a heated Q&A debate on ABC television, panellist Terri Butler proclaimed to the audience that the private beliefs and practices of a maths teacher, specifically in relation to sexuality, are irrelevant, because, “They just teach maths!” (Jones, 2018). Butler was unconsciously reflecting a commonly held worldview; the secularist view that faith or spiritual beliefs are private and have no impact on what happens in the classroom. This belief, when not carefully examined, may cause the Christian teacher to operate out of a dualistic worldview which separates the secular and the sacred. It is a particular challenge in the maths classroom where it is often held that ‘maths is maths’: 2+3=5, no matter what your belief system.

Spending time reflecting upon how your knowledge and understanding of this topic helps you personally know God better, worship Him, serve Him, love others, or bring shalom into your community. Sometimes the answer requires a bit of digging or researching. Bradley & Howell (2011) and Nickel (2001) are helpful resources for this process. It is difficult to lead students on a journey which you haven’t walked yourself. “Can the blind lead the blind?

Will they not both fall into a pit? The student is not above the teacher” (Luke 6:39b-40).

Ask yourself, what is your hope (and God’s hope) for your students through this topic? David Smith challenges teachers with the need to consider how their lessons nourish their students (Smith, 2015). You don’t want students to create a whole lot of meaningless ‘rubbish bin’ worksheets and projects that have little impact on their life outside of the maths classroom. How can this topic lead students to marvel at God’s world, equip them to serve the community, understand themselves or human nature better, or inspire them about the restorative possibilities in God’s Kingdom that might await them and give them purpose?

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It is a travesty if all that is ever provided in the maths classroom is endless textbook questions. How will students ‘feel God’s pleasure’ in what they are doing if they don’t see any relevance in it?

Prepare Authentic Answers Prepare authentic responses to the question, “Why do we need to study this?” The response you give will form a vital component of the biblical story that you ‘tell’ your students. Is it just for a future job, a good ATAR, or to do well at the next test (which imply one worldview ideal)?

Or does it prepare students to live the life that God intends for them today, as well as equipping them for tomorrow? Consider topic-specific authentic answers.

Curriculum Examples of a Christian Philosophy of Maths A special introductory lesson A special introductory lesson provides a context for the unit and gives the language to hook the unit upon.

It provides the script that is woven into the classroom language over the course of the unit. For instance: Humans often care about fractions/decimals/percentages because they want to make sure that they are personally getting a ‘fair’ deal. In God’s Kingdom, this idea is turned upside down and applied to evaluate whether others are getting treated fairly. Whether it be cocoa profits for farmers in the chocolate supply chain, or to evaluate infant mortality rates amongst the poor. Ask students, “Why are you concerned with fairness (or equal parts)?”

Patterns, rules, and predictions can be useful when considering a baby’s growth chart. They can indicate a problem. However, when growth doesn’t follow the pattern is there always a problem? What does it mean to be normal?

Discussion starters These are fast, little, worldview/biblical discussion bullets!

Have students jot down their thoughts before hearing from each other. This can form part of the introductory lesson or be woven into the unit. Try setting them for homework and ask students to discuss with their family.

In addition to the above ideas: • Models and proofs: Do you need to scientifically/ mathematically ‘prove’ something in order for it to be true? Is truth only that which we can see and prove?

• Student responses not only give insight into the student, but also provide opportunity to speak God’s perspective into their lives. Sometimes God even uses student responses to speak into our lives!

Rich Tasks, Authentic Tasks, Practical Tasks, and Interesting Tasks It is a travesty if all that is ever provided in the maths classroom is endless textbook questions. How will students ‘feel God’s pleasure’ in what they are doing if they don’t see any relevance in it?

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There are two versions of maths in the lives of many people: the strange and boring subject that they encounter in classrooms and an interesting set of ideas that is the maths of the world, and it’s curiously different and surprisingly engaging. (Boaler, 2015, p. 7) Authentic Examples: • Number: Examine the infinite scale of the universe, from the very large to the very small.

• Number: Consider why different species of periodical cicadas only emerge after a prime-number amount of years.

• Geometry: Show students a collection of photos of buildings/structures that many people believe to be ‘ugly’ followed by those believed to be ‘beautiful’. Discuss what makes design ugly or beautiful and ponder where human creativity comes from. Use these ideas to introduce an endless variety of applications. For example, have students draw power pylons to include prescribed angles/triangles/ quadrilaterals and communicate through their poster how a power pylon could be beautiful (either in purpose, design, or colour).

• Geometry: Investigate similar triangles (and index numbers) using the Sierpinski Triangle. Students draw, and then the class can combine the triangles into large art.

Have students consider: “What do fractals reveal about the nature of God and His creation?” The BBC series The Code presented by Marcus du Sautoy is of particular use here.

• Measurement: Experiment with and then design drink packaging with as small a surface area to volume ratio as possible to cut down on waste, then consider how to encourage companies to do this as well.

• Data and statistics: Give opportunity to explore topics from sleep habits to mobile phone usage, to consider the motivations behind choices and explore God’s purposes. We have used data and statistics on a project to influence others in the school to bring less waste in their lunchboxes.

Historical Context Consider some of the great mathematicians of the past.

Just a little snippet can add context and interest, as well as provide valuable opportunities to discuss the biblical story. Pythagoras worshiped numbers! His worldview was destroyed when he came across surds. Ask students to compare his worldview with the Christian worldview.

Galileo, Kuyper, and others strove to understand maths as they believed it was a way to deepen their understanding of God’s universe and God Himself.

God created and brought order to aspects of the universe using mathematics, the discovery of which leads us to worship and stand in awe of Him as we marvel at the beauty and design of His creation.

What About Skills and Drills?

Year 7 Student Response

Routine skills can be ‘safe’ and ‘orderly’ in a chaotic and uncertain world. God created humans to enjoy manipulating numbers, following patterns, and solving puzzles. When not overdone, this has value! Explain this to students.

“God created things with symmetry so that we can appreciate his perfection. Also so that we can learn that in the horror of the world he is still there. That is why I think God created things with symmetry.” Bella (Oct 2017)

When seemingly ‘boring’ skills are necessary, there is opportunity to share with students your personal testimony.

Why are you motivated to work hard? As Christians this often arises out of an attitude of serving God, knowing our place in His Kingdom, and a desire to see His will be done and His Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Have you ever really read and considered the worldview behind the questions in textbooks? Just pick one out in the midst of a lesson for a chance to draw out some contextual discussion or contrasting worldviews.

You have just won the lottery and decide to invest the money. Your accountant advises you to deposit your winnings in a an account that pays 6.5% p.a. compounded annually. After four years your winnings have grown to $102917.31. How much did you win in the lottery?

(Haese, Haese, & Humphries, 2015, p. 67) My Evolving Christian Philosophy of Maths God created and brought order to aspects of the universe using mathematics, the discovery of which leads us to worship and stand in awe of Him as we marvel at the beauty and design of His creation. When we discover these patterns and laws, we can usually rely on them, and hold them to be true. We can utilise them to cultivate culture, plan, predict, build, and create other mathematical ideas. For God uses us, for His purposes, to redeem His world, and bring about His Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven.

However, we will not put our faith in these mathematical laws and patterns, nor in our own ability to reason, explain, and create these ideas. They are not divine, and we are not divine. We put our faith in the Creator who is divine. God is not subject to, nor limited by, the laws which govern aspects of the creation which He made, for at times, He chooses to work in miraculous ways that contradict these laws and patterns.

References Boaler, J. (2015). The elephant in the classroom: Helping children learn and love maths (2nd ed.). London: Souvenir Press Ltd. Bradley, J., & Howell, R. (2011). Mathematics: Through the eyes of faith.

New York: Harper Collins.

Haese, M., Haese, S., & Humphries, M. (2015). Mathematics for Australia 11: General mathematics. Marleston, South Australia: Haese Mathematics.

Jones, T. (Presenter). (2018). Climate, welfare and religious schools [Television series episode]. In Q&A. Ultimo, NSW: Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/tv/ qanda/txt/s4892252.htm Nickel, J. (2001). Mathematics: Is God silent? Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books.

Roques, M. (1989). Curriculum unmasked: Towards a Christian understanding of education. Sutherland, NSW: Albatross Books.

Smith, D.I. (2015). A cold heart cannot catch fire: Imagination, faith, and teaching. [Video file]. Grand Rapids, MI: Calvin College. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dRVd7RZQmg Zylstra, C. E. (2004). When faith and life learning are one. In J. Ireland, R. Edlin, & K. Dickens (Eds.), Pointing the way: Directions for Christian education in a new millennium. Adelaide, South Australia: Openbook Publishers.

Ruth is a mathematics teacher and curriculum advisor at Marrara Christian College, currently working towards her Master of Education through the National Institute for Christian Education. She enjoys trying new ideas in the classroom to help students understand the place of maths in God’s world.

She is married with three children, lives in Darwin, and loves going for long walks on the beach at sunrise and sunset.

True motivation and inspiration for mathematics lies in the observance of God’s created order. The wonder of creation . . . reveals a God who is not boring. Hence, true mathematics teaching should be taught in a room, not with mirrors on the walls, but with windows wide open to the outside world. (Nickel, 2001, p. 285)

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Teaching in Time

By David I. Smith

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My sense is that when we think about how faith informs teaching and learning in Christian schools, the instincts of most folks push them toward thinking about what is Christian about the words and ideas in the curriculum, or about the qualities of character and relationship sustained in the school, or about the devotional practices and service projects that punctuate the semester. All of those are relevant things to think about. They also all happen within a medium that tends to slip by invisibly (except in our constant complaining that we do not have enough of it). What might we see differently if we learned to think of time not just as the passing hours, but as the medium in which we practice faithfulness, and as a medium that we have responsibility for shaping in ways that support that faithfulness? What does teaching have to do with how we imagine time?

Curriculum theorist Dwayne Huebner has written about how all school curriculum implies a story about time. The present in which any act of teaching takes place evokes a past and projects a future (1999). There is an implied vision of where students themselves and the surrounding society have come from, and of where things should be headed. We inherit an environment, a set of current capacities, a story about what has gone before, and those aspects of the past that we choose to remember and dwell upon help shape the future horizon. We set goals and teach in ways that imply the future activities and competencies toward which students are to grow, and so we invite students to live now towards particular kinds of futures. In this sense, teaching itself is always telling a story about how we inhabit time—about who we are, where we are now, and where we are headed. Do we paint a story of the good old days in which everyone was virtuous (and slavery was a thing) or of a future of unending increase in our standard of living if we will only work hard?

Or is it gloom in both directions? What do the images we give students of past and future communicate about our values?

Those kinds of big questions are important, but here I want to focus more on the small moves, the ways in which we manage the flow of time in class. Over the years, I have had occasion to sit in the back of a number of classrooms watching candidates for teaching positions teach a demonstration class. I often find these somewhat awkward affairs. The teacher does not know the students and is abruptly stepping into the story of the class midplot. Nevertheless, the way the challenges are handled can be revealing. I remember one occasion in particular, a competent enough class period dragged down by a pervasive sense of struggle, like a rehearsing jazz orchestra that can’t quite find the rhythm. For the best part of an hour, the wellprepared professor labored visibly to get discussion going, asking a creative string of questions about the assigned foreign language text. The result was rather strained, with the students saying little as the professor pressed bravely on. At the subsequent interview, the professor speculated that perhaps the students were tired and had not felt like discussing the text, or perhaps they had not done the reading. After watching the class and chatting with a couple

of frustrated students afterward, I believed both stories to be false. I think the main reason for the lack of engagement lay elsewhere.

The kinds of questions asked were one contributing factor. A good number of the professor’s questions were convergent; the kind that invite only a brief, unvarying answer and are unlikely to get discussion underway (“Look at the first paragraph, do you think the author is being sarcastic?”

“Yes.”). Yet there were also plenty of good, divergent questions that invited more thought and could have sparked more success. The bigger problem seemed to be one of timing. The teacher’s tolerance for silence ran to two or three seconds, and so a repeating cycle became apparent. A question was asked, and after two or three seconds of silence the teacher would either rephrase it and ask again or answer it for the class and ask a fresh question. Whether this was over-eagerness or insecurity I am not sure, but in those two or three seconds the task facing students was to understand the question (asked in their second language), grasp the thought behind it, relate it to the text they had read, think of an intelligent answer, formulate that answer (in their second language), and resolve to be the first to make their answer public. In most instances this was simply too steep a hill to climb, and both teacher and students left feeling stymied.

What sabotaged this teacher’s performance was not lack of mastery of content, lack of charisma, or lack of presence and determination. It was the way they moved through time and the way they shaped time for their students.

Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel (1951) notes in his book The Sabbath that we tend to think of time as a simple measuring device rather than as something that we indwell together and that takes on particular contours as we do so. He argues that biblical faith points toward a more variegated way of inhabiting time: Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time. Unlike the space-minded man to whom time is unvaried, iterative, homogeneous, to whom all hours are alike, qualitiless, empty shells, the Bible senses the diversified character of time. There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious . . . Jewish ritual may be characterized as the art of significant forms in time, as architecture of time. (p. 8) I find the image of an architecture of time suggestive. It points to how our life together is shaped not just by how we arrange space but by the rhythms and ways of focusing that characterize our shared movement through time.

This is perhaps most visible in the rhythm of work days and Sabbaths, normal time and festivals (both sacred and secular), that structures what we do as a community at particular times, but it can also be seen in our smaller gestures. When we teach we ‘give time’ to some topics and questions and not to others, we allow some activities to stretch out and we hurry others along, we attempt to give structure to how students will use and experience time both

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What happens if we take this roominess in God, the gracious creation of space and time for others, and connect it with how we think about the flow of time in our classrooms, and who is included or excluded by it?

inside and outside of class. These are not just pragmatic moves. When we do something as simple as asking a question, the amount of time we allow for responses will affect who is able to respond. Students who are working in their second language, or who have grown up in cultures in which answering a question without first observing a silent pause is felt to be disrespectful, or who simply need more time to formulate their thoughts, will only gain a voice and the chance to participate fully if more time is allowed.

A short time allocation will tend to reward the most vocal and speedy, reinforcing a cultural norm that tends to assign more intelligence to those who show the greatest speed of verbal response. It may also reinforce habits of reading quickly, skimming for answers, and speaking out before thinking carefully, habits that seem at odds with the kind of attentiveness that might characterize an approach grounded in charity and justice. Lengthening the time allowed for response will tend to result in more students contributing and in more substantial contributions (Budd Rowe, 1974; Budd Rowe, 1986). These contours of time for questions and answers are one small way in which particular rhythms are imposed on students, resulting in a learning community in which it is easier for some than for others to engage and to thrive. As we learn one kind of rhythm, we tend to become deaf to alternatives.

A decision as small as how many seconds to wait after asking a question before we accept a response thus turns out to be connected to questions of inclusion, community, and justice.

Here we find a point of connection with faith concerns, for these themes also inhabit theological discussions of time.

Robert Jensen (1997) comments that, “God can, if he chooses, accommodate other persons in his life without distorting that life. God, to state it as boldly as possible, is roomy . . .

God makes narrative room in his triune life for others than himself; this is the act of creation, and this accommodation is created time” (p. 236). What happens if we take this roominess in God, the gracious creation of space and time for others, and connect it with how we think about the flow of time in our classrooms, and who is included or excluded by it? If Christians are called to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, might that turn out to be connected to something as small and material as wait time when asking questions in class? Can we imagine teaching Christianly as connected to how we make our students inhabit our space and time?

Do we ever think of the flow of time as part of the faith language of the classroom? Do we think of the ‘integration of faith and learning’ as something that has to do only with ideas and course content? What might it have to do with our architecture of time, with the meanings made by the ways we use pace, rhythm, or silence?

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The Christian Teachers Journal May 2019

Sabbath and Blessing As Heschel’s image of an architecture of time implies, the larger structures that we create, such as the way a whole semester or year unfolds, are also consequential. A few years ago, a colleague voiced concern that like the rest of us, our students are always rushing from one activity to the next.1 This leaves little space for reflection, for rest, for worship, for Sabbath.

I suspect that the easiest interventions for an individual faculty member to imagine in my context might be to plan a series of classroom devotions about Sabbath in Scripture, or to assign a reading about the importance of Sabbath and the idolatries of modern life. Perhaps we can picture my colleague choosing biblical texts, collecting examples and stories, designing handouts, reviewing the theological arguments for the role of Sabbath in a Christian view of the world, and composing pointed questions for class discussion about how we use our discretionary time. Perhaps we can hear him exhorting students to live more intentionally, more Christianly. All of this might be a good thing (though notice that some of it adds more things for students to do).

In fact, my colleague took a somewhat different approach. He decided to restructure his course so that it was not feasible for students to do work for it on Sundays. He designed homework assignments so that they were always due before Saturday evening, with penalties for late submission. No new assignment for the following week was announced until Monday morning. He also planned to discuss with students why the semester was structured in this way, connecting the specifics of how time was structured to the biblical call to Sabbath, and to share with students how he spent his own Sundays.

This combination of structure and shared imagination is important, and not only because students might not actually realize what is intended by the changes unless they are let in on the thinking behind them. A focus on the minutiae of practice without inviting students explicitly into a corresponding shared imagination amounts to behavioral manipulation, which falls short of intentional Christian practice. Conversely, a focus on narrating Christian beliefs and norms without attending to the structures of communal practice that might make it more feasible to live them out together risks sliding into a hypocrisy or self-righteousness in which we exhort students to meet standards that we are not ourselves modeling. Jesus rebuked the scribes of His day for laying cumbersome burdens on people’s backs while not lifting a finger to help (Matthew 23:4). Rather than just telling students that they should live more faithfully, restructuring the time parameters of the course created a shared pattern within which there was a built-in bent

Might taking time to meditate, with others in community, on our architecture of time and what it is saying lead us to more careful ways of moving through time together?

towards the desired outcome. This will hardly solve all of the contextual challenges of living well in an overloaded cultural environment, but it lays the groundwork for the kind of intentional shared practice that can set us in the right direction.

might be achieving. I simply wonder how it might shift the learning experiences of students if their semesters were to end consistently with a blessing and commission instead of a judgement and a dismissal. It is another instance of imagination and practice in conversation.

It matters that the pattern of engagement here is extended over time, across the whole semester. Another colleague, also teaching at a Christian college, once shared with me their frustration that when students filled out evaluation forms at the end of a semester, they had given low scores for Christian perspective, even though the whole of the first week had been devoted to readings about how theology related to the discipline being taught. That colleague’s expectation seemed to be that the connection between faith and learning was something that could be grasped intellectually at a particular point in time. It was something to be understood and banked for future reference, rather than something that would be worked out consistently over time in a combination of intentional, explicit practices and the patient building of a shared imagination.

What if we spent less time complaining about not having enough time, and more time deliberating together about how to structure the time that we have so that loving God with our heart and mind and strength begins to seem feasible?

Might taking time to meditate, with others in community, on our architecture of time and what it is saying lead us to more careful ways of moving through time together? What kind of pedagogical home is constructed by the way we shape time?

Pondering my colleague’s approach to Sabbath got me thinking about the ways in which courses at my institution typically end. It struck me recently that most church liturgies end with a blessing and a commission. God’s peace and favor are spoken to us and we are called to go out and serve in light of what has just been declared. Most semesters where I teach, on the other hand, end with a judgement and a dismissal. The last things to happen are an exam followed by remote communication of grades via an online system, after which the course is over. For the past few years I have been experimenting with a different pattern for the end of the semester. This involves inverting the exam and the final class, holding the exam during the final class session and then using the scheduled exam time for a final class meeting.

During the final meeting, I lead a discussion of what the most important themes were from the semester and what students think they have learned. We also focus on what comes next—which of the things learned this semester do students want to keep hold of and carry forward? How might those gains inform their work in the coming semester? What are their hopes and fears for the next part of their learning?

How have they grown, how will they continue to grow, and what strategies will they use for consolidating what they have learned so far? At the end of this discussion I pray for the students, and on that note we conclude the semester.

It is not perfect. Sometimes (though not always) it can be a challenge to secure full attendance at the final class session, given that the teaching semester is over and the exam already completed. Grades are still posted later, though I send narrative commentary to each student before posting them online. I have no hard evidence for what this change

This article is adapted from Chapter 9 of On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom (Eerdmans, 2018). It is published here by permission. https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7360/onchristian-teaching.aspx

References Budd Rowe, M. (1974). Relation of wait-time and rewards to the development of language, logic, and fate control: Part II: Rewards.

Journal of Research in Science Teaching 11, (4) 291–308.

Budd Rowe, M. (1986) Wait time: Slowing down may be a way of speeding up! Journal of Teacher Education 37, 43–50.

Heschel, A. J. (1951). The Sabbath: Its meaning for modern man. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Company.

Huebner, D. E. (1999). Curriculum as concern for man’s temporality. In V. H. Mahwah (Ed.), The lure of the transcendent: Collected essays by Dwayne E. Huebner. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Jensen, R. (1997). Systematic theology Vol. 1: The triune God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 236.

Footnotes 1. I owe this example to Kurt Schaefer. I have mentioned it in passing in a previous CTJ article.

David is director of the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning and professor of education at Calvin College in Michigan, USA. He is also editor of the International Journal of Christianity and Education. He has written widely on the relationship of Christian faith to education, including in his most recent book, On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom. He also speaks on educational topics internationally, including being a keynote speaker at the upcoming International Transforming Education Conference (ITEC19) this year in Adelaide.

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BEYOND NUMBERS: A Practical Guide to Teaching Math Biblically Katherine A. Loop (2017) Book Review by Peter Muddle When it comes to the time and effort teachers put into their thinking on Christian worldview, the bottom of the pecking order is often mathematics. Whether it is a primary school teacher who has the wonderful opportunity to cover all the key learning areas in their everyday teaching (you can sense my jealousy here), or us secondary mathematics teachers who are very busy, often focused on covering content and preparing students for external testing, whatever the case, mathematics and God don’t seem to go together in many of our Christian school classrooms, sadly.

In her book Beyond Numbers: A Practical Guide to Teaching Math Biblically, Katherine Loop puts together a number of arguments for considering the purpose of mathematics in the context of the life of a Christian and a Christian school, in a way that cannot be ignored. I recently read this wonderful short book on the plane from Sydney to Melbourne (yes it is short), ironically on my way to a PD training event with Christian teachers. I can highly recommend this book for a number of reasons.

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What it is: • Practical • Relevant • Well-considered • A book focused on assisting Christian teachers to encourage them to ensure that God is at the centre of everything that happens in their classrooms What it is not: • Another book on teaching mathematics Christianly that is more a philosophical document without a practical edge that will show teachers how they can do it!

• Heavy to read

I found this a wonderful book to read, and it really spoke to my heart in regard to stoking the fire within me to keep thinking upon what it means to be a Christian teacher of mathematics.

The main premise of the book is to challenge Loop’s experience through her studies—and reflected in our own— that mathematics is a neutral activity without any reference to God whatsoever. Loop argues that if Christ is supreme and in all things and in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1), then surely this includes the realm of mathematics also.

She then cites a number of key encouragements for teachers (e.g. the structure of honeycomb, the shape of red blood cells, etc.), which are arguments supported by mathematicians to show that these elements of God’s creation point back to a thoughtful and caring Creator. The role of the teacher is to open up God’s world to their students in order to see their mathematics as an opportunity to appreciate the consistency and glory of a wonderful Creator and God.

Very helpfully, in the ‘how to’ section, Loop provides this summary:

On the issue of neutrality in mathematics, Loop says this:

I found this a wonderful book to read, and it really spoke to my heart in regard to stoking the fire within me to keep thinking upon what it means to be a Christian teacher of mathematics. I will warn you though, that this great book may make you feel uncomfortable about your current teaching, and addressing the issues raised in this book will increase your workload, because it is so much easier just to teach from a textbook. Easier yes, but . . . faithful to your calling? I will leave that to you to decide.

As Christians we are in continual warfare. We constantly have to fight our tendency to live and think independently from God. The Bible never excludes math from this combat zone. In math, as in everything else, we need to guard against independent thinking – any sort of thinking that encourages us to trust ourselves, operate independently from God, or view something with our own human reason. (p. 21) Further on (p. 25) Loop suggests that in her experience, “While in other subjects I questioned my textbooks and checked out their teaching against Scripture, I simply accepted everything my math book said as infallible.” I read that comment and was immediately reminded of the Chinese proverb that suggests that if you want to know what water feels like, don’t ask a fish. We can so easily soak up the culture we exist in, that we cease to analyse it carefully, especially in regard to the things presented to us as curriculum through our textbooks, which tend to drive curriculum in many of the mathematics classrooms in Australian Christian schools (or is that just mine?).

Loop then goes on to give examples of what a faithful approach to teaching and learning in mathematics would look like.

The section that resonated most strongly with me was her emphasis on the practical side of mathematics. Maths is everywhere, and Loop encourages teachers to move away from their textbooks more often, and engage in activities that will help their students to respond to the needs of the world around them, and find their place in it.

In short, whenever you teach math, strive to: • Show the student how the concept reveals God’s character/design, • Teach them to really know how each rule or technique describes a real-life principle God created and sustains, and • Equip them to use the concept practically.

To help convey these ideas, you will frequently want to incorporate • The history of math, and • The practicality of math. (pp. 50-51)

When it comes to Beyond Numbers: A Practical Guide to Teaching Math Biblically, I am going to order a number of copies and work through this book with my mathematics team this year. I highly recommend it.

Pete is the director of studies and instructional leadership at St Philip’s Christian College in Gosford on the Central Coast of NSW. Pete is married to Heidi and his 3 daughters Emily, Grace, and Amy attend SPCC with their dad. Pete has been working in the area of Christian curriculum in mathematics for many years, and lectures with the National Institute for Christian Education and Alphacrucis.

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Celebrating 40 Years: The National Institute for Christian Education Part 2

An interview with Dr Richard Edlin

This year the National Institute for Christian Education celebrates 40 years of providing high quality postgraduate education for teachers. The Christian Teachers Journal interviewed Dr Richard Edlin (principal from 1999 to 2008) to hear some of his reflections on the history of the Institute. This is the second in a series of four articles where we speak with early principals.

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CTJ: Can you describe your experience of joining the Institute?

RE: A wonderful philosophical foundation had been laid by people like Stuart Fowler, Doug Blomberg, Jack Mechielsen, and Ian lambert. It was easy slotting into this context. The beginnings of discussions with NSW Dept of Education concerning course accreditation and degree-granting status also had already been commenced, and it was great to build upon and extend this work.

I had learned so much during my time working with Christian schools across the globe as the assistant director (missions) with the Association of Christian Schools International, and through working with mission schools. It had been a joy to wrestle with some of what I’d learned in many speaking engagements and in writing The Cause of Christian Education.

Although we were basically content with what we were doing prior to coming to the Institute, after several months of prayer, discussion, and soul-searching, and after completing my doctoral studies, my wife Annette and I were convinced that it was the God-honouring thing to do, to accept the repeated invitation to join as principal.

CTJ: What changes occurred during your time?

RE: The Institute grew substantially in the number of students studying in degree programs. The degree programs grew from just one qualification to four qualifications. New courses and qualifications were developed in response to student need; to update material, and to respond to changing government requirements. I was encouraged by the way students responded to the courses and grew in their capacity to implement biblically faithful teaching practice.

One vital development was the MEd (Leadership) degree.

This stood alongside the regular MEd, giving access to postgraduate study for non-teachers like board members and interested parents who also wanted to learn about a biblically faithful, reformational way of understanding education.

Finally, through the developing expertise of Annette and others, and with the evolution of ICT processes and access, we began the progression of moving Institute courses from paper-based to ICT-supported distance education using a learning management system.

CTJ: What were the challenges you faced?

CTJ: What was the driving vision for the Institute for Christian Education?

RE: Our driving vision was to celebrate a genuinely dynamic, robust, and reformed vision in education, both in concept and in practice, through strategies that enabled not only individual teachers, but also schools’ entire teaching bodies, to engage in the study—hence our school-based residential programmes for our primary service audience, the Christian Parent Controlled Schools (CPCS, now CEN) group of schools. We wanted our courses to be accessible and also internationally recognised through governmental accreditation processes. We wanted to develop deeper insight through encouraging scholarship and being a part of the global, reformational Christian education community, both through harnessing overseas expertise to help us here in Australia, and also through making available what we were learning here to other nations.

RE: Financing was always a challenge. As Jack Mechielsen used to say, tertiary education always needs an underwriter, be it the government or some other support cluster. For us, it was the CEN community of schools, who in fact also owned the National Institute. However, with more students, there was a corresponding increase in the need for underwriting funding. Some schools understood this and were very generous in their support. They knew that biblically authentic teacher professional development was as essential as electricity to a genuine, dynamic Christian school.

Tightening of government education requirements led to a move away from course accreditation through the College of Christian Higher Education (which the Institute had jointly started with the teacher education arm of Christian Community Schools) to course accreditation through Morling College, the Baptist theological college in Sydney. While the Institute was no longer able to offer stand-alone, week-long accredited courses, teachers could still participate in schoolbased face-to-face week-long ‘intensives’ as part of Morling College courses.

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Too little priority is given by teachers and by schools to the provision of sustained, longitudinal, compulsory teacher professional development from a biblically faithful perspective.

CTJ: Who were the significant people involved during your time?

RE: Rod Thompson, Ken Dickens, Doug Blomberg, Geoff Beech, Jill Ireland, Jack Mechielsen, and Brian van Wageningen were all significant people to me in this period.

CTJ: What have you been doing since your time with the Institute?

RE: In 2008, my wife and I set up a small faith mission called Edserv International. Through this vehicle, I have been working in international Christian education as an advisor and critical friend; researching key topics; writing and publishing materials in the area of Christian scholarship and education; tutoring in various courses for Morling College and the Institute.

We spent five years living in South Korea where Kosin University provided us with a base of operations to serve Christian educators with a deliberate focus on those in the developing world. In more recent times, we have continued this work from our home in the Illawarra, with Annette also working part-time at the University of Wollongong College among international students.

It has been a joy to continue writing. Among other materials, The Cause of Christian Education is now in its 4th edition. I enjoyed writing a little guide for parents entitled Thinking About Schooling: Christians Considering Schooling Options for Their Children. As a grandparent, I also was concerned that there seemed to be nothing out there to help young children understand why their parents had chosen to use the Christian school to support their education. As a result, in 2019, and with the support of Southern Highlands Christian School, the children’s picture book Sally and Sam Go to Christian School was produced. It’s being marketed through CEN’s Nurture magazine and sold through the CEN eStore.

It’s a source of much joy to receive emails and comments from Christian teachers and schools across Australia and around the world who have been touched and enlivened through their contact with the Institute and Edserv International.

CTJ: How do you view the health of Christian education in Australia today?

RE: The potential is tremendous, but because of the prevailing secular winds sweeping across Australia; the dualistic perspective that dominates much Christian thinking; the false but pervasive perspective in the Christian community that most education is a religiously neutral activity, progress in the provision of faithful Christian education has not been as great as should be the case.

Too little priority is given by teachers and by schools to the provision of sustained, longitudinal, compulsory teacher professional development from a biblically faithful perspective. One-day conferences are great for mutual encouragement, but they have very little impact of themselves on teacher thinking and classroom practice.

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I wonder if I’ve ever said this before: education is never neutral. The initial teacher training of most CEN teachers has been conducted in contexts where educational issues such as child development, key learning areas, school structures, and relationships, etc., have been addressed as if the God of the Bible is an irrelevance to educational thinking and practice.

Schools need to make sustained study with groups like the National Institute for Christian Education a funded and compulsory part of life for all of their teachers.

CTJ: Would you have any suggestions or encouragement to those in positions of school leadership today?

RE: I would recommend school leadership in CEN schools require teachers to undertake accredited study with the Institute and make funding and time release available to their teachers to facilitate this professional learning. Because tertiary education needs an underwriter, and because of its importance to the faithful operation of our schools, I urge all CEN schools to financially support the general operations of the Institute. I also challenge the CEN community to institute a programme of school evaluation and self-improvement that looks at the authenticity of our Christian profession in every aspect of school life.

Student Reflection: Dr Fiona Partridge I commenced my Master of Education studies with the National Institute for Christian Education just before Dr Richard Edlin was appointed to the role of principal. From a student’s perspective, it was clear Richard and his wife Annette’s passion and experience working with other tertiary institutions was strengthening the Institute, expanding the organisation’s capacity and commitment to provide Christian tertiary education. Online services and resources for students began to grow rapidly in the immediate years to come.

Richard didn’t mince his words when ‘advertising’ study with the Institute to Christian educators. He challenged all to consider who they were serving— “No neutrality!” was a strong repeated message, questioning teachers as to whether their classroom practice really aligned to a biblical view of the world, or whether it was serving self or the many competing idols of our time.

Soon after finishing my study I was invited to become an adjunct lecturer with the Institute. The demand and growth of the programs was such that the organisation needed more part-time staff. I am so grateful for the opportunities Richard gave me to grow in this area of my professional (and personal) life. Those early years as a lecturer certainly stretched and developed my thinking in Christian education in many ways—and I’m still learning today.

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