Teaching Redemptively

Integrated Unit: Wrapup

2011-10-21T13:25:00.002-04:00

Well, it's the end of the week.

I wouldn't say we're "done." I mean, educators are never DONE. There's always another way we could extend the lesson, another application, a list of "oh, we should have done it that way" suggestions for next time. But we're "done" in the scheduling sense." 'But I think our students have gained a much more nuanced understanding of the issues facing churches, charities, and governments. And they're excited about biting off a tiny bit of the problem to tackle in our area.

This morning we sat around and discussed at length an article in the Columbia Free Times about 4 responses to the issues of poverty in SC, especially in the area of government action.
"Four Views on Poverty"

Is a flat tax detrimental to the poor?
Does improved access to education really make the difference for people trying to get out of poverty?
Does SC tax the poor too much, or throw away resources by offering huge incentives to giant corporations like BMW to move here while taxing small businesses?
How do we live out the Gospel among the poor without exacerbating the problem, shoveling it off onto the government, or condescending in our attitudes toward those who need help?
What balance should we strike between government support for ending poverty and nongovernment charity action?

Nobody has easy answers to these questions, but the first step toward being able to do something about it must be wrestling with the problem.

Our culminating activity for the unit requires the "family groups" of students (see Monday's post) to organize some kind of service project. Specifically, we have asked them to target one church in the area and try to connect that church with a local charity -- to provoke people toward some specific action or change of behavior which will help support the charity or alleviate suffering.

At first, the students wanted to do school-ish things: "We're going to make a poster about hunger in the area." That's well and good ... except we don't need to reinvent the wheel here. This isn't "school" in the negative sense where the most "important" tasks usually require writing an essay on the same topic that was handed out to the class last year. We don't need a poster when charities usually have their own promotional materials. We don't need to make a video about child abuse; YouTube has 1000 great PSA videos already.

What we need are connectors: for students to choose an action as their goal, recognize the road blocks that keep people in their target audience from doing something about the goal, and removing those barriers.

Sounds like Kingdom work to me. ;-)

LiveBlogging: Integrated Unit: CHC Workday

2011-10-21T13:11:00.000-04:00

More work!

If you don't know anything about Calvary Home for Children, you should (especially if you live in SC). CHC operates within the state foster system as a private, independent group home for foster kids who are in some of the worst position: they are in "long term" foster care, meaning that their parents' rights have been (or probably will be) terminated.

We've had the joy of working with several CHC kids as students at NCS over the years. Unfortunately, CHC isn't able to accept any teenagers right now so I really miss having CHC kids in our classrooms. They are currently raising money so they can staff another cottage with house parents and take in more kids!!

There's always volunteer work to be done at CHC. Just give them a call and set up a time when you can use your skills. Today the NewCov kids headed over there (it's just a mile down the road from us) to sort food goods in the pantry and pick up rocks. Really... I'm not kidding. They needed to clear the big field of rocks! So-- 3 hours of hard work well done:

Jack Knipe, Sarah, David, and Lauren are sorting and organizing the giant pantry. The typical CHC cottage can house 8 foster kids PLUS the house parents and THEIR kids. So it's a big pantry. lol

Riley and MK lost among the canned goods. lol

Meanwhile.... everybody else picked up rocks. YEAH.

Workin' hard or hardly workin'?

Dusting off those wheelbarrow skills. And sore muscles.

LiveBlog: Integrated Unit: From God to You Ministries

2011-10-19T12:55:00.000-04:00

Wednesday = "Stop talking and let's work" Day!

Despite the pouring-down rain, everybody loaded up into cars and drove up to Greenville to visit From God To You ministries, which provides food and other assistance to families who need it.

The man who runs it does much of the work himself. So having 40 people show up to package 600 bags of food for the families to pick up later saved him so much time! We were done in 45 minutes instead of him working all day.

Here are the hands and feet of the Gospel. That's a lesson worth teaching.

I love it when our NCS alumni come back for a workday!

Working at From God to You ministries

LiveBlog: Integrated Unit -- CHC tour

2011-10-18T13:19:00.001-04:00

OK, enough talking already! Time to go do something....

NCS students went to our local, awesome foster care ministry (just up the street), Calvary Home for Children. CHC has been helping kids for over 5 years, providing a caring environment for many kids who would otherwise be lost in a "system" that struggles to serve long-term foster children.

The students are touring the facilities today to learn about the ministry from director Greg Skipper. On Thursday they'll get to roll up their sleeves and do some volunteer work at CHC.

NCS students touring Calvary Home for Children on 10/18/11

LiveBlogging: Poverty Unit -- SPENT

2011-10-18T10:45:00.001-04:00

No point in reinventing the wheel. This is one of the best simulations I've ever found for teaching people about the way financial hardship can affect nearly any family at any time.

www.playspent.org

We played the game this morning as a group, taking majority votes on hard decisions arising from real-life situations like "You're sick today but you don't get paid any sick days. Do you call in sick or go to work anyway?"

It's funny how the kids didn't recognize the ways they were slipping into the "parent mindset" that they hate so much day to day. When given the prospect of spending $10 they didn't have so their kid could go on a field trip or telling the kid to stay home, a chorus erupted: "Just tell the kid to suck it up!" We teachers spent a lot of time pointing the students toward the emotional and relational effects of the current recession. Low-income families have a much higher incidence of depression, health-problems, stress-related fights, and abuse.

In fact, when given the option of helping a friend move for $50 OR attending their kid's school play (in which the kid was playing a starring role), the initial choice was to blow off the kid's play to earn the $50. Turning that around on the students, we asked them to consider the relational costs of their choices as "parents" in the simulation.

People are more important than things. Or money. We tend to assume that rich people worship money, but actually -- those who are poor fall into that sin just as often (or more).

*I really like Spent because it ends with an opportunity to donate $5 toward a NC charity that assists poor family.

LiveBlogging: Poverty Unit -- teaching time

2011-10-17T14:48:00.000-04:00

Before we will do anything about the problems of this world, we must mourn. (Thanks, Dr Steve Kaufman, for pointing that out in my Covenant MEd coursework.) We don't adjust our view of Kingdom ministry until we understand that the Gospel isn't just a fire escape out of hell. God is at work in the world to reclaim it in His name, and that redemptive work touches families and nations and schools.

If we want our kids to love God and love others as a life-principle, they need to understand the task at hand. The psalmist repeatedly says that a righteous person (or king) is the one who cares for the poor, the oppressed, the widow, the orphan. So our kids need to understand what that looks like.

We spent the afternoon doing short faculty presentations on different social issues: malnutrition and the effect of poverty on the health care issue .... criminal domestic violence and child abuse stats in SC .... the causes and effects of immigration .... the cycle of poverty and poor education .... and the overwhelming cost of war on our veteran in terms of mental health.

It's a heavy afternoon. Plus all the cheap carbs we ate for lunch (remember -- just $3 per person!) left everyone sleepy and sluggish. A perfect example of the problem.

Time to let them mourn.
Tomorrow: moving toward being a part of some solutions.

LiveBlogging: Povery Unit -- Food Costs

2011-10-17T12:28:00.003-04:00

Food prices have more than doubled in the past few years. As more people around the world get enough money to buy food (a good thing!), food costs rise due to increased demand (bad thing). The recent American push toward ethanol fuel derived from corn or soybeans have skyrocketed the price of staple items. Truth is, much of the world is malnourished or undernourished even though actual cases of starvation have gone down.

Students took time this morning to read this article from USNWR:
More Americans in Poverty than Ever

Rising costs of fuel and food + the economic downturn worldwide have squeezed out many jobs in the middle layers of the economy, leaving only poor-paying service jobs at the bottom and high-paying professional jobs at the top (which require tens of thousands of dollars' worth of education to attain). But huge swaths of jobs have disappeared from management, white collar careers that require little education or training, and blue collar manual labor.

*****
This morning, we divided the students into "families" representing a variety of economic situations and family relationships. Some families have only a single parent; others are trying to support both kids and grandma. The family groups worked through a list of common grocery staples to estimate what they cost.

Next, we walked up the road to our local BiLo store. The students had two tasks:
1. Write down the real cost of the foods on your list. Surprise! Surprise! ....more expensive than they thought.
2. Buy your own lunch. You can pool all your family's money together, but no individual is allowed to spend or donate more than $3.

It was a great experience for the kids! Many of them used checkout counters for the first time on their own, juggling unit prices and total prices in a real-world test of arithmetic skills. The patient checkout clerk smiled wanly and said, "Y'all are BRAVE for doing this!" Everybody managed to feed their families pretty well, though our next task (after lunch/recess) will be to analyze the actual nutritional value of the food they were able to purchase.

Some BiLo shots of our "families" shopping:

LiveBlogging: Poverty Unit: KICKOFF

2011-10-17T09:57:00.001-04:00

This morning after Coart's short devotion, we divided the students into groups of 5 and gave them the task of brainstorming the effects of poverty on society. The student groups got a piece of posterboard and a stack of magazines to create a collage of the effects of poverty.

Check them out:

LiveBlogging: Integrated Unit -- Poverty

2011-10-17T07:57:00.000-04:00

For several years, we teachers at NCS have been kicking off each school year with a multi-day, problem-based integrated unit. Almost no one will spend their career sitting in an office reading books then writing essays, but all of us spend our days solving problems with nimble, creative thinking. (We hope.) Problem-based education is on the rise in the best schools because it more naturally connects students to the kinds of thinking and skills they will need for life, not just for the artificial environment we call "school."

So for the past several years we've opened the school year with one of these units. We started in 2007 with Darfur, then studied the Health Care Crisis in 2008, problems that rise with the elderly in 2009, and the worldwide water shortage in 2010. This year we had to move our unit into October as a replacement for our normal big-city field trips. We chose to focus this year's unit on the problems caused by poverty.

The recession has eaten away at most families' budgets, leaving gaping holes in our sense of security. We Americans are used to relying on money to solve our problems, and my students are no exception.

So let's see how this goes. Five days of intense, problem-based, collaborative learning and service ministry with cross-grade groups (6th-12th). Stay tuned!

"Traiin a child in the way she should go...."

2011-10-02T11:01:00.003-04:00

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”

Albert Einstein

The Inherent Problem with Education focused on Grades, Success, or Achievement

2011-03-13T19:39:00.000-04:00

In his article "The Cost of Overemphasizing Achievement," Alfie Kohn offers a well-written, sharply-clear explanation of why a focus on achievement, test scores, or even just "good grades" tends to be counterproductive in the classroom.

Specifically, research indicates that the use of traditional letter or number grades is reliably associated with three consequences.
First, students tend to lose interest in whatever they’re learning. As motivation to get good grades goes up, motivation to explore ideas tends to go down. Second, students try to avoid challenging tasks whenever possible. More difficult assignments, after all, would be seen as an impediment to getting a top grade. Finally, the quality of students’ thinking is less impressive. One study after another shows that creativity and even long-term recall of facts are adversely affected by the use of traditional grades.

I can say that my 9 years of middle/high school classroom experience lines up exactly with Kohn's critique of a grades-driven educational system. Nothing annoys me more than hearing, "Mrs Ramey, will this be on the test?" as the prelude question to every lecture, discussion, discovery, or investigation.

As Kohn points out, kids are too smart to thirst for knowledge when their educational landscape is ruled by quantifiable expectations, benchmarks, percentage grades, and the like. I watch very smart students every day choose the easy way out because they see no reason to jeopardize their God-given leg-up in the achievement game. As a rule, I use a vast mix of assessments in my classroom if possible, and different kinds of projects or test quesions offer each student either challenge or relief once in a while. But it's tough to come up with great ideas all the time.

Parents and teachers must work together to combat the educational culture that ranks "achievement" and "success as measured by a number" as more important than effort, real learning, challenge, and curiosity. The most influential and effective agents of cultural change down through history have rarely been "good students."

Read Kohn's article. It's relatively short, and you don't have to be an education expert to grasp his point.

Cross-posted to Xanga

To Dream of Love

2011-03-01T13:30:00.001-05:00

Love is an overused word. We love our children, love our dogs, love to laugh, and love peanut butter. Having a lover can be beautiful and pure or terrible and wrong. A girl who always loves her little brother may not always like him. We hurt the ones we love. We live for love. We die for love.

Love is a broad and slippery concept. Romantic love alone is as complex as any field of human endeavor and has inspired more expression of form and feeling than any other subject in history. But who can define it?

If love is pure reason we find it cold; if pure emotion we call it foolhardy. Love is magic, we admit, but it doesn’t pay the bills, we warn smitten young people. Indeed, the river of advice for would-be romantics flows endless despite the fact that no sane person claims to have love figured out.

The questions are as timeless as they are vexing: What is it to be in love? How do you find the right one to marry? Can you keep love living through years of life’s changes and strain? We try to lead our young people through the maze, but ultimately they must find their own way. We can only love them.

New Covenant School maintains a theater element as part of its rhetoric program because there is no better way to have vicarious experience—to learn wisdom in a deep way, by embodying the words and actions of others and then reflecting on them for years to come, comparing them to one’s own life experience and slowly unfolding the lessons in full. Hearing wisdom in a lecture once or twice can’t compare with making it part of you forever.

New Covenant School is excited to present A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. Perhaps Shakespeare’s most loved comedy, Dream examines the foibles of love with wit, wry humor, and ingenious irony. Is love a question of conquest? Obedience? Impulse? Magic? To use Shakespeare’s words, does a good marriage come from love or reason, from fancy or constancy? Or are we mortals all bound to make fools of ourselves in the pursuit of true love?

from Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation

2011-02-03T19:10:00.000-05:00

What if education, including higher education, is not primarily about the absorption of ideas and information, but about the formation of hearts and desires? What if we began by appreciating how education not only gets into our head but also (and more fundamentally) grabs us by the gut -- what the New Testament refers to as kardia, "the heart"? What if education was primarily concerned with shaping our hopes and passions -- our visions of "the good life" -- and not merely about the dissemination of data and information as inputs to our thinking? What if the primary work of education was the transforming of our imagination rather than the saturation of our intellect? And what if this had as much to do with our bodies as with our minds?

What if education wasn't first and foremost about what we know, but about what we love?

~from "Introduction," Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, by James K. A. Smith, pp 18-19

Doubting

2011-01-22T13:11:00.002-05:00

Over Christmas my wife shared with me an article that I know is true, but it is good to see someone else put it in print. The gist of it is this: Young people tend to abandon their faith if they grow up in an environment that refuses to let them question that faith. If their parents, pastors, and teachers act defensive, shut them down, or even attack them when they try to raise doubts, they were compliant at home but left the faith once they grew up.

Conversely, young people who were allowed to doubt, question, and discuss the teachings of their faith tend to retain it as adults. If their parents, pastors, and teachers were honest about problems, open to criticism, and made it safe for kids to raise hard questions, those kids respected them and, through them, the faith they embrace. These kids may be more vocal about their doubts, but when they have faith it is real and solid, not a sham to avoid conflict.

Inspired, I asked my high school Bible class to answer, anonymously, these four questions:

1. What is the best reason to doubt the Christian faith?

2. What is the reason you most want to be a lifelong Christian?

3. Why are many Christians hypocrites?

4. What one question about the faith do you most want answered?

To my surprise, the majority answer to Question 1 was the lack of evidence supporting the Bible or personal faith. Answers to Question 2 revolved around wanting to be loved and not wanting to go to Hell.

Question 3 brought a variety of answers, such as the need to feel better by condemning others, fear of losing community, and simple emulation—most Christians they know are hypocrites so it must be the right way.

Half the answers to question 4 either restated concerns about the lack of evidence or raised some issue about the goodness of God. The other half were unique, some highly personal.

These answers support the article in at least one way, that is to show that your children have serious, thoughtful questions about the faith. It is foolish to squelch those questions or to pretend that they have easy answers. Trust that God is strong enough to handle doubts and loving enough to resolve them in His time.

On Grace-Based Parenting: Links

2010-11-07T00:35:00.000-04:00

Two good, short blog posts about grace-based parenting, especially when kids are little.

You Cannot Bind Their Hearts to Christ
@Beauty in Every Place

The Mystery of Discipline
@ I Take Joy

Excuses, Excuses Excuses: How Parents Sometimes Undermine Character Development in Their Children

2010-08-04T15:45:00.001-04:00

The following article was first published in Tri-State Family Magazine (Distributed by The Herald-Dispatch, Huntington, WV). Copyright © 2007 by Dennis E. Bills.

“I am not trying to defend what my child did, BUT . . .” or “I know what my child did was wrong, BUT. . .” As a school administrator, I have heard these words all too many times. Few parents like to think that their child has a behavior problem, but parents who excuse misbehavior risk stunting character development. An important part of character development is learning to take full responsibility for mistakes, accidents, errors, and especially wrongdoing.

Unfortunately, children do not need help excusing bad behavior. They are adept at either explaining it away (“My fist slipped and I accidently hit him”) or generously sharing blame with others (“He hit me first”). Parents who also make excuses are subtly teaching their children that such behavior is not really so bad, and that they can get away with it regardless of their own culpability.

There are several reasons why some parents excuse their children so quickly and easily. Some parents who believe their children are unfairly accused may be overly protective, resulting in blind defensiveness. Other parents cannot accept that alleged misbehavior is really all that bad, failing to understand that perfect children are few and far between. Still other parents are simply unwilling or unable to face their child’s problems. Often they observe the same problems at home and feel helpless to deal with them. They find it easier to deny or excuse misbehavior than to address it head on. Parental excuses for misbehavior usually fall into three categories:

Blame Circumstances

“If such and such had not happened, my child would not have misbehaved.” Other versions include “My child is rowdy because he’s not been feeling well,” “He is disruptive because he is bored,” “If the notes had been sent home on time, she would not have cheated,” and “She hit Sam because they were sitting too close.” While circumstances may sometimes contribute to misbehavior, they are not themselves the cause of it. At some point, children must learn they are responsible for their actions regardless of the circumstances surrounding them.

Blame Other People

“I know my child did wrong, but what are you going to do about that other child?” A common ploy of those who wish to excuse their child’s behavior is to point out what was wrong about another child’s behavior. They do this for two reasons: 1) to minimize their own child’s blame, and 2) to satisfy some notion of justice. While it is important for children to see discipline as fair and impartial, fairness is not nearly as important as taking full responsibility for one’s own actions, regardless of what punishment befalls another. The thought that someone else is not getting what they deserve too easily distracts from the full weight of one’s own guilt. A child who is focused on “fairness” will not be willing to face his or her own responsibility. Likewise, parents who are preoccupied with fairness are stealing from their children even more valuable lessons about personal accountability.

Blame the Brain

“My child has ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder).” When a parent announces this to me, I know to brace myself for two things: 1) the child will likely have behavior issues, and 2) the parents have already begun the process of excusing them. Now, I have no doubt that a real, organic condition known as ADD exists. However, the label is often bandied about apart from a professional diagnosis or without adequate exploration of its causes. ADD is a label for a particular set of symptoms, such as “does not pay attention” and “does not sit still.” It is a description of, but not an excuse for, behavior problems. Even professionals are coming to realize that ADD is often an unhelpful and overly diagnosed label. ADD cannot and should not be made to imply that morally wrong behavior is acceptable, that such children are incapable of doing right, that there might not be additional reasons for misbehavior, and that normal, consistent discipline is inappropriate.

Most parents work very hard to teach children right from wrong, but sometimes they undermine their own efforts by making excuses for them. Parents who excuse misbehavior are not teaching their children to take responsibility for their actions. Children who do not take responsibility for their actions will not adequately recognize bad behavior or have incentive to change. Parents will do better for their children if they help them identify and take responsibility for the full measure of their own wrongdoing—without making excuses.

Post-Publication Note: Fairness and justice is a crucial issue for parents to teach their children. Unfair discipline can cause bitterness and hopelessness within a child, so I believe that parents should fight for fairness in discipline in schools. However, my experience has led me to believe that "fairness" can very frequently be used to deny or distract from the culpability that a child bears for his or her own behavior. A best case scenario would would include encouraging children to take full responsibility for their own behavior while fighting for fairness in school discipline.

For the Kingdom and Eternity, not "For a Job"

2010-05-31T11:43:00.004-04:00

Remy Wilkins on the true purpose of education:
Out of Education

Excerpt (emphasis mine):

Man is called to glorify and enjoy [God] (notice the singular: end, not ends. Glorifying without enjoying or enjoying without glorifying does not fulfill the requirements). Man’s chief end is something that constantly pushes us into the future. This is the answer: education leads us out of the present and into the future.

and

Having no starting point has caused education to be looked upon as the foundation. In the history of the world, salvation through education has been a constant threat. Education apart from the Savior becomes the savior, education apart from slaves becomes the master, the end in itself. But Christians are the servants of the world and in their service they become free. Education for the purpose of career and salary is the new Egypt and we must be led out of education.

A BIG Gospel: It Matters

2010-04-13T18:08:00.000-04:00

This article on the glorious breadth of the Gospel sets a wonderful foundation for understanding why education is so important in God's Kingdom, and why our vision for the students at NCS reaches so far beyond their individual lives.

Has Piper Truncated the Gospel?

Education As Relationship

2010-02-08T00:38:00.001-05:00

[Part 2 of a short series on education for the New Covenant Church newsletter]

Part One: Teaching is More than Information Transfer

“No man is an island.” Thus the 17th century English poet/pastor John Donne summed up the human condition. My individual actions ripple effects into the lives of everyone around me for good or ill. The social nature of human beings, one aspect of our imaging God, profoundly affects the task of education. This major concept in the developing NCS experiment in Grace-based education builds on the core truth that humans were created for community, not hyper-individuality.

I guess it’s no surprise that a nation founded by people who left their own countries to start a better life far from everyone they knew would turn out a nation full of individualists. We reward individual effort and accomplishment far more than we value group unity. In public life, group cohesion breaks down as soon as an individual scents the opportunity to exploit some weakness to his advantage. I’ve heard plenty of complaints both in person and in print from folks who think cooperative learning is foolishly new, unfair to their kid’s accomplishments, and wasteful of time and resources.

I’m not saying that individualism is wrong. I give grades to my students for their individual work. Each of us stands before God individually either condemned by our own sin or redeemed by the work of Jesus Christ.

But a hyper-focus on individualism weakens the unity of the Spirit that binds together God’s people. The Covenant is a communal grace.

Within the Trinity, God Himself enjoys perfect unity and community. When He created man in the Garden of Eden and stamped His image upon us, God made us to beings-in-community. God didn’t leave Adam alone for long – soon Eve provided the companionship that God always intended for His creatures.

Yet the Fall affected even the expression of God’s image in man. Sin destroys community. Immediately after eating the fruit, Adam and Eve “felt” the breach in their relationship with the Creator. Isolation has dogged our path ever since.

How does this relate to education?

I submit that effective education must take place within “community”: within a set of nurturing relationships. The nature of education itself, the stamp of the image of God on both teachers and learners, and the pattern we see from Christ Himself all support “relational teaching.”

No teaching relationship in Scripture exists in a vacuum. Parents are to write God’s law upon their children’s hearts through daily, patient, commonplace conversations. Christ mentored His disciples for three years, living among them. Paul instructs experienced men and women to teach the younger, implying that there’s more at stake here than simply passing around a Life Manual. God Himself enters into a personal relationship with His people, individually shepherding His flock toward glory. No one is in this alone.

It is our nature as image-bearers to be social. Teachers and learners exist in a community, and an educational institution must recognize the value, gifts, and abilities that each student and teacher brings to the table. Whether I recognize it or not, my classroom at NCS is a small microcosm of the Body, each member vital to the healthy functioning of the whole. Relationships are at the core.

As a teacher and a Christian, my lessons aim for the deeper levels, down in the heart where students pay allegiance to their real gods. I mentioned Dr. Bill Davis, of the Covenant College philosophy faculty, in my previous article. In his lecture in one of my classes about worldview as it relates to education, he told us that true education takes place not in the intellect, but at the worldview level. As a teacher, I am not so concerned with my students’ ability to conjugate verbs as I am about their core beliefs. Either we educate Christianly, or we create smart pagans. Education cannot take place in a philosophical vacuum. [Facts may be neutral, but humans aren’t.]

“If your teaching does not reach a student’s worldview presuppositions, then the education is essentially ineffective,” Dr Davis said. His next thought hit me between the eyes: “A student will allow only one type of person to effect lasting change in her worldview beliefs: such instruction must come from someone she loves. And students will love those people who truly model Christ’s love for them-- ‘We love, because He first loved us’ (I Jn 4:19).”

A loving, Christlike teacher can affect the deepest regions of a child’s heart and mind, operating as a partner with parents in the Covenantal upbringing of their children. Those deep waters stir slowly and the effects appear years (decades) after the student leaves the classroom.

Jesus

2010-02-02T17:27:00.003-05:00

This post was written a couple years ago but is indicative of the type of instruction that happens at NCS.

So, today. I was teaching my Bible class. We're going through the gospels. Once again, I found a space to relate pop-culture and education.

So, Jesus performed miracles. This we know. This we laud. We read them as flippantly as if they were bread in a toaster. Those "miracle stories" and "parable fairy tales" pass under our eyes as quickly as the toothbrush on our teeth or the shampoo through our hair. I think those of us reared in evangelical circles let the mystery and enchantment of Christ and his works pass by us.

Today's objective in my lesson plans: Allow students to understand how much of a bad-ass Christ was. Now some are probably shocked at the fact that I put "Christ" and "bad-ass" in the same sentence. Others are immediately "navigating away from this page" because the word "ass" appeared in it at ALL! Others will read on for either a good laugh, a chance for a more critical comment, or a furled brow trying to figure out what I mean.

We began class with a BASIC discussion of philosophy and it's reactions. We started with classicism (straight-laced/symmetrical

l). We brisked over the architectural principles mostly, as today's students demand visuals. Then we ran to the Gothic (bright, crazy). We talked about how the children of the Gothic age cursed its ornamentation. They ran for Neo-classicism. They wanted that symmetry and order again. Then came Romanticism. It screamed of emotional vomit. Countless poems expressed some gushy emotion or another. Quaint, Victorian cottages were filled with knickknacks, overstuffed chairs, tacky wallpaper and towering spires. The reaction? Modernism. We discussed the Great War and its follower. We talked of architecture, art, philosophy, science, etc.

Then we tried to figure out how a philosophy, whose whole design rested on the pinacle of absolutes could have spun the pot of Christianity. What effect did it have? How was Christianity different because society was begging for absolutes, scientific measurement, empericism, and precision?

Students were brave enough and even smart enough to come up with ideas - of course not using the jargon, of:
higher criticism
doctrinal "boxing in" of God and Truth
eliminating the mystical nature of God
belittling the Holy Spirit

Okay - here's where it got good and my objective was coming into play.
We headed BACK to the classical world. We took a journey in time that led us to cheating tax-collectors, as if that aspect of history were much different than our present situation, self-righteous and reputable pedagogues called the Pharisees, and an emperor with as much a self-aggrandizing mentality as the "redneck agenda."

Was Christ a subtle, robed gentleman that would have knocked judges' socks off at a Fabio look-alike contest? Was He a well-groomed Swede with soft hands? With minimal direction students began to see that Christ was not the model on the center insert of our "first Bible" holding dozens of children under a tree in a grassy knoll. He was a go-getter. He was doing things NOBODY had ever done before. He was loving like NOBODY ever assumed one could love. He was befriending everyone BUT the Pharisees. His "band of merry men" weren't the cream of the crop. They were scrappy fisherman with five o'clock shadows and a trail of fish-gut stench happy to be invited by a Rabbi. Christ didn't clamor for title, beg for crown, or shmooze for respect. In fact, in Luke 20:8, Christ wouldn't even give the chief priests a decent answer as to the source of His authority. He didn't flaunt; He did.

In this postmodern age live dozens of Christians. The intentional use of litotes in the last sentence is no doubt a term of agreement for many of my provincial evangelical friends. Nonetheless, this postmodern age has gotten a bum rap. Those of us trapped in the transition between modernism and postmodernism are feeling screwed out of all we held near and dear. Some of us are looking for the hopefulness of what postmodernism holds. Christianity is JUST now being forced into a transition. Denominations that thrived and were even born from modernism are unsure. The confusion is resounding.

Modernism gave us black and white. We know ALL the truth of Christian practice from it. We know how to act socially in light of what Scriptures tell us. Social norms and folkways derived from biblical precepts have been canonized. The mold of order has wrapped us like a Boa. Postmodernism deletes absolutes, negates order, and fosters chaos. God is not the author of confusion so SURELY postmodernism is of Satan.

To argue such is to stab ad hominem at the whole of a generation. That's to say that God must not be on His throne because there were ages in which bad judges ruled the land. Job suffered. Where was God?

Well, He was up on His throne doing just what He knew best. Letting His mercy flow from His justice. He's not unaware that this age, this generation is reacting. He's not trying to find a hole to burrow in. Neither should we. More like the Master, we should DELVE in, face first, and delight in what our progeny has to teach us. My teenage pedagogues have taught me much about loving everyone regardless of creed, race, or philosophy. They've alerted me that this "generation of vipers" might have botched some of God's truth in the attempt at a trade off. True, we cannot afford to sacrifice the veracity of redemption on the altar of communal love, but is it so easy to do the other way around? Shouldn't we strive to KEEP truth and grab the love, mystery, and healing that come with this present philosophy?

We are image bearers of Christ, whether we are Japanese or lesbian, murderer or black, male or cashier. Sin, profession, creed doesn't change our human condition. As Christians, we are called to fix . . . to reform. If we can find the truth or reform music, literature, and art, how much more should we do so of a philosophy that's not pacing at the door to leave. Perhaps postmodernism could be what shakes up this church of Laodicea.

Needless to say, my eighth graders see themselves trapped in a world were sins like "saying bad-ass" have trumped sins like "not loving your neighbor." They're willing to be Republican bigots as long as they're Republican.

We discussed some modern-day bigots. We listened to tracks from "American Idiot" by Green Day. We heard some of the old stuff by Sinead O'Connor and even Bob Marley and the Indigo Girls. Students grappled with the messages. Even though we don't agree with all of them, they saw the artists' desires and push for change. They were willing to speak for what they believe and not trap themselves in a comfortable "God-box."

Later, I asked them to close their eyes. They were guided to "Imagine it. Atlanta, 2007" (it really wasn't a flashback to Sophia from the Golden Girls). I told them to picture a man. He's a nice man, a good man. He's got his head on straight. He's walking all around Atlanta stirring up local politics. He's working grass roots. He has a run-in while walking, with some local hookers. He gives them lots of money, not for services, just for them to be able to eat. He meets up with some drug dealers and does dinner with them. Afterward, He invites a homeless guy over to spend the night. The hookers come over later that night and have pizza and they watch a movie and go home.

I asked students what they'd think of that man. I assumed they'd get my drift. I was shocked with answers like "He's not good because he's condoning their actions." Others claimed, "He might fall into sin because he's spending time with bad people." I asked who they thought this man was. "A bad man," replied one. With a tear on the brim of my lid I realized my pupils had passed right over their Savior, just like the Pharisees, just like the modernists, just like me all because He was unrecognizable as a bona fide bad-ass.

Either way, we're on the wrong track....

2010-01-24T13:08:00.000-05:00

great article on why both legalism and licentiousness stem from a serious misunderstanding of the nature of sin.

Legalism vs Licentiousness

Two excerpts:

The legalist believes he can avoid sin, and manage (if only occasionally) to live sinlessly. If he is right, then the legalist doesn’t need the sinlessness of Jesus, or if he does, he only needs it when he fails to avoid sin. The licentious person believes he has permission to sin. If he is right, then the licentious person doesn’t need Jesus to suffer the penalty for his sin.

What comes next is counterintuitive. Many preachers think that they can cure people of licentiousness by preaching the Law more. This is a good first step, but the Law is only the diagnosis and prognosis. The Law alone isn’t the cure for licentiousness. Preachers sometimes think that Legalism can be cured by really driving the Law home to those who think they are keeping it. Again this is a good first step, but the Law alone cannot cure Legalism either. Why are our churches filled with both the legalists and the licentious? Because our pulpits are not filled with both Law and Gospel.

Teaching is more than Information Transfer

2010-01-11T23:52:00.000-05:00

As a Christian educator, I spend a lot of time thinking about how teaching and Christianity go together. I’ve mentioned before an excellent little book by Al Wolters, Creation Regained, which sums up the basics of how a Reformed worldview affects one’s understanding of Creation and our purpose in it. If you aren’t sure how the Creation, the Fall, and the Gospel fit into everything we humans do on this planet, get a copy of Wolters’s book and chew through those 100 pages.

Likewise, if you’ve spent any time around a New Covenant School faculty member, you have probably heard us use the term “grace-based education” as an attempt to describe what we’re doing at NCS. Applying theology to the task of education leads us to apply the principles of redemptive grace in daily classroom living. It’s a work in progress. Check out the book Teaching Redemptively by Donovan Graham if you’re curious.

The Nature of Education

I’m normally not a big fan of using linguistics to defend a philosophical point, but even the word “education” itself serves as a witness to the communal nature of the task. From the Latin “e + ducere” – “to lead out” – we get our primary label for the work of leading children (mostly) from a state of ignorance and immaturity toward a greater understanding of the world around them and acquiring wisdom. Education demands both a learner and a teacher or model. Self-guided exploration may be very “educational” in one sense, but even a massive dose of it does not equal a balanced education.

If education were nothing more than transferring information from one brain to another, I could solve America’s education woes using Wikipedia articles and free nationwide wi-fi. If raw knowledge were enough to prepare a human being for life in God’s world, why all this emphasis in Scripture on attaining wisdom? Education that stops at knowledge-transfer merely prepares intelligent sinners for a life of rebellion. Like every other human activity, education carries heavy moral and religious overtones.

In fact, I’d like to argue that education (seen holistically as “preparation for living,” not merely gathering information that any 17-year-old can find using her iPhone and an Internet connection) is a subset of discipleship. If every activity of a human being is, in a sense, religious – either directed toward helping God’s Kingdom or rebelling against it – then education is all about worship and worldview.

Thinking about Schools

2009-12-31T15:03:00.001-05:00

We had some conversations with friends of ours over the holidays about schools. Being educators, we seem to collect a regular stream of questions now about schools, education, the classical method, etc. It's kinda cool actually -- to finally have enough experience in a particular field to actually be slightly useful once in a while. ;-)

I think the way that I view education is kinda radical. Not like "WHOA! RADICAL!" in the global sense. But many people find themselves falling into the world's view of an education, or even the regular Christian viewpoint.

The world views education as "something to help you get a job later." After 150 years of public education in America, we've asked our public schools to be everything from cultural stamps (get those immigrants in line!) to morality builders ("character education") to multicultural tolerance machines. But the Industrial Revolution pushed Americans toward an unvarying ideal in our educational system: preparing children to be good workers for the US economy.

We chase math & science when those careers seem important; we value group work because modern businesses need employees who make good team members. Parents want their kids to either be prepared to get a good blue-collar job after tech school or land one of those coveted spots in a top college (with a scholarship to match). Students don't see the value in studying anything "that doesn't help me in life" (as if a 16 year old has any clue about what they "need" for life). I hear so many people talk about school as a place to prepare kids to "be successful in this world." And schools should do that.

But education isn't just about future employment.

Christians realize that the world is bigger than the paycheck, so we tack on more spiritual language. We call schools places where kids should learn morals regardless of their religious backgrounds. (Somehow Americans have a unified moral code?) If we're discussing Christian education, then most people know that they should want God to be "the center of the curriculum"... that Bible classes are important ... that rigorous academics somehow make God happier than non-rigorous academics (whatever that means).

And I'm not saying those things are bad.

I guess I'm noticing that my thinking has shifted, and I don't even really know when it happened. But when I start thinking about a school, my first questions have nothing to do with the academics or moral structure of the place. I'm not thinking first about the denominational allegiance of the teachers. Even methodology doesn't draw my allegiance (though I certainly have my preferances).

Education is a subset of discipleship. The teacher-student relationship is one of the most precious friendships modeled by Christ Himself during His ministry. Ultimately, education is Kingdom work.

If your school doesn't care about kids as individuals -- as their glorious Created selves within God's Kingdom -- then your school doesn't "get it." We're not crafting good workers for the American economy or producing Good Christians to fill pews. The task is bigger than this.

If we teachers do not look beyond the course content and standardized tests and learning goals to see a student's heart, then we are not educating for a life that will extend far beyond this earthly existence.

.... This post merely dips a toe into the mighty ocean. I need to think some more....

Quotable

2009-08-30T19:40:00.004-04:00

God's gracious love produces people who exercise gracious love toward others. No other power in the universe can produce such a heart. Grace always begets grace, and only grace begets grace.

~Greg Bahnsen

Guilt vs Shame in Kids

2009-08-26T14:22:00.001-04:00

NYT reviews a recent psychological study of guilt in children, suggesting that guilt (not shame) is a powerful means by which young children learn to regulate their behavior

Guilt and Atonement on the Path to Adulthood