6 What Is the Case for Christian Education?
Devon and his wife were seriously considering sending their children to private Christian school. Their oldest child was already in kindergarten in the local public school. Yet already, Devon and his wife were feeling uncomfortable with some of the things that they saw, not so much for their kindergartener but more clearly for the instruction of older children in the school. Or maybe it wasn’t what they saw but instead what they didn’t see. Devon and his wife were heavily involved in their church, including with its marvelously inspirational childcare and instructional program for children on Sunday mornings during the church services. Their kindergartener’s public school setting had none of the rich references to the biblical corpus that undergirds Western civilization. It was almost as if their kindergartener was receiving only thin gruel for instruction rather than the spiritual and civilizational feast Devon and his wife wanted for their children. They knew that they would soon be enrolling their kindergartener in Christian school. It was only a matter of time.
Justification
Recognize how unfortunate it is that Christian education must continually justify itself in the minds and hearts of the parents who send their children to private Christian schools. Why shouldn’t Christian parents get to freely choose private Christian school, naturally and automatically, without forcing the choice? The reason, of course, is the peculiar Supreme Court ban on religious instruction in public schools and the concomitant cost of private schooling. If private Christian schools were free, as they effectively are in states having tuition voucher systems, parents would have little or no need to justify Christian education, which, tuition aside, tends to naturally justify itself. But when parents must make significant financial investments in their children’s K-12 private Christian school education, they must to some degree and in some manner justify doing so. That justification is harder for some and easier for others. Consider the following common and compelling grounds, making the case for Christian education.
Smart
Christian schools can have the special status of being smart schools, schools where students may freely exhibit their intellectual curiosity and revel in learning to their greater capacity. Schools are, or should be, places of learning. In school, of all places, students shouldn’t have to conceal their interest in how the world works and what conditions, aspirations, and attributes have gotten humankind into the position that it is. Yet that spirit of free, eager, confident, and joyful inquiry isn’t present in many schools, where programs may center instead on getting students up to state benchmarks and not necessarily further. Students who want more, who want not just to meet basic knowledge and skill standards but to evaluate conditions, synthesize views, and challenge themselves to fully develop their God-given gifts, may find fewer opportunities to do so in programs that focus their resources on students meeting minimum standards. Traditional school programs don’t always reward intellectual prowess. Those schools and their general student population may even discourage students who stand out for aspiring to more. Christian schools, though, instead serve a private market of parents who are already seeking an exceptional education for their children, in its spiritual content. Christian schools can be exceptional not only in their spiritual content but also in their commitment to develop each child to their full God-given capacity. Your child can be smart in Christian school, indeed valued, respected, and rewarded for it.
Sound
Christian schools also seek to be highly sound educational programs in the whole development of each student. Discrete instructional objectives remain important, but a Christian school’s emphasis is on the integrated development of the whole student as a child of God and sibling to the risen Christ. Christian schools do well preparing students for standardized examinations that qualify students for vocational programs and higher education in preferred and competitive colleges and universities. But Christian schools moreover prepare students to be honorable children, faithful spouses, and responsible parents, modeling Christ-like character and behavior. Christian schools also prepare students to be model citizens, diligent employees, creative artists, responsible business owners, and bold, servant-like leaders, all in the Spirit and under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Christian schools instruct not just to academic and behavioral standards but also according to the life, words, and perfect character of Jesus Christ. If you want your children to be sound of mind and pure of heart, entrust their instruction to a Christian school.
Wise
As intellectually curious, well rounded, and just plain smart and sharp as Christian schools want their students to be, Christian education promotes wisdom above factual knowledge. When the Lord urges his followers to be both shrewd while also innocent, he sets a model for students at Christian schools. Christian schools help students learn about and be wary of the ways and wiles of the world but also innocent of causing the harm those ways and wiles wreak. Christian schools seek to help students turn the knowledge that they learn into good and effective action. The Christian principle is that it isn’t what you know as much as what you do with it. Faith involves right action, not just right thinking. Good intention isn’t sufficient. Sound actions must follow good intentions for the Christian to exhibit the heart and integrity of Christ. Christian teachers are thus constantly on the lookout to remind students of the consequences of their thinking and actions. One must continually give account, not just to authorities who may observe one’s actions but to God who sees all, even what is in one’s heart. Christian wisdom roots itself in a God-centered life, with a heart set on pursuing his righteous desires. Christian schools teach that all wisdom dwells in Christ, leading to a righteous life. If you want your children to be sound and wise, entrust their education to a Christian school.
Excellent
A Christian education is thus an excellent education, the best education available, because it encourages students to pursue the perfect character of Jesus Christ. Christian schools, like other schools, set high expectations for both student academics and student behavior, but then exhibit even greater interest in student development and character in the image of Christ. Christian educators also express and inculcate the attitude that all things are possible for those who rely on Christ. Christian education thus fosters in students a character of fruitful and joyful striving after his excellence. That striving, though, isn’t neurotic, as if Christian educators expect students to be perfect. To the contrary, Christian educators know the depth of human brokenness, error, and frailty. Christian education gives students room for trial and error, to fail and yet learn from trying. Christian education doesn’t place the burden on any student of being assumed to be always good, smart, or excellent because Christianity instead recognizes all as fallen. Yet Christian education places the goal of excellence within each student’s reach, as possible in Christ, in whatever way that Christ has gifted them.
Formative
Christian education is thus fundamentally formative. Christian education equips students for flourishing Christian life, valuing, preserving, and forming Christian virtues in students whom families commit to the schools. By putting Christ first, Christian education ensures that students develop their gifts and capacities to the fullest, to serve God in his creation in just the way that God gifted them. God fashions and equips us each differently, even if with greatly elastic and largely overlapping capacities. Christian education holds students accountable to the highest standards within each student’s gifts, yet with the fullest sensitivity for the trial and error of development, and greatest grace and mercy. A Christian education is for all students who wish to develop their gifts, while also developing the Christian character that helps individuals form families and flourish.
Active
A Christian education thus seeks to actively engage students in their learning. Smaller class sizes often give teachers in Christian schools greater opportunity for hands-on instruction. Paired work, group work, and teamwork may follow individualized instruction, developing students’ social and emotional skills. Given Christ’s servant heart, students in Christian schools also frequently engage in service-learning projects, applying their new learning for the beneficial use of others. Students may, for instance, use their new reading, planning, and presentation skills to teach and mentor younger students within the school. Students may also work on art, music, or craft service projects, honing their skills while benefiting the school community, their church, or a local nursing home. Students also use their musical, vocal, dance, and performance skills in chapel worship services and other school religious celebrations. The integration of faith throughout the curriculum encourages students to identify their instruction with their own Christian identity and values, and to evaluate and discuss the impact of their learning on their Christian conduct and character. Spiritual practices like prayer, song, scripture studies, and holding and raising hands in worship services increase student activity and engagement. Christian education supplies an active education promoting full student development.
Embodied
Christian education also helps students embody the values, skills, and practices that the K-12 curriculum teaches them. Christianity perceives knowledge and wisdom not so much to be commodities exchanged in school transactions but instead to be personal attributes, encountered, adopted, and acted out, much as Christians regard Christ to embody love, wisdom, and truth. The goal of Christian education isn’t to convey learning to students in a transactional manner as much as to help students become like Christ, as a student acquires the character of the master. To embody what one learns is to practice it and live it out, until the learning becomes a personal attribute. God is love, not merely loving. Christ is the truth, not merely a truthteller. What is in one’s heart soon becomes what one acts out. Christian education seeks to help students keep Christ in the heart and mind, so that their actions reflect the Lord whom they represent and embody. Christian schools help their students become the image and likeness of their Lord, meaning that they adopt the qualities and teachings for which we know him.
Applied
Christian education in that sense offers applied instruction rather than abstract or theoretical instruction. Christian education models the attributes it seeks to instill in students, in teacher-student relationships and in peer relationships. Christian school behavioral programs mirror the biblical principles that the curriculum teaches students, especially to love others as one loves oneself. Students hold one another accountable to Christian norms and values, communicated not just in lessons and discussions but also in prayer, song, and worship. School officials maintain a structured environment, reinforced as necessary with frequent and firm, but forgiving and procedurally fair, correction, focused on natural consequences. Christian school teachers exemplify the qualities of grace, forgiveness, patience, and perseverance that they model for students. Christian school culture has a relational focus with strong teacher-student and peer-to-peer relationships. Instruction typically includes contexts and scenarios testing student decision making, consistent with biblical norms. The expectation is that students will be able to apply their Christian values across course subjects, in common and relatable settings, for a living faith and active ethic.
Evaluative
Because Christian schools integrate a biblical worldview across all subjects, Christian education also fosters critical thinking in its students, from that biblical perspective. Scripture tests everything. A biblical worldview is sufficiently clear, principled, and distinct that students can hardly encounter a subject without evaluating its scriptural alignment. Christian school teachers, of course, prompt students to do so in every subject. Evaluating literature, history, social studies, art, music, and other subjects isn’t simply a matter of taste but also of consistency with Christian principles. Students of Christian schools thus learn how to evaluate premises, opinions, and other assertions against an objective standard, indeed a timeless standard. They learn not to take every assertion as equally valid or as a given. Christian students learn to identify issues and evaluate and approve solutions, consistent with Christian principles, norms, and customs, before enacting them. Christian education thus insulates students from propaganda, group or herd behavior, and bad influences. Entrust your children to Christian school, if you want them to have a clear compass and internal guide.
Supportive
Christian education is also supportive of students’ social and emotional needs. Christian schools cultivate not just a comforting and friendly feel of community but also the character of a family of faith. Kindness, sensitivity, friendship, understanding, and fellowship in the Lord Jesus Christ mark the culture of Christian schools. Christian school communities may include many members of a single church or handful of core supporting churches. Students and parents may know other students and parents not only through their school contacts but also through church. Christian schools may also have two, three, or even more generations within families, who have all attended the school. Graduates of the same Christian school may even have married, creating more interweaving histories and family relationships within the school community. No wonder that Christian school culture can feel as much like a family, where everyone knows, supports, and fully accepts everyone else. Classmates may treat one another more like brothers and sisters, with that same degree of trust, acceptance, and familiarity. Teachers and administrators may well have the same close school connections, having attended the school and having their children attend, making a Christian school one big supportive family.
Alive
Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Christian education, the one thing that most recommends it, is that it treats students as preciously alive. A Christian school regards each student as having infinite worth, formed and blessed by God for eternal life in Jesus Christ. Christian school leaders, teachers, and staff pray earnestly over the school’s students and families, not just publicly at school chapel services and assemblies but also privately on all occasions. And they pray not just for each student’s strength, striving, discipline, development, success, and perseverance but also for their health, recovery, protection, growth, spirit, and soul. Most of all, they pray for each student’s lifelong embrace of the Lord Jesus Christ, for eternal salvation. What more could recommend a Christian school than that it would contribute to your child’s assurance of an eternity with you and your other loved ones in heaven?
Reflection
What do you see as the best case for Christian education? Do you see how a Christian worldview would promote your children’s intellectual curiosity and learning? Do you want your children to have an education that develops them as whole and rounded persons? Do you want your children to be wise but innocent of the world’s ways, for their own protection? Do you want your children to be able to excel in school, to their greatest capacity? Do you believe your children would benefit from greater hands-on activity in a more engaging learning environment, perhaps with smaller class sizes? Do you want your children to acquire and act out a solid ethical framework as their own character? Do you want your children to have practice applying their learning in familiar settings? Would you like your children to be able to evaluate opinions and recommendations from a sound Christian framework, before they act and bear the consequences? Would your children benefit from a school community that has the feel and culture of a big family? Would you appreciate school teachers and leaders praying for your children and their classmates, publicly and privately?
Key Points
Christian schools must justify to parents their tuition investment.
Christian schools promote intellectual curiosity and smart students.
Christian education develops the whole student in integrated manner.
Christian education promotes foresight and wisdom in action.
Christian education promotes and rewards excellence in all things.
Christian education is deeply and richly formative of students.
Christian instruction is hands-on and active, engaging students.
Christian instruction aims for students to embody and act out learning.
Christian education promotes applied learning over abstract theory.
Christian education’s biblical lens helps form evaluative reasoning.
Christian schools are hugely supportive communities, like a big family.
Christian school teachers treat students as of infinite value to eternity.
Read Chapter 7.