Christian Teacher Appreciation

Yesterday I shared about the value of teachers, shared some recollections of the best teachers I have had, and in general shared about what makes a great teacher. Everything that I said yesterday would be true of any teacher, at any level, in any setting. There are some additional opportunities and responsibilities that Christian school teachers have, though, that those in secular settings do not have.

A Christian teacher, in a Christian school, has the wonderful responsibility of presenting everything he or she teaches from a biblical perspective, integrating biblical principles into each and every lesson. The Christian school teacher has an opportunity that even Sunday school teachers, youth group leaders and pastors often struggle with, and that is the opportunity to make clear connections between what the Bible says and what the textbook says, between the Bible and every day, real world life.

This does not happen by accident, and it does not even necessarily happen in every Christian school. Sadly, some Christian schools look much the same as their secular counterparts, with the only difference being the word “Christian” in the school’s name and perhaps a prayer or two scattered throughout the day.

I was involved once in trying to start a Christian school. The name selected for the school did not include the word “Christian” and as I was talking about the school around the community several people asked me why it did not. I told them that a large part of the reason was that “Christian” means different things to different people, and there are a lot of people who claim to be Christian yet provide no evidence of that claim in their daily lives. Our goal was that the school and its faculty/staff would speak for itself and that the “Christian-ness” of the school would be evident even if not “advertised.” Actually, the absence of the word “Christian” in the school at which I currently serve is a plus, in my opinion. Instead of Christian School or Christian Academy, this school is Sunshine Bible Academy. I like that a lot, because being true to the Bible and its truth is far more important and more distinctive than what some people mean when they say Christian.

In his book A Christian Paideia, D. Bruce Lockerbie addresses the importance of teachers this way: “A school isn’t ‘Christian’ because it says so on the cornerstone or signboard. There is no such thing as a biblical brick or a charismatic chem lab or a sanctified schoolroom. Only people can be a Christian. A school is Christian–or not!–because of the living members of that school’s population.” I could not say it any better than that. The teachers are what makes any school great or not great–not the facilities, not the textbooks, not the technology. Those things are wonderful, and they are valuable tools, but if you have the grandest facilities, the newest textbooks and the latest technology, but you do not have teachers–specifically, excellent teachers–those things will not amount to much. Likewise, if a Christian school does not have Christian teachers, who are walking with the Lord, growing in their relationship with Him, seeking His guidance and discernment for their daily responsibilities, modeling His love and grace through their interactions with students, and integrating biblical truth into their lessons, the school will be Christian in name only.

I did not attend Christian schools. I was in public schools my entire life, and I had some very good teachers in those schools. And even though I recall very few of my teachers ever being antagonistic toward a biblical worldview–and I am confident that some of them had such a worldview themselves–I was never in a classroom where I was taught how math can demonstrate characteristics of God, how God’s hand is evident throughout human history, how so many elements of the study of science testify to the evidence of a Creator….

Lockerbie goes on to say of Christian educators, “Our role is to teach girls and boys how to read, how to count, how to write, how to listen, how to discern, how to interpret, how to think, how to analyze, how to synthesize, how to critique, how to know. And in that act of knowing, how to acknowledge who God is and what His claims on one’s life may be.” Amen. If you are a Christian educator, thank you. If you are a parent who makes sure that your child gets an education from Christian educators, thank you. And if you received or are receiving an education from Christian educators, thank God for that blessing.