Helping Students Learn

Does the learning of LCES students today look the same as your recollection of your elementary school years?

I’ve noticed in my career as an educator that things in schools are constantly changing. This happens as we understand more about how students learn, how their brain and body work together as they explore God’s world, how technology and culture shape them, and how the social nature of a school learning environment both helps and challenges them. We dedicate ourselves to figuring out which learning methods work best for each student. Even the basic recognition that all of our students learn differently is a very different starting point than the education that typified many of their great-grandparents.

Learning happens in a relational context. An excellent example of this is easily noted by observing our Educational Assistants. We are grateful to have three of them (Ms. Bruinsma, Ms. Dykstra, Ms. Moniz) whose presence in our building affirms what we think about learning. They move throughout the entire school connecting with nearly every grade in some way. They are an extra set of hands to help with many tasks, but they do much more than that. Sometimes they are working with one student, other times with a small group, or perhaps the entire class. In some cases they have relationships that span many years, and as result have a wider understanding of students as learners than the current teacher since they move from one grade to the next. This enables them to watch the learning tasks and goals of the classroom and adapt, substitute, or extend them meaningfully for students who need something else. They can expand the variety of learning methods available to achieve the same understanding for all our students. Their presence in classrooms gives direction and affirmation to all of our learners.

I’m thankful for an educational home for our students that continues to adapt in order to create opportunities for great learning with the resources it has available. Join me in praying for wisdom in that pursuit as we aim “to educate children, equipping them for a life of faithful, Christian discipleship.”

SJ  

“I want you to have this”

Three pieces of plastic glued together now sit on my desk right below my computer screen. They were delivered to me by a very young student after a tentative knock on my office door last week. Small hands showed me how the pieces fit together, had been glued, and taped (quite enthusiastically) to keep it together while the glue was drying. I asked for the story behind how this creation came to be, and what I needed to know about it. Without skipping a beat, the student shared. “I like making things, learning how they fit together, and I wanted you to know that I got it all figured out.”

I have to admit that I love visits like this from students. I draw much from them in terms of affirming why we do what we do here at London Christian Elementary. Here’s what this brief interchange reminded me:

Our students start school with a powerful desire to make sense of the world around them. It is easy for an adult to forget the intensity of discovery and sense-making that takes place in childhood. An ever increasing sense of the physical world of God’s creation is expanding every day in their mind to become wider and deeper in complexity, increasing their wonder and fuelling their curiosity. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have a Christian school where the wonder and connected nature of God’s world is affirmed and celebrated every day.

Learning takes place in a relational context. The sharing of this item with me was proof that one of the most exciting things about learning is sharing the outcome of that learning with someone else. I am thankful for Christian educators that pace along with our students to help them put all the pieces together and praise God while they do so. These relationships have powerful, character shaping impact in the growth of faith and worldview for our students.

Learning is both knowing and doing. We need to work with concepts and ideas frequently, but not to the exclusion of hands-on discovery as part of learning and discovery. Students who have made patterns with tiles and felt the “fit” when it all made sense, or those who have collected compost and watched the effects of decomposition by microorganisms themselves will understand these things in more memorable and meaningful ways. We are grateful for a diversity of learning tools and methods at LCES that we can provide for our students as they explore.

I won’t be throwing out this precious gift anytime soon.  SJ

Nostalgia, Stewardship, and Time

A new year is only nine days old. Does it feel normal to write 2017 yet?

Our family went on a virtual field trip over the holidays. With the help of “street view” from Google Maps, I was able to show my children the first home (5000kms away) I have memories of, my walk to school, and the church our family attended. We “travelled” down the country road to my wife’s childhood home and the places she remembered. Much to our children’s delight, these visuals were a trigger for an avalanche of stories from our past. What fun to recount the fond memories and laughable moments!

Things have changed: a second story had been added to my old house, many trees are gone, and there is no trace of the busy dairy farm that was adjacent to my wife’s home of long ago. These all seemed to be reminders that the past is not a place we can return to, or at least as we remember it.

The close of one year and start of a new one reminds us with greater perspective that, one day at a time, God lays before us new opportunities and possibilities and asks us to be wise stewards of them. When we end up in life where we don’t expect to be, or when circumstances cause us to be weary and worn, we may wish to fall back to “how things used to be.“ Perhaps nostalgia is a strong motivator because it shifts us to a place in our memory where we are surrounded by comfort rather than the complexity of making tough choices in new uncharted waters.

Do we choose preservation, or pursue possibility? They probably are not mutually exlusive. God assures us that he has plans to bless and lead us, all for his glory and for his kingdom – as our chapel this morning confirmed. May God find LCES faithful with the possibility and potential He has for us, wherever they take us.  SJ