From Three to One: Advancing Christian Education in Ontario

I travelled home from an out of town event yesterday evening and reflected on the good things that happen when you leave your familiar surroundings. It’s both good to break out of routine, and then eventually return back to it refreshed with perspective and renewed clarity. This is about to happen for most of the LCES staff who will switch roles and become students themselves this Thursday and Friday as they attend a convention.

“A Life of Grace & Adventure” is the theme for this event which will have 800+ educators descend on Redeemer University College’s campus for the annual fall educator convention. Edifide, whose tag line is “for those with faith in education” organizes this event. Bookended by keynote speakers, those who attend self-select options for five workshop sessions on topics, resources, and opportunities related to JK-12 education. Plenty of relationship building and reacquainting goes on in between sessions as teachers look to reaffirm the “what,” “why,” and “how” of what is their vocational calling; to faithfully guide and instruct our students.

Provincially, we live in changing times. This will be the last convention organized in this fashion. Three organizations that presently serve Christian education in Ontario as unique and distinct organizations are poised to become one new organization by summer 2018. The interests of teachers (Edifide), administrators (OCSAA), and schools (OACS) will all be united under a new name and vision. Our staff and board are actively praying for God’s guidance in this important step believing it is bold step in to the future.  

Please pray for the teachers, presenters, and organizers at the convention this week. We trust that by God’s grace the experiences they take in will bless their daily work of teaching and guiding God’s children here at LCES.

SJ

Counting the Moments and Numbering the Days In a Christian School

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

At several part-time jobs in my high school and college years I worked at tasks that seemed to make the clock stand still, or on the worst of days - seem to go backwards. “Has it really only been 20 minutes I’ve been doing this? It feels like hours!”

Believe it or not, tomorrow morning marks six weeks since the start of our school year. Twenty-eight
days of instruction have taken place at LCES since the bell first rang to commence the 57 th year of
Christian education at LCES. I can assure you that time does not stand still here at school.
Students have started to learn how to read, tried out new sports, met new friends, practiced new art
techniques, and have dug deeper into a well-known Bible stories for meaning. Some math concepts
have been reviewed, others have been taught for the first time. New English and French vocabulary and language constructions have been practiced. People and lands far away and close by have been studied. Local government structures have been examined and fish fossils from long ago have been admired. New songs have been sung, and instrument skills practiced. Challenging cross country races and high-paced soccer games have taken place. Students have made chili and apple crisp, taught younger students how to use Chromebooks, sang songs of praise in chapels. With their teachers as their guide, students have celebrated success and walked the challenging road of reconciliation and renewal when things went wrong.

What does this all add up to? Is there something more to all this than just being busy?

By their nature, elementary schools are busy communities. There is a momentum to the collective
efforts of students and teachers and being around it is exciting and infectious. All of that energy and
“busyness” however, is not only to keep us occupied and look impressive. The sum total of all we do
here is to aim for wisdom, the kind that comes from the fear of the Lord.

Lord, help us to number our days and use them well for your kingdom.

SJ

How do we measure up? Comparing choices in education.

My father used to work for a company that manufactured RV’s. Gleaming new units were sent off the factory floor on their way to a lifetime of use with customers all over North America. During his time there he watched with interest as the company refined their product by reviewing how decades later customers found the vehicle to be everthing from exceptional to disappointing in the areas of design, function, reliability, cost efficiency, and drivability. Year after year, things were affirmed as good choices or rejected as bad design.

There is a parallel for us in education. Part of my Thanksgiving break had me digging a little deeper into the results of the 2016 Cardus Education Survey data. (See their good work at https://www.cardus.ca/research/education)This initiative is the second (first in 2012) aimed to use credible public-sector research methods to compare how coast-to-coast graduates of independent religious schools differ from their peers when they reach the ages of 24-39. It’s a very lengthy document (here if interested); here are some highlights for you:

Graduates of Evangelical Protestant Education:

·         …show no difference with public school graduates in being fully employed, but a greater likelihood of being in managerial or professional roles. Educational attainment after high school indistinct from public school.

·         …are more likely to be married, but just as likely to be divorced or cohabitate; increased likelihood of eating, praying, and reading the Bible together as a family; less interested in creativity for their work; just as inclined to look for work that fulfils a religious calling as public school graduates; social ties just as diverse as those of public school graduates.

·         …are as trusting and confident in society and its institutions as public school graduates; they trust religion to a significantly greater degree yet are no less likely to see society as hostile to their values.

·         …are part of a school sector significantly more likely to form graduates who attend church, observe religious disciplines, and strengthen their relationship with God than public school graduates.

·         …are much more likely than public school graduates to donate money and to go on relief and mission trips.

·         ….are equally engaged in public life as their public school peers; more likely to volunteer in non-congregational organizations.

·         …have more exposure to STEM courses than public school graduates; less likely to believe technology and science will produce opportunities in the future.

·         ...have a significantly more positive view of their secondary education than public school graduates; believe that they were prepared for life after high school to a greater degree than the public school graduates.

This is an enormous study and isn’t specifically measuring LCES. It is, however, food for thought as we do the important work of nurturing God’s children every day. SJ

Teachers as Students: Measuring Learning

“I thought they already knew everything!”

This was the response last week when I wished a student well on Thursday at the start of a long weekend. He was a little confused and disappointed that we were not having school on Friday, because he wanted to continue on with some of the activities his class had underway. I explained to him that the teachers were going to switch and become students for the day, learning how to do something they hadn’t done before. Obviously it was a surprise to him that teachers too have to continue to learn.

Last Friday all of our teachers were at school for the first PD day of the year. That day was invaluable as we move forward with the next step of a new venture at LCES. A long-standing pattern for decades has been that every other year students in grades three through eight at our school participated in the Canadian Test of Basic Skills in the areas of Math, Science, Language Arts, and Information management students. Some may recall this test by association with the white and green pages and filled in dots on an answer page that are sent away to be processed by a computer.

We are replacing that aging test with something we believe offers significant advantages to our school as a whole, as well as each teacher as they work with individual students. We are quite excited about beginning MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) and are preparing to administer this test twice this school year, once in January, and then again in May. Expect to receive more specific details early in January about how this will work with students in grades one through eight and how we see it shaping future instruction and learning at LCES. It is valuable to us to have an outside organization verify the good things that happen in our classrooms each day.

I can recall once having to pass an orientation test proving I could navigate successfully with a compass and find my way to a particular goal. Our new MAP testing tool will be very much like that compass; a valuable tool (one of many) that helps to guide our progress towards quality, Christian education at our school.

SJ