Academic Faithfulness

I am kicking off my reflections for the year with a five-part series on faithfulness.

Our school is a Christian community, a gathering of Christian families, seeking a Christian education from Christian staff. It is intentional and historically – since its foundation – expectant of the kingdom of God work that is done here, amongst its community members. Being faithful in all things is a critical component of how we remain obedient to God’s call on our school. Ultimately, what we do should be motivated by nothing more than a desire for those who look on us to see a community that gives God the glory for all that happens in its midst, with the College – all its people and all its activities – being seen as a beacon pointing to God’s love for all humankind.

One of the most striking teachings of Jesus’ is the parable of the talents (or bags of gold, depending on your translation) in Matthew 25. 

As Christians, our understanding of talents is that they are like bags of gold – they stand out because of their worth to us and to those around us. God’s call on his people is not to take the gift of talents given to us by him and to do nothing with them. Rather, it is to further his kingdom work through our own obedient activities, enhanced by our giftedness.

For all of our history, as a school that covers all the years of primary and secondary education, we have undertaken to partner with Christian parents in the education of their children – mindful of the place God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit has in all that we do. As a school, we design and deliver age-appropriate curriculum across all areas of mandated learning; we also add in our own curriculum to appropriately reflect the Lordship of Jesus over this area of our operations. 

As a Christian School, we must be faithful in our academic pursuits. Teachers must be faithful in the preparation, delivery and reflection of the lessons they teach. They should seek to create a vibrant and inquisitive learning environment for all their students. There should be a shared direction for learning, and individual focus as well. Students should strive to immerse themselves into the experience – not because the teacher is exciting and imaginative (although there’s always a strong possibility it will be like that) but because there is much that God can teach them through the experiences they have in their lessons. 

Schools often promote a culture that seeks for academic excellence. I think that’s great.  In fact, it is what we seek here, too, because of our response to teachings like the parable of the talents. We are not to just do the minimal amount of work – no, God has called us to a much more intentional approach. Staff together with students exploring the gifts and talents given to them by God, then praying for opportunities to use them so that their academic achievements are maximised. Being academically faithful is about achieving good results; it is also about being humble and obedient to the call to hard work, rigour and creating environments where learning can be maximised.

Academic faithfulness will always be a key and prominent component of the daily operations of a Christian School like ours. It will cause us to approach the entry into school for Prep students in a way that sets an immediate culture of God’s love in action, it will drive us to seek to explore curriculum as deeply as we can, it will motivate us to encourage students to independent learning, and it will allow us to introduce learning programs at all levels of the school that acknowledge that God’s gifting of learning abilities varies from student to student, and we as a community need to cater for those differences.

We are human and we fall short. But, we need to aspire to a faithfulness that acknowledges that God is provider, and that God gives us all responsibilities and calls us all to faithful action. He calls us – in all things – to seek, for the others in our lives, experiences that reflect his shalom (the “as it should be when all is restored”). The academic experience at DCC should, in no way more or less than any other experience, be one which gives us regular glimpses of God’s perfect plan. It should be a space where staff and learners alike can serve one another, as the hands and feet of Jesus, in the daily rituals of their lessons. 

I pray they’re the kinds of classroom experiences we curate this year as a community together.

Shalom.