Der Blaue Hund

I was inspired by the Christian Principal's Conference presentations of David Smith of Calvin College and Kuyers Institute. Seldom have I heard someone speak who is able to work the worldview stuff deep into curriculum and pedagogy with such integrity. It left me wondering what sort of action we could take as leaders in Christian Education. Smith referred several times to the curriculum study groups that he was part of as a language teacher in the UK. I was wondering if we could start up something similar on a regional basis. We could begin by studying David's book The Bible and the Task of Teaching by David I. Smith and John Shortt (Nottingham, UK: Stapleford Centre, 2002)over the course of next year in small groups around the province. These could be groups of teachers from one school or teachers in one subject area from several area schools or whoever would like to get together. I suggest that we call these reading groups Der Blaue Hund and that you meet off campus. I'm thinking that we could gather a Lower Mainland BC group to meet at Dublin Crossing every third Friday after school say and we might ask David to pose some questions for us to consider. Let me know what you think.

A Visit to TED

A colleague passed on this TED clip to me the other day, Sir Ken Robinson on the topic, "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" I feel suitably chastised. When I consider the fact that we are created in the image of God, the image of a God who is still in the playful business of making all things new, then I believe that we as Christian school leaders have some serious and playful work to do ourselves. We have created our schools in the image of public schools. We teach our students the way everyone else does. We build our schools the way everyone else does. Why are we surprised when our students look like everyone else does?
So much for the rant. But don't you think we should be on the leading edge of this? We are the ones who know this Creator. We should recognize the urgent need for creativity when it comes to the Kingdom of God making its way in the world. We should be the ones who are dancing, painting ,discovering, designing what that kingdom looks like. Creators are risk takers. Look at the risk the Creator takes with the likes of us. J. Oswald Sanders said, " A great deal more failure is the result of an excess of caution than of bold experimentation with new ideas. The frontiers of the kingdom of God were never advanced by men and women of caution." Check out the link to TED: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66

Annyeong Haseyo

I had the priviledge of spending a week in Korea with our international student coordinator and our development director, visiting our Korean families, seeing some of the sights and getting a feel for the culture out of which many of our students come to us. Ten percent of our students are international and of those, most are from Korea. For me it was a lesson in revising many of my preconceptions. Culture is complex and its no simpler to draw conclusions about 45 international students than it is 45 Canadian students. Korea has a rich and long history, a rapidly changing society, and big challenges in the emerging global economy. There are many reasons that these students are coming to Canada that we need to understand. I know that many of our schools have international students. We say its not about the money. If we place a high value on the relationship we have with parents, and we want to serve them well than it is worth investing something to get to know them. You will be blessed by the experience.