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Why is it imperative that Christian educators have a Christian philosophy of education?
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Christian educators must have a Christian philosophy of education because it will drive how they teach, what they perceive as important, how they respond to and view students, how they work alongside parents to, “train up the child in the way they should go,” and how they integrate Christianity into each lesson, each day, how they manage the classroom, and so forth. A Christian philosophy of education, for example, will perceive each child as valuable and important, made in the image and likeness of God. No effort in teaching and helping that child can ever be lost or wasted in this worldview. This is in stark contrast to the utilitarian philosophy common in modern public education which does consider it a wasted effort to tutor or do small group work with students who are “too low” and won’t get a higher score on the end-of-year test. A Christian philosophy will also include the concepts of charity, grace, mercy, and kindness, and will work to lead the child to Christ.
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If we do not have a Christian philosophy of education, how can we teach our students to develop one, and how can we teach with a Christian world view?
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If our philosophy is defined as “a person’s belief system about the world,” then it is imperative that we have a Christian base philosophy. Without that, we not be able to appropriately pass down our Biblical knowledge, values, and truth. Our goal should be to mold our students’ beliefs into a Biblical worldview so they can make better judgements throughout their lives.
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The mission of our school is to provide exactly that- parents send their kids to a Christian school specifically because we do have a Christian philosophy! Students need to see us living out that example so that the importance of their faith tradition go to future generations.
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Because education is one of the highest callings. Christ himself focused on helping others. We also need to be in a position to help others. Education needs to be more than just helping students become college and career ready. While that is important, we necessarily have to help form the whole person.