Seeking a New Paradigm of Educating: 1990 to 2010
One of Reformed Christianity’s strengths lies in its persisting effort
to fathom what the faith implies for the various dimensions of life.
—James D. Bratt
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Defining Calvinist/Reformed Christian day school education
The time period from the mid-1980s through approximately 2010 saw Calvinist/Reformed Christian educators further define and apply their approach to educating Christianly in response to a changing world.
During these years, movement leaders sought to define both what being Reformed means and the essence of Calvinist/Reformed day school education. Below are landmark publications from this era:
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- Our World Belongs to God: A Contemporary Testimony (1984). This document sought to apply Reformed thinking to all spheres of life and is still so applicable today. Here is why I believe it is critical today. My favorite phrase from this short creed is the following: “In education we seek to acknowledge the Lord by promoting schools and teaching in which the light of his Word shines in all learning. There students, of whatever ability, are treated as those who bear God's image and have a place in his plan” (Paragraph 53).
- Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (1985). Albert Wolters from the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto wrote what became one of the most quoted books on what constitutes a Reformational worldview.
- Viewpoints: Exploring the Reformed Vision - Selected Readings (1992), ed. James D. Bratt. Although not specifically about education, this collection of readings demonstrates how Reformed Christians can live out their faith in their public and private lives.
- From Vision to Action: The Basis and Purpose of Christian Schools (1993), published by Christian Schools International. This short pamphlet attempts to “maintain the centrality of Scripture in the education of our children and to speak about it in language that is fresh and meaningful” (p.4).
- The Christian School and the Christian Story (1993) by John Bolt. The author identifies both secular and Christian threats to Christian education and reminds readers we need to be about God’s story that connects memory, vision, and mission.
- Reformed: What It Means, Why it Matters (2001) by Robert De Moor. In a short, accessible book De Moor lays out the topic and the terminology along with great study questions.
- Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living (2002) by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. This book should be required reading for all faculty involved in Christian education! We will be providing a copy of this book to attendees and we look forward to hearing Dr. Plantinga speak at our conference.
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New Directions for Calvinist Day School Education
The manifestation of Kuyperian transformationalist thinking has always been a significant stream in Calvinist/Reformed education—held highly as the ideal to aim for, yet not fully realized by schools in practice. There was a gnawing sense that the lofty missions of Calvinist/Reformed schools were not producing world-changing students, a feeling borne out years later by the results of the first Cardus Education Survey. The Survey found that Christian schools were producing personally moral students who were not particularly outward looking or engaged in impacting the world beyond their family or local community.
Christian school leaders came together at three summer conferences in Chicago from 1986-1988 at the invitation of Steve Vryhof and Joel Brouwer to address the gaps between rich philosophy/heritage and mediocre practice as well as to brainstorm how Christian schools might prepare for the future. Although in public education administration at the time, I had the privilege of attending the 1988 Chicago Conference. For me, it was a career-altering event. I was so encouraged by the level of passion for Christian education and the urgency to imagine how Christian education needed to change to meet the future.
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The conference leaders produced a short summary of the conference series entitled 12 Affirmations: Reformed Christian Schooling for the 21st Century. It was intended for easy access as a study guide for teachers, parents, and churches. The 12 Affirmations were updated and published as 12 Affirmations 2.0: Christian Schooling for a Changing World following an interactive workshop at a 2008 CSI leadership convention. These affirmations fed a new vision for living out a reformational approach that is manifested today in the Christian Deeper Learning movement (to be explored next time.)
In 1993, after a year of study at the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship, six Christian educators published A Vision with a Task: Christian Schooling for Responsive Discipleship. This book addresses mission, vision, curriculum, pedagogy, and communities with substantive recommendations for change. The vision of this book is stated on the back cover: “An educational community that unveils gifts, shares burdens, and enables a new generation of responsible disciples to seek shalom in the world.” Beautiful!
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Despite these calls for change, much of Calvinist/Reformed Christian education continued in traditional fashion, operating in many ways similar to their public education neighbors. To be fair, there were outliers that were seeking alternative ways to educate in transformative ways. They were generally more educationally progressive, ethnically diverse, and focused on justice/outreach to their local/global community. Dawn Treader Christian School, founded in an urban setting in Paterson, New Jersey in 1977, inspired the opening of Mustard Seed in 1979 in Hoboken, New Jersey. In 1981, The Potter’s House in Grandville, Michigan began meeting in a church basement with 12 students and two volunteer teachers; now it is a thriving school of 620.
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Daystar Academy in downtown Chicago, founded in the late 90s, is now flourishing as an International Baccalaureate World School, offering “faith-based, culturally-engaged, and globally-minded education.” These schools found affinity with and/or direction/support from the Calvinist/Reformed philosophy and served as new models of “responsive discipleship.” In Canada, educational leaders like Ren Siebenga pioneered project-based learning at two Christian schools in Ontario and advocated for deeper levels of student engagement and service in their learning experiences.
For better or worse, Calvinist/Reformed schools often originate from, and are supported by, a conservative coalition of parents who in their respect for tradition are sometimes suspicious of educational reform efforts. An example of phenomenon happened in 1993, when outcome-based education championed by William Spady became a cultural hot button with many conservative Christian parents questioning if this movement was a slippery slope into cultural relativism. Other Christian leaders, such as one of our Engage speakers, Ron Polinder, saw debate as an opportunity to lean into what it means to be a Calvinist/Reformed educator, leading his staff at Rehoboth Christian School to develop 40 beautiful outcome statements that typify excellent Calvinist/Reformed thinking.
While trying to better define what Calvinist/Reformed educators were moving toward and yet simultaneously some of the larger CSI schools experiencing declining enrollment, Bruce Hekman’s article “Deep Change or Slow Death” in 2005 struck a nerve with Christian school leaders. The article was widely circulated among CSI leaders and served as a wake-up call. His chart below gives a quick understanding of the kinds of changes that were happening in and around Christian education.
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In the mid 2000s, it became clear that the long feared breakdown of the “three legged stool (the partnership between home, Christian school, and the church to educate a child) was very much becoming a reality. The CRC Report on Christian Education in 2005 painted a realistic, yet discouraging picture for Christian school leaders. While affirming Christian education’s value, the CRC itself was shrinking, so schools were now depending on parents to pay over 90% of their operating revenue as opposed to 65% thirty years before. While it had been the case that a clear majority of CRC parents sent their children to Christian schools, there were now many other less expensive options. Public funding initiatives for parochial schools had gone down in flaming defeats in Michigan and Ontario, although Alberta and BC provided public funding options. What research could be mustered to counter the political sentiment against public funding for faith-based schools? Was there evidence that Christian education made a difference? It was more than past time to seek some research answers to this critical question. The Cardus Education Survey (funded by a CRC donor) was the first to examine the effects of Christian education. The California Table II gathering in 2009 set the stage for individuals from Canada and the US to discuss Christian education around the results of the Survey. In summary, the question being asked: Is Christian education making progress toward its ideal vision? In a 1985 article “Christian Education: Necessary or Nice?,” my friend, mentor, and former boss, Holland Christian Schools Superintendent Stan Koster, wrote these words of challenge:
Our Christian school ought to be about the task of joyful learning. If we believe culture and creation are the Lord’s, that he made and is Lord over them, then we ought to teach our children to enjoy them. Christian education in the reformed tradition has always had an emphasis on affirming culture in creation, rather than denying it, or fleeing from it. We can only do that if we recognize that joy comes in reconciliation. We along with all humanity and creation must be reconciled to God. So while we teach them about our culture (and others) and about creation, we need to go beyond that to teach them the joy that comes from doing the reconciling work of God in the world as his agents. With current global issues hanging over the heads of many of our young people it is sometimes difficult for them to be joyful about their immediate surroundings, and even to be cynical at times about these things. . . . Enjoyment in service, reconciling a broken world to the Lord, is a major goal for Christian education.
I would like to think we are making some progress toward this vision of joyful learning! Next time we will consider Schools Embodying a Transforming Vision: Deeper Learning, Missional Schools, and Global Connections.
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Sincerely,
The Engage Conference Planning Team
Tim Van Soelen
Erik Ellefsen
Dan Beerens
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