Introduction:

Welcome to Teachers Talking for 2021. As the new year opens up to us, let us begin with gratitude to the Lord for His goodness throughout the past year and for the work of His Spirit in our lives, our colleagues and students as we faced the many struggles and challenges that jolted us in 2020.

The reality of COVID-19 and its impact in our schools revealed the dedication of teachers to their calling and their deep care for the well-being of their students.

With the demands of teaching in this context, Christian teachers can struggle with what it means to unfold God’s story in their educational practice. In the midst of the confusion and chaos of last year, our culture revealed the crisis of the human spirit.  Many children and young people suffered anxiety as they were faced with a different way of seeing their world. They asked questions such as ‘Why does God let this happen?’ and ‘Why can’t we go to school?’

The way we make sense of the world and explore the meaning of reality is the stuff of worldviews. Christian schools are engaging in education in the shadow of a dominant culture that has rejected the God of the Bible from the western imagination. To live in this age of secularism is to inhabit the tension that belief in God is difficult for our children where they are confronted by the story of exclusive humanism and religious pluralism.

A key aim of the Excellence Centre is to bless, inform and encourage teachers in their task. To this end, during Term 1, the Teachers Talking offerings will focus on the theme: A Room with a View: Making sense of the World. We trust these talks will assist you to explore with your students an understanding of worldview with the goal that students will grow to see the world and their purpose in it through God’s eyes.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)

Grace and Peace,

The Team
The Excellence Centre