TEACHERS TALKING
Talk 3 | Academic Excellence – Is it worth it?
Of course, it depends upon what you mean by academic excellence! Are these two heart orientations – love and achievement in conflict or can love motivate our achievement? My experience of formal education resulted in me mastering a body of knowledge which enabled me to become a teacher, and this shaped how my gifts and energies were used. Having survived the competition of my school’s academic environment, I saw myself as being successful. Reflecting on this now, I see it had a far deeper impact on my sense of self and the world. My schooling gave me an identity as a knower and one who could use my knowledge to gain mastery over the world. Hence, my performance and achievement became a way of living.
After completing school, I became a Christian and discovered a new way of being in the world. Christ’s crucifixion is the ultimate demonstration of self‑giving love. It subverts the performance narrative that is a significant measure of status in contemporary life and introduces the new status, child of God, bestowed by grace. The notion of God’s love, coming to us as a result of Christ’s Gospel work, goes against every instinct of humanity to earn and merit their status before God and others. The resurrection of Jesus enables living to be restored as God intended. Seeing the world through God’s eyes now sees life as a gift and my life as a knower was to experience my life as part of creation’s inter‑dependent whole. Hence, our school communities and classrooms are to be places where the whole‑hearted worship and love for God and love of neighbour is nurtured through the culture and the teaching and learning. Works of achievement are to be turned into works of love.
What might this look like in practice? Consider a Christian school who did an upper primary unit of work in Agriculture. The students learnt about the different types of vegetables, not just by reading the textbook, but by handling them and observing their features in the light of the broader context of plants. Students discuss what vegetables would thrive best in their area. Once they planted the vegetables, they took responsibility to care for and nurture the plants. Understanding this activity is part of God’s creation and the creation/culture mandate, adds richness to their instruction and their purpose in God’s world. Having harvested the vegetables, the students were encouraged to consider how they could serve and bless others with the produce. They cooked meals that became available for those in need.
The knowledge they learnt in this unit was not simply about lots of facts about how to grow a vegetable garden and to be reproduced on the unit test. It is about the relationships: the passion of the teacher for the subject, the student interactions with the subject content, the working together and the outworking of the learning gained through service. The teaching and learning unfolded God’s Story, to love their Creator, to love their neighbours and to care for and develop God’s world.
Parker Palmer says, “the teacher is a mediator between learner and the subject to be learned … I must take responsibility for my mediator role, for the way my mode of teaching exerts a slow but steady formative pressure on my student’s sense of self and the world. I teach more than a body of knowledge and a set of skills. I teach a mode of relationship between the knower and the known, a way of being in the world.
This, then, is reinforced course after course, and will remain with my students long after the facts have faded from their minds.” [1]
We are to help our students to see themselves as image‑bearers whose exam results are not to be absolutised, as they do not define who they are. Excellence, in the Biblical sense, is the way of love, incarnated in the life of Jesus. The educational journey is about the kind of people our students are becoming. We are all familiar with heart-breaking stories of students who achieved excellent exam results but who fail to live wisely. The teacher who loves their students wants them to flourish as human beings, inspired to fulfil their God‑given purpose. Every aspect of the curriculum needs to nurture students to be responsive disciples of Jesus, who use their gifts to serve and bless others. So academic excellence is seen as competence in the knowledge and skills being learnt in the context of the wisdom of living the way of Jesus. This is our noble calling.
May the Spirit of God guide you as you seek to unfold the way of Jesus to your students as you teach them.
“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Ephesians 5: 1, 2
Grace & Peace
The Excellence Centre Team
[1] Parker J Palmer, Education as Spiritual Formation, (Academic Paper 1993)