Back to school

 

One of the great joys of being a parish priest is working in our local schools. As our children return from their summer holidays, I thought it might be useful just to think about what a church school offers. Parents often prefer church schools even though they might not be able to articulate a reason for this; they instinctively feel that their children will be looked after in a church school. There is a long history in our country of schools being run by churches, long before the government got involved in education. It was the churches that people looked to; perhaps this memory still lingers in our group unconsciousness. 

 

Many of the schools in Herefordshire are church schools. What makes a school distinctly Christian? The headteacher has an important role in developing the vision of the school. This requires a knowledge of educational thinking and practices and offering a vision that is consciously faithful to the Christian tradition. The former requires educational expertise. The latter requires theological understanding.

 

Embedding the vision is the day-to-day work of teachers through careful examination, evaluation, and reflection. This process also requires educational expertise and theological knowledge. These two skills create teaching that results in a distinctly Christian vision. But what really matters in the work of education? I suspect most people regard success in academia and a good career as success. I personally think education is really about forming character. Of course, each person has their own view as to what constitutes strength of character. What is surely true, however, is that there is a distinctly Christian understanding of it. This understanding is based on the idea of community and service informed by Christ's teachings. Education is really important. To illustrate this, I want to end with a letter ported to be written by a holocaust Survivor:

 

Dear teacher,

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness: Gas chambers built by learned engineers; children poisoned by educated doctors; infants killed by train nurses; women and babies shot by high school graduates; so I am suspicious of education. 

My request is to help your students to become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns.

 

Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

​

David