A Conversation Between Two Principals:
One of my favourite things is to talk about the relevance of Christian Education in our ever-changing world. I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Duncan Todd, Principal at Hamilton District Christian High (HDCH), and hear about how HDCH is making an impact on their students and community and share a little about our student learning here at LCH. If you’re not familiar with our schools, LCH and HDCH share a common Christian heritage as well as vision alignment about the potential of Christian Education in the 21st century.
Among the many things that we touched on in this conversation, there were a few points that struck a chord with me. First of all, while many things in education (think technology and internet) have changed dramatically over the past 10-20 years, our schools remain firmly rooted in the life-changing message of the gospel. Specifically, we talked about how our central focus is to orient our learning, pedagogy, and ultimately our students, more and more towards the person of Jesus Christ. It is through Jesus that we recognize that we are called to love and serve others unconditionally as an expression of our identity in Christ – and we can do this in exciting ways in Christian education. In our conversation, Duncan and I kept circling back to different ways that our teachers connect academic learning with practical living. To put it another way, we talk about both knowing what is right according to Scripture and then also doing something with what we know to be true. Drawing these connections between theory and practice, such as what we are experiencing at LCH in purpose-based learning, has become a major direction in both secular and Christian education.
This was a rich conversation and Duncan is a great resource for those wanting to learn more about education from a Christian perspective in the 21st century. Enjoy!
Tim Bentum
