• Successful education at any level involves both inspiration and instruction. This speaks of touching the heart as well as the head. Effective teaching and effective learning really requires a good blend of the two.
• Successful education involves appropriation and application. Appropriation simply means to take ownership, or to transfer that which is universal to a personal level. Appropriation might be better described as “make it mine,” while application might be better described as “make it real.” It is the “lab” component – learning how to take things that have been learned academically and apply them. It is one of the great challenges of formal education, no matter what venue, to make quality instruction both personal and relevant for students.
• Successful education involves patience and practice. By patience I mean not as much moment by moment patience, but more endurance, or sticking to something over time. Twelve years stretches out a long way in front of a Kindergartner and it involves patience to make it. Sometimes those with college degrees are accused of not having practical “common sense.” While that may or may not be true, the reality is that employers often value a college degree nearly as much for what it means in this area of patience as any other. Practice I would describe as just the development of capability over time in an area – probably a combination of all the preceding factors combined and the fulfillment of education.

At Valley Christian School, we must credit a vast majority of our success on the fact that our foundational text book, the Bible, is completely inspired by Almighty God who knows and understands all things, and it is profitable for instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16 KJV). From the Bible, the rest of our curriculum is derived. We take great care that the curriculum presents material that is aligned with the Bible. In doing so, we can have meaningful and insightful discussions on a wide array of topics that are pertinent for our times.

While reading these first couple of points, I was reminded of the verse that states that “we are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul and with all of our mind (Matt. 22:37 KJV). The joy of Christian education is the freedom to instruct the heart and the mind in the ways of our LORD.

Our curriculum and methodology works to make appropriation and application a reality for each of our students. Our faculty is continually evaluating the material that he or she is presenting and the presentation of the material so that it reaches each student where he or she is at. When the teacher senses that he or she has not made that connection, he or she strives to understand where the breakdown has occurred. One powerful tool that we have access to is the Holy Spirit. When presented with such as situation, we can go to the throne of God to seek wisdom and understanding to bridge that disconnect between the student and the subject matter. There have been countless times when the God, through the Holy Spirit, instructs, demonstrates the steps needed to be taken to generate success in the student.

In our present culture, patience and practice have almost become bywords, words that are detestable. We live in and with such instantaneousness at every turn that we want what we want, and we want it now. The sound, successful education of an individual does not happen instantaneously. Such education takes time and work on the part of all that are involved – student, parent, and teacher. When any one of those three components is not fully devoted to the mission, to the long haul; the final product has the potential of being less than what was anticipated. At Valley Christian School, the school board has mapped out what they would like our students to “look like” when he or she graduates. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can have the patience and the practice to instill, inculcate, and cultivate the qualities and skills that match that ideal.

Ron Brace

Wolf, Greg, “Successful education has many components”, Midwest Ag Journal,     September 28, 2009