What Makes a Christian School Different

So teaching in a Christian school, I have quickly learned that my students know there is something different about their education. However, I think they have a hard time putting their finger on it. They forget sometimes that they are learning the same stuff as everyone else, but just with a different perspective, through different glasses to put it sort of like John Calvin.

In my senior English class, we just finished up Beowulf, a fairly standard text in a British Literature survey course, which is what most senior get in a literature class this year. We of course looked at the Biblical themes found in Beowulf and if Beowulf is a Christ figure and stuff like that. The kids handled it all well.

Then, one day, one of my students says with great amazement in her voice, "Mrs. Talen, my friends that go to the public school just finished reading Beowulf too." It is apparent that she cannot believe her public school friends read the same thing that she did.

"Yes," I reply, trying not to sound as amused as I am, "It is a pretty standard piece of literature. It is part of the cannon that most high school students read."

I found this both funny and a little sad. It is too bad that my students have not yet fully understood what being in but not of the world really means. They do not yet fully see how to make their faith apply to all of their life. I pray that I can make that a little more clearer to them in this year.

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