Denver Christian Schools

The Basis For Christian Education

Denver Christian Schools provides an education with Christ at its foundation. Students educated from this perspective learn to think critically and wisely about the world, see how Biblical truth applies to all aspects of life, and practice integrating their faith and learning as they develop a worldview that prepares them for service in the Kingdom of God.

The Scope and Function of Christian Schools

Who are the agents to provide this education?  If children need such comprehensive training in such an all-embracing way of faith and life, who is responsible to make it available?  The answer must be Christian parents.  However, since much of this is beyond their competence, parents call on two agencies for help; the church and the school.  The church, of course,  plays a vast and strategic role in religious nurture.  However, because general education and general culture are beyond both her calling and competence, they become the responsibility of the Christian school.

What then is the scope and function of such a school?  It is to be a school in the best tradition of schools.  It is not a fringe movement in society, negative, sectarian, or devisive.  It is rather an agency of Christian culture in the life of a Christian community.  To be a school in this sense requires that its task be defined and limited.  In general, together with the church and home, it exists for the development of the child of God into a man or woman of God, "perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."  The point emphasized here, however, is that the school must be the school; that is, it has its own unique task to perform.  The school is essentially to provide education which will be formal, liberal, total, and humane -- always in the Christian perspective.  It is such education which results in the development of the person as a human and rational-moral being in the image of God.  This means the school must teach those subjects which best address the whole child, the Kingdom child.

In recognizing the child as a social being who must be equipped to become a productive member of society, the Christian school must provide students with basic skills which they can develop and refine and thus assume their responsibilities in society.

Christian schools must therefore develop curricula which will do what the school (in distinction from church and home) is uniquely equipped to do.  The primary task of the school is two-fold.  Its first objective is to set forth and gradually unfold a Christian system of thought, unified and concrete, of truth, and of goodness and beauty.  Second, students must be taught the history of human thought and behavior, sympathetically and honestly.  At the same time, students must be taught to view all this critically, in the light of Christian presuppositions and philosophy.  In this growth process students develop their own Christian view of life and the world which has been espoused by the school and Christian community, learn to identify with it, and live out of it.

Curricula is vitally important in the process described above.  It is the vehicle by which this system of thought is conveyed to students.  The school must carefully select, develop, and interpret subject areas which are basic to a thorough and comprehensive education.  These curricula divisions are as follows:

Religion:  Knowledge of religions, church history, Christian doctrine, and Christian ethics; always involving a challenge to respond in faith and obedience to the Lord.

Humanities:  Knowledge of man in the history of civilization, from ancient to modern times:  important data, relationships between parts, the inner spirit of movements, and the ideas which have shaped history.  Included in this area are the moral issues involved in the tensions and conflicts of history.

Knowledge of man through literature and the arts:  the heights and degradation of human nature; the achieve­ments of man in music, art, and drama; insights through great literature into cultures and societies and the human heart; the moral dimension of life as revealed in each.

Knowledge of man through the expressive arts:  drawing, painting, sculpture, and music.

Science and Mathematics:  Knowledge of the world within, around, and beyond.  Its laws as revelatory of God in His everlasting power and divinity, and in His infinite wisdom:  man as inextricably part of nature, subordinate to it; but also above it, master of it, and the designer of culture.

Basic Skills:  Knowledge of man as a worker, fulfilling the demand to be fruitful, subduing the earth, "dressing" it in praise of its Creator.

Educational Objectives

Each of the above is an area of divine revelation and sets forth an essential curriculum area of education.

In order to approach the purpose of our school within a curriculum framework, there must be a number of educational objectives which encompass all subject areas.  These objectives must permeate all instruction in all classes on a day-to- day basis.

(a) The establishment of a Christian values system.

The students are led to see that at every turn man is confronted with choices in life.  These choices involve discrimination between the important and the trivial, the good and the better, the permanent and the transitory, the spiritual and the material, the expedient and the proper, the enabling and the debasing, the selfish and the selfless.  We seek to help the students grow in Christian wisdom.

(b) The development of a love for learning.

This involves leading students into the riches and excitement of knowledge.  We seek to stimulate students to an awareness of problems, to intellectual curiosity, and to a desire to investigate and prove what God has created and what He has enabled man to discover and develop.  The joy and pride of intellectual accomplish­ments are nurtured.

(d) The development of skills needed in the pursuit of learning.

This involves:

1)  a refinement and perfection of the basic skills of elementary education.

2)  the broader disciplines of study; organizational skills, though processes, written and oral expres­sion.

 (e) The development of the unique potential of each individual as image bearer of God.

Such opportunities are given in choir, band, art, drama, athletics, writing, the science laboratory, term papers, and special projects in many departments and clubs.  Testing by the guidance department and individual counseling by teachers and counselors seek to direct the students to identify their own God-given abilities, capacities, and interests.

 (f) The development of a sense of Christian service.

Students must be taught that the Christian must serve rather than be served.  Service implies at once a life of diligence, or exertion, and of contribution to the welfare of others and their societies.  Stress of Christian living implies that students more earnestly ask, "What can I contribute to life?", not "What can I get out of life?"  The development of such an attitude is nurtured by instruction in the Christian religion and the principles of Scripture, exposure to the needs of societies, and the quiet example of the public life of Christian teachers.

 (g) The development of physical, emotional, and mental health.

Through classes in health, hygiene, physical education, school sponsored social activities, and personal counseling, students learn to be physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy.  The emotional and mental health of students is a primary concern when constructing curriculum, and in the develop­ment of teacher pedagogy.

Guidelines for Establishing a Priority of Subject Areas and Class Selections

Both our purpose and our goals must give direction to the crucial decisions to be made regarding a) which subjects to offer; b) which subjects will be mandatory; c) what subject content and classroom objectives will achieve maximum benefit to students.  Thus, for example, we must ask whether handicrafts are as "good" for a student as a course in American Literature, or whether a course in speech is not as "good" as one in American Literature.  We may well conclude that American Literature, well taught, is far more able to reach the inner, the moral, and the religious person than the others.  While a hierarchy of subjects must be established on the foregoing purpose and goals, the validity of the order assigned will depend upon the way in which the selected subject areas are taught.