[quote author="michael jensen"]Well from my observation from my time working at an older school, it was really hard to find especially Maths teachers who fit the profile we were after. Though the school wanted to have Christian staff, it also had an obligation to the parents to provide them with teachers who were qualified. Not as easy as it sounds.

Last night Kath White from Marrickville, in her speech disguised as a question, spoke about the difficulty in getting Maths teachers.

My point to the Synod last night was that if you want to claim to be a Christian school that teaches subjects from the perspective of a Christian worldview then you need to have Christian staff. Non-Christian staff have not come out of darkness into God’s wonderful light and so I find it hard to know how they could teach a Christian worldview properly.

As I mentioned at Synod last night, one of the reasons why I sent my kids to Tyndale Christian School at Blacktown instead of an Anglican school was because I was guaranteed that every staff member at the school was Christian. The head of senior school at Tyndale comes to my church and he says that whilst this policy can be hard to implement, God has always provided the right staff needed.

The training and recruiting motion passed last night will go a long way towards ensuring that Christian staff will be available in the future to teach in Christian and public schools.

Yours in Christ,
Mark

Well yes, true, and fair enough, kinda.

But does this:

subjects from the perspective of a Christian worldview

apply to Maths?

(mind you, I never could understand the point of Maths!)

I have to say I learnt a great deal from my non-Christian and non-evangelical Christian teachers at the school I went to. But I was very glad that Rod West at Trinity also employed many evangelical teachers.

My point to the Synod last night was that if you want to claim to be a Christian school that teaches subjects from the perspective of a Christian worldview then you need to have Christian staff. Non-Christian staff have not come out of darkness into God’s wonderful light and so I find it hard to know how they could teach a Christian worldview properly.

Hmmm
I wonder if this transfers into the community sector. Many agencies find it hard to get competent Christian staff. I believe Anglicare has done a pretty good job in terms of training cousnellors etc, but I have been in many selection panels where the choices were poor among the Chrsitians and excellent among the non-Christians. In fact, I cringe to say this, but often seeing clear expression of being a Christian makes me pause.Too often the accompanying dogmatic baggage is not helpful.

I’ve spoken about this before (it pains me greatly) but my query is “does the ed system have a similar issue?”

[quote author="michael jensen"]Well yes, true, and fair enough, kinda.

But does this:

subjects from the perspective of a Christian worldview

apply to Maths?

(mind you, I never could understand the point of Maths!)

I have to say I learnt a great deal from my non-Christian and non-evangelical Christian teachers at the school I went to. But I was very glad that Rod West at Trinity also employed many evangelical teachers.

My head of senior school at Tyndale friend would say a hearty yes to this question (I’m with you on the Maths thing MPJ). He would argue that in speaking about Maths you would speak about God’s hand in or behind things mathematical etc. Also, he would see that it’s particularly important from a relational sense that all teachers are Christians, no matter what subjects they teach. My dear wife made the point last night that this is especially important in the case of infants and primary teachers.

I agree that we can learn from people from all different types of backgrounds. Remember that I’m a product of public schooling who was converted through SRE. I learnt much from non-Christians.

There are 2 main issues for me. The first is one to do with labels and the expectations that come from such labels. If you say that you’re a Christian school, then as far as I’m concerned you need to live up to the label. I don’t see how having non-Christian staff achieves this. The second issue is to do with what kind of education our diocese should support. I’m not convinced that we should offer schooling that is not “Christian” in the sense that I’ve discussed above.

Now please note I’m not saying that we should give the boot to teachers in our Anglican schools who aren’t Christians. I’m saying that any new appointments should be Christians and that the Diocesan Education Policy should endorse this principle.

Yours in Christ,
Mark

Is there a sensible middle-ground here?

I can understand that in some circumstances a school may need to employ a non-Christian teacher to meet govt requirements etc, and I also acknowledge the argument mentioned by the Archbishop last night, that a ‘mixed’ staff = better educational outcomes.

However surely we can agree that a situation where an Anglican school has none or just a handful of Christian staff is not acceptable.

Given the policy is just stating ‘ideals’ could it not say something like:

* Schools should aim to have a majority of their staff as committed Christian
* Senior teaching staff are expected to be committed Christians with active involvement in a local church

just my 2 cents

G’day,

Jeremy said:

Given the policy is just stating ‘ideals’ could it not say something like:

* Schools should aim to have a majority of their staff as committed Christian
* Senior teaching staff are expected to be committed Christians with active involvement in a local church

Given that the policy states ‘ideals’, I can’t see why we don’t go for the ultimate ideal - all teachers expected to be committed Christians with active involvement in a local church. If you don’t aim for the best you won’t get the best. I don’t think that ideals are the place to use the via media method.

Yours in Christ,
Mark

P.S. It was good to meet you last night Jeremy

[quote author="Jeremy Halcrow"]Is there a sensible middle-ground here?

I agree. To have no Christian teachers would self-evidently be most unsatisfactory. However, to significantly compromise teaching standards by employing less well qualified Christian teachers in preference to better qualified non-Christian teachers also does the students a disservice.

I’m not even sure that the senior staff need necessarily be Christian. The important thing is to employ staff who won’t promote beliefs contrary to Christian ones and won’t criticise or undermine Christian beliefs (apart from honestly acknowledging their own lack of faith when asked). The really important thing in a Christian school is to have regular opportunities for the students to hear about the gospel of Jesus (eg chapel & RE classes) and encourage optional Christian meetings (eg Crusaders) and for students to know who the Christian teachers are so they can watch them modeling Christian behaviour and be approachable for Christian mentoring/discipleship.

[quote author="Angus Johnson"]to significantly compromise teaching standards by employing less well qualified Christian teachers in preference to better qualified non-Christian teachers also does the students a disservice.

Something to be wary of is the notion that ‘qualified’ (ie, having the university’s bit of paper) does not necessarily make one a better teacher.
I think they should be qualified, but that can take place as they work. I have a friend working at Tyndale who has a b CompSci and is doing some teaching of computer studies-type subjects and the school is helping him do a dip Ed.

He doesn’t have the official qualifications, but he is a Christian, and from what I know of him, he’d also be a great teacher.

Something to consider there too.

(I think the ideal at a Christian school would be to have all Christian, qualified, highly skilled and charismatic (not in the happy-clappy sense) teachers)

[quote author="Ian Tyrrell"]Something to be wary of is the notion that ‘qualified’ (ie, having the university’s bit of paper) does not necessarily make one a better teacher.

I entirely agree Ian. When I said ‘qualified’, I certainly didn’t mean just academic qualifications.

It was great to meet you too Mark ;)

BTW this is the first time I’ve been accused of employing

the via media method.

:)

I’m actually closer to your position Mark than you think. I’m enmeshed in a SASC shool community who have had no problems (that I’m aware of) finding godly, qualified staff (eg like my wife!). So I just don’t buy the elite schools argument, which to my ears sometimes sounds a little snobby [something along the lines of.. “We only want teachers with Sydney Uni masters degrees” etc] .

I guess I’m just aware of the politics of the issue. I know we should be setting the bar higher but if we set it too high some of the schools will just ignore it all together.

My real point is that there must be a form of wording that will work, rather than the silence in the draft policy about this issue at present.

that was me BTW

cheers
Jeremy Halcrow

One could do what other non Anglican Christian schools do and wait on God. Absolutely no point having the school if it does not have all Christian teachers and it is not well resourced. Ohh… that is another question that nobody wants to address in these cash strapped low fee times

[quote author="Angus Johnson"]When I said ‘qualified’, I certainly didn’t mean just academic qualifications.

I didn’t think that’s what you meant, just making my opinion known :)
I’ve seen it lots in job ads, especially in IT, where they want ‘qualified’ people… and end up rejecting brilliant self-taught tech guys, and end up with a useless team member who was good at exams.

(I won’t suggest which category I fall into… if either ;))

G’day,

Jeremy “via media” Halcrow said:

My real point is that there must be a form of wording that will work, rather than the silence in the draft policy about this issue at present.

I would agree with you about this if the policy statement was prescriptive, but it’s not. It’s a statement which expresses ideals. It’s then up to the various boards of Anglican Schools as to whether they want to implement these ideals and to figure out how. That’s another matter altogether.

Angus said:

However, to significantly compromise teaching standards by employing less well qualified Christian teachers in preference to better qualified non-Christian teachers also does the students a disservice.

I don’t think that’s the case at Tyndale.

Angus also said:

The important thing is to employ staff who won’t promote beliefs contrary to Christian ones and won’t criticise or undermine Christian beliefs (apart from honestly acknowledging their own lack of faith when asked).

Again, my issue is that you should not advertise a school that employs such staff as being a “Christian” school, because having such staff detracts from that label. You cannot be assured in this situation that what will be taught will be undergirded by a Christian worldview.

Yours in Christ,
Mark

Besides qualifications, surely what matters in the employment of teachers is their relative Soundness (which is more complex than simply ticking/crossing a box in response to a single binary question.) For instance, when employing a Classics Master I’d imagine most schools would prefer to employ Stoics to Epicureans.