A Bright Spot for a Sober Subject

Because I wish all the parents of our students could have been at our parent-teacher's meeting last night, and because even if you're not a parent of one or more of our students, you might benefit, I'm going to do something of a blow-by-blow retelling of what we heard.  Mark N., our school board chairman, delivered the message.  In general terms, it was about the need to keep secular culture from becoming part of Christian School culture.

Much of this will be directly from my notes, in sound-bite form.  Many "quotes" will have minor editing to compensate for my truncated note-taking or to explain what I understood to be the intended meaning.

--It's comparatively easy to observe and even to manage a problem, but not easy to bring about definitive change.

--Bringing about definitive change is complicated by the fact that it often takes effort from more than one person to effect change.

--The word "gapiose" is a homemade word that means a gap of undetermined (and perhaps indefinable) size.  This word was used late in the presentation to refer to the space between secular and Christian culture.

--Hebrews 11:9 tells us that Abraham (a God-follower) was a stranger in a foreign country (among people who did not follow God).  Christians are strangers in the world of secular culture.

--Secular and Christian cultures do not run parallel, but run counter to each other.

--Children typically engage the world around them primarily with their eyes and ears.  To what extent can our children engage with the culture without becoming assimilated?

--We can't live like natives [in a secular culture] and be an alien at the same time [citizen of the heavenly country].

--We must be on guard against the possibility of our children becoming assimilated into secular culture.

--Please don't let your children come to school and contribute to popular [secular] culture.  In such a situation, the weaker creature becomes a victim of the stronger.  In effect, the less informed are made to feel less "with it" than those who are highly informed--regarding secular culture.  (This was a temporary shift to a second-person focus.)

--Our school should never be the place where secular and sacred cultures compete.

--Our community can benefit from the synergistic effect of families, schools, and churches working together [to support efforts to nurture a Christian culture and to resist being assimilated by secular culture].

******************

Mark named movies, secular music, and sports as elements of popular culture that students sometimes seem to have too much access to.  He reminded us that not having radio or TV in our homes represents a very insignificant means of control if we exercise no restraint in the use of the internet via cell phones or otherwise--where all the same things can be accessed.

In a timely reference to impending events, Mark referenced the Superbowl as an element of popular culture.

*****************

I endorse Mark's message, and heard in it many things that I have said or written myself.  I can't remember that much was said about video games--another time-wasting, critical-thinking-killing black-hole preoccupation.

I wished to hear from the parents gathered there what they would like for teachers to do who listen in on promotion of secular culture among students, but I didn't ask.  I probably hear less of it than if I hadn't taken some decisive measures to curb it in the past.

I liked hearing what Paul H. said about providing interesting and useful activities for children to engage in alongside their parents as a way of combating the tendency for children to get sucked into less worthwhile activities.  That's something that homeschooling parents and maybe "farmer parents" usually "get," but I'm not sure that nearly all parents of classroom-schooled children do.  So it was really nice to hear from someone who does.

Even if parents of classroom-schooled students do "get it," they often feel that their hands are tied because they feel that "being supportive" of school efforts demands that schoolwork trumps family-planned activities.  I'm sure that some students are not above using school obligations in an unwarranted way--as a ticket to freedom from onerous household chores, etc., and some teachers do not act mindfully regarding what they require of students, so this is not entirely a parent-created problem.

Another parent wondered aloud if even the tiniest signal from a parent--with reference to popular culture--is not often magnified by a child when it's retold among peers.  I can easily believe this, given what I know about the dynamics of peer pressure.

*****************

For the parent-teacher meeting we spent most of the evening around tables decorated with a Kansas'-birthday theme--154 years ago on Jan. 29.  On a cold, rainy evening, the inside space was bright with sunflowers and golden wheat bouquets, thanks to some of the grade school teachers who pulled it together.  We started with hot drinks and continued after Mark's talk with carry-in finger foods.  Discussion continued around the tables over snacks.  I feel sorry for those of you who missed it.