Other schools don't do it this way....

“Other schools don’t do it this way….”

I get so tired of the phrase “the way other schools do it”. I’ve heard this phrase used by many of our students, but also by our teachers, administrators. To me that means that we haven’t articulated what we mean by Christian education very well. When were we called to be just like other schools? If Christian schools are to be just like other schools, then I think that we’ve lost our calling or American-ized it too much.

Whatever happened to being in the world, but not of the world? Whatever happened to, the way other school do it may be wrong? Whatever happened to the way other schools do it may be passé, old school, non-innovative—why can’t we be creative and innovative and do something new and different? Whatever happened to the narrow and straight road where few travel on? Some, quoting my hero Paul, have taken the phrase “being all things to all men” and distorted the phrase in a way that dilutes our uniqueness of a Christian school and expanding the scope of our calling and ability to trying to do everything that the largest of government funded school districts try to do (and aren’t we saying they are not doing it well?).

Now, this is not to say that “other schools” don’t have a good idea. In the free market of ideas, it’s good to see what other schools do and adapt the good ideas that fit at our school, but employing other schools’ ideas just for the sake of “being like other schools” simply dilutes the distinctiveness of our mission and calling and the traditions that have resulted.