Please join St. Paul’s Episcopal Day School as we celebrate Episcopal School Sunday on October 25th at the 9:00 service.
From time to time, it is important for all of us who are educators and Christians to be thinking about the question, “Just what are we feeding our children?” What are we offering, as shepherds in Episcopal Schools, for our students to ingest and digest? From all that our schools teach and embody, what are our children grabbing onto for food, for that which will sustain their lives?
Some would say that we offer a lot of competition, stress, and entertainment. The result is that we are feeding a lot of wrong things to our children, resulting in an emerging culture of young people that cannot think for themselves or live with themselves apart from the various modes of stimulation at their fingertips. Certainly we are aware of some of the casualties of a culture that forces young people to find their worth as human beings by comparing themselves to others or through every conceivable external avenue other than the human heart and soul. Truly, we have reason to be concerned about what our young people are “taking in,” from the world around them, and how our schools are contributing to that poor diet.
Fortunately, Episcopal schools are replete with shepherds, with adults who know their students (just as Jesus spoke of the Good Shepherd who knows his sheep), who view them not only as students, but as human beings. These are people who take in the larger picture of the children they teach, concerned as they are not only about their intellects, but their hearts, souls, and bodies. They devote their lives to these students every day, knowing just how precious these young vessels are and how sacred their mission is in guiding them. In doing all of this, they are the mirrors of God for an entire generation.
The shepherds in our schools concern themselves not only with facts and figures, with grades, and class rankings, but with the internal tools by which young people learn. For it is in understanding that knowledge is applied, indeed it is the very thing that is left when all of the facts and figures are forgotten, as they often are! Likewise, it is through understanding that we learn to pull all of the bits of knowledge together, into a coherent view of the world and a sense of how we should live our lives. Through understanding, knowledge begins to truly matter.
Our shepherds at St. Paul’s understand this process as well as any group I’ve ever been associated with. From our Board to our faculty and staff we work hard to instill in all of our children a joy of learning by understanding the global view and how they will have an opportunity to impact the lives of so many generations that follow. God has blessed us with shepherds who have a heart for the children they teach. These are people who know that it truly matters to be feeding our young people the right things, knowing that the food that best sustains our lives is that which is served at the table of community, balance, and purpose in life – a table where God is thanked on a regular basis. Fortunately that table can be found at St. Paul’s Episcopal Day School, where knowledge and understanding together truly constitute a feast. Rich Webb |
