At a recent Cohort Principal’s Meeting the topic of discussion was Change. We all know that change is part of life, good change, bad change and loose change. Years ago, our school made a big change to Classical Christian Education which in many ways was an intentional change to undo the changes progressive education had implemented over the years. So, what many might have seen at the time to be a bold change for a little school like ours, it was really a safe return to what historically functioned best, based on goodness, truth and beauty’s role in producing virtue and wisdom.
At this same meeting, one of the principals shared how more parents, now aware of the great harms of technology, are looking for low tech learning environments. When I was in teachers’ collage, I wrote a paper advocating the upside of technology used in the classroom, unaware of the detrimental dehumanizing influence these innovations were and would have on generations to come, and naively believing these ‘tools’ of learning were neutral in themselves.
Consider, it has just been in the last year that Ontario School Boards are advocating evidenced based reading instruction utilizing phonemic awareness and part to whole explicit phonics to teach children to read. Many schools like Verideia fortunately had decided not to change and abandon this evidenced based reading instruction at a time when the masses sadly adopted the fad of the day, a “change for change’s sake” approach.
Perfection is immutable, but for things imperfect, to change is the way to perfect them.
– Feltham
If we don’t embrace change, we are probably stuck, or worse going backwards in life, so we must be wise in what changes we pursue. God never changes so we can trust in Him to help us change to be holy as He is holy and that’s the most important change of all.
