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Teachers at PCS teach from a framework of Big Ideas.

December 03, 2018
By Emory Latta

Teachers at PCS teach from a framework of Big Ideas. Big ideas are the core of a subject and need to be uncovered to provide understanding for the student.

Big ideas have everything to do with one's worldview. If we believe that life's totality is encompassed by just what we see and hear, and if one's worldview is that a person's existence begins at birth and ends at death, the entire perspective of their education is affected. The naturalistic, secular, atheistic worldview will be exposed every day. Missed opportunities are the great tragedy in the Christian school when the teacher is a believer but teaches without a perspective, pedagogy, and direction of gospel Truth. There are several key elements that affect our identification of Big Ideas:

Image bearers

Students are image bearers of Christ that have thought, meaning, purpose, emotions, and an eternal soul. Every day in the classroom teachers teach on the dawn of eternity.

Purpose of education

The purpose of education is redemption. It is to live in understanding that we are in a fallen, broken world that has become distorted by sin. Redemption is not a matter of applying a spiritual or supernatural dimension to creaturely life that is lacking, rather it is to shed new light and life to what was there all along (Wolters, 2005, p. 71).

The interconnectedness of every subject

Order is fundamental to Christian understanding as chaos does not randomly become beautiful order (J. Hughes, 2014, personal communication). Logic and reason are intertwined throughout Scripture, biology, physics, math, literature, philosophy, art, poetry, and human movement (dance and athletics).

Little t's in the Big T

Truth is uncovered in creation. The “hidden wholeness” is uncovered through one’s study of creation (Palmer, 2007).  All of God’s created truths point to the Truth of His existence and love for creation and the student. Teachers must be attuned to the alignment of the truths and help them encounter them.

- Emory Latta

References

Palmer, P.J. (2007). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of teaching and life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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