1
PURPOSE
EXPLORING THE RESEARCH
1
Our Shared Calling
Education is not an end in itself; it is a means to develop a response to our calling in life. Consequently, when we discuss a purpose for education, it must be related to an adequate purpose for living.
âDonovan Graham, Teaching Redemptively1
Three bricklayers are asked: âWhat are you doing?â
The first says, âI am laying bricks.â
The second says, âI am building a church.â
And the third says, âI am building the house of God.â
The first bricklayer has a job. The second has a career.
The third has a calling.
âAngela Duckworth, Grit2
The question of purpose is a question of story. As Steven Garber explains in Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good, âHuman beings are story-shaped people, stretched between what ought to be and what will be. In our imaginings, our longings, at our best and at our worst, we are people whose identities are formed by a narrative that begins at the beginning and ends at the ending.â3 Accordingly, every school has its own storyâwith a beginning, focused on why our schools were founded, how they were founded, and by whom; a middle, which centers on what we do every day as leaders, teachers, and students; and an aspirational end, which identifies what we aim to achieve for our school, for our graduates, for ourselves as educators, and for our communities and societies.
Most schools internationally have attempted to articulate their organizational purpose through mission or vision statements, which point directly to the story that schools desire to tell about themselves. In Christian schools these words may have an explicit or implicit biblical underpinning, or links to particular theological perspectives and local church traditions. The purpose statement for many Christian schools in North America is often grounded in what is referred to as a âbiblical worldview,â while for Church of England schools the terms âChristian visionâ or âChristian ethosâ may be more familiar. Regardless of our preference for a specific term or the intellectual and ecclesiastical history from which it arises, our statements of purpose point fundamentally to the story in which Christian schools locate themselves.
If we are to understand the purpose of our schools, we must understand this story. While in some ways it may appear similar to that of other types of schools, the principal difference is that Christian schools ground their story in the biblical narrative of the Old and New Testaments. In Restoring All Things: Godâs Audacious Plan to Change the World through Everyday People, Warren Cole Smith and John Stonestreet explain,
The Bible is not, or not merely, a book about how to have a better life or how to handle lifeâs problems. It is a book that explains the universe and how God is in the process of redeeming and restoring it to its original good, true, and beautiful stateâŠ. He created it good and loves it still, despite its brokenness and frustration. He has plans for it yet and invites the redeemed to live redemptively, for its good and our flourishing.4
A Christian vision of education offers this narrative as a framework for students and educators alike to see a path toward a purpose-filled life, which necessarily includes understanding the pain, difficulty, and doubts in their lives and in the world around them, as well as thinking of themselves and their unique passions and talents as âgiftsâ for the lifelong restorative work to which people are called. As Garber explains:
When we see all of life as sacramental, as the graceful twining together of heaven and earth, then we begin to understand the meaning of vocationâŠ. We can begin to see that all of life, the complexity of our relationships and responsibilitiesâof family and friendships, of neighbors near and far, of work and citizenship, from the most personal to the most publicâindeed, everything is woven together into the callings that are ours, the callings that make us us.5
We are reminded of the apostle Paulâs words in his letter to the church at Ephesus, referencing the biblical narrative and our calling within it: âFor we are Godâs handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.â6
While the stories of our schools may vary in their attractiveness, hopefulness, and effectiveness, all of us, together, collectively inhabit these stories. They shape how we believe and behave as individuals, how we interact with one another, and how we gauge whether and to what degree we are successful. At the same time, each of us helps to shape our schoolâs storyâand, if we work together, we can even be so bold as to reshape the story, in ways that lead to greater flourishing for schools, educators, and students.
Flourishing Schools
When we think about how an articulation of purpose comes to be held in common across a school community, right away we find that our metaphors around shared vision are unhelpful. Words like âcastingâ and âcatchingâ vision give the impression not only that vision is something external, but also that it is something leaders toss to constituentsâwho in turn, may or may not âgetâ it. Unfortunately, this is sometimes what we find in schools; there is a huge variety in stakeholder engagement, with notions around purpose sometimes conceived by a charismatic individual school leader bringing personal vision to bear, or sometimes by an external organization (educational or ecclesiastical) imposing a set of values that may or may not be shared locally.
In contrast, flourishing together in Christian schools requires that our schoolâs purpose be truly and authentically shared across the school community. This begins with an honest appraisal of why our schools exist and what we are trying to accomplish together. Smith and Stonestreet identify âvisionary leadersâ in education as those who âask not only what makes a âquality educationâ according to the standards of education experts. They also ask the question âWhy?â Why are we educating ourselves and our children? To what end?â7 Asking âwhyâ enables schools and teams to focus on what truly âmatters.â In The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters, Peter Block defines the question âwhyâ as âshorthand for our capacity to dream, to reclaim our freedom, to be idealistic, and to give our lives to those things which are vague, hard to measure, and invisible.â8 With our âwhyâ questions and answers in full view, we move toward a shared calling in schools that both unifies us and enables us to work toward the âgreater goodâ to which we aspire together.
Along these lines, the Flourishing Schools research found that flourishing outcomes were positively linked with everyone within the schoolâfrom trustees to administrators to teachers to staff membersâhaving a shared sense of responsibility.9 Responsibility implies much more than agreement or even buy-in, but rather involves leaders and educators interpreting purpose in and through their daily lives and work. Rather than being dictated, shared responsibility must be cultivated through collective dialogue and reflection. In Mission Drift: The Unspoken Crisis Facing Leaders, Charities, and Churches, Peter Greer and Chris Horst also cite the need to âintentionally craft the cultureâ of organizations through âtraditions and practicesâ10 which can either promote or inhibit the flourishing of those who engage in them. Professional development, board meetings, and schoolwide community meetings provide opportunities for intentional engagement, through reflection and dialogue, around the schoolâs purpose. Care must also be given to the orientation or training that is commonly provided for new trustees and employees; often this induction experience focuses on role-related tasks and responsibilities, but it also presents a ripe opportunity for substantial engagement with the schoolâs purpose.
The Flourishing Schools research also found that a schoolâs purpose must extend beyond the school wallsâinvolving more than a calling held just by those who work in the schoolâto a genuine partnership with school families.11 The research showed that when families feel they are a part of the schoolâs mission, and that their involvement with the school is truly valued, there is a positive link with greater flourishing outcomes. The emphasis in this finding is that families feel there is a genuine partnership. This means that understanding familiesâ perspectives is essential, as is realizing that our actions and interactions as leaders can be perceived by others in very different ways than we intend. This means cultivating partnership with families must go beyond a suggestion box or even a parent volunteer organization, to gathering in-depth feedback, involving families in decision making, and resolving conflict in healthy ways.
Importantly, we need to also broaden the circle of families we typically invite to engage and include those who are on the margins of our school communityâwhether because of background, socioeconomic status, geography, work schedule, or other factors that may inhibit their meaningful involvement in the daily life of the school. To this end, it is helpful to ask ourselves âWho is missing?â and âWho are we leaving out?â when we plan school events or send out communication to families. Forging genuine partnerships requires showing hospitality and care as part of the biblical command to âlove each other deeply.â12 It also requires that we be willing to change long-standing practices to remove barriers to engagement with families, and to take the time and effort needed to develop trusting relationships (something we address further in Part 2, âRelationshipsâ).
On a final note, even if our schoolâs purpose is widely shared among staff and is manifested in genuine partnership with families, it must necessarily impact our practice in the school in tangible ways. The Flourishing Schools research found that integrated purpose13âwhen our biblical worldview or Christian ethos fully shapes how we educateâis linked positively with flourishing outcomes. Other research has similarly identified constructs like âcoherence,â or âconsistency, coordination, integration, and alignmentâ of vision with practice as âessential beams supporting the correlates of highly productive schools.â14 A schoolâs purpose is translated into action through our decision making, in our schedules and budgets, and frequently in how we address our most challenging circumstances. With this in mind, we turn to consider the centrality of educatorsâleaders, teachers, staff, as well as trusteesâin translating our schoolâs purpose into action.
Flourishing Educators
As Angela Duckworthâs âparable of the bricklayersâ suggests, while holding a job or having a career is an individual pursuit, fulfilling a calling binds us to something larger than ourselves. Whether a cathedral or a school, anything that is worth building cannot be built alone. This is because a calling imparts a sense of collective âwhyâ that not only motivates professional work, but also provides deep meaning to that work. This in turn engenders character, excellence, and an abiding commitment. Educators who are âcalled ⊠demonstrate this through their words, actions and decision making, exemplifying a strong moral purpose, confident vision, and ambitious trajectory of improvement,â the outgrowth of which is a âdeep sense of resilienceâ exhibited during seasons of challenge and change.15
Since most educators have little free time beyond their current workload to develop new activities and routines, the key to living out the schoolâs purpose lies in what we are already doing. This necessarily begins with a realistic assessment, both personally and collectively, of how integrated our purpose is with our daily practices. This is no easy feat, given our human tendency to become entrenched in our habits of work without thinking back to how they connect to the âwhy.â In On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom, David Smith of Calvin University recalls a moment of revelation in this regard:
It became viscerally clear to me how powerfully my subconscious self was scripted by particular narratives of what a teacher was supposed to look like, and that I had not consciously chosen these. Much of my teaching is shaped not so much by a clear-sighted evaluation of what will lead to the most learning at any given instant, or by my carefully honed articulations of my beliefs about God and the world, but by what I have done before, what I have seen others do, and what I assume others expect from me.16
If we are honest and humble, we can see ourselves clearly in the mirror of this confession. Our challenge in schools becomes to recognize...