September 13, 2022
Why the goal is not always the last page of the textbook
This last century has seen big changes in how “education happens.” In America, the New England Primer was a tool for students to learn by rote memory within the context of scripture. Today, we are inundated with books, podcasts, Zoom meetings, socratic seminars, and many other techniques for learning. The modern-day state of learning is influenced by many social factors such as technology, social media, and the reality of living in a multicultural society. The task of training a student to apply a Biblical worldview in his life requires many new teaching tools that have developed throughout the ages. At DCA we are seeking to develop our academic program in a manner that prepares students to be servants for the Lord in a competitive environment. There are three key pillars we use to develop our academic program.The first and foremost is an instructor that teaches subject matter with Biblically colored glasses. Today’s teachers need to know their content and understand how it changes and adapts through the years. For example, my Biology textbooks from college are outdated because man’s knowledge of life has grown in the last twenty-five years. At DCA, our teaching faculty invests many hours in personal development each year. This investment of time and money only helps to build the foundation of learning for our students.
The second essential for instruction is a “vision” for what students need to learn. The vision for education comes in the form of comprehensive learning standards. Learning standards are a sketch or outline of the key content that students need to master by certain ages or grade levels. There are many of these “outlines” that schools may use. DCA chooses to use IOWA standards. The reason is simply that they align well with the achievement test we use in the spring. Our school is in the process of creating a curriculum guide that maps the standards in all core subjects from kindergarten to twelfth grade. We have finished curriculum guides for math, science, and social studies and continue to develop guides for English and Bible. These guides direct our teachers toward the content that students need to master. Our teachers then add to the content based on their professional experiences and expertise.
The third component of instruction is what is often referred to as a curriculum. A classroom teacher will utilize resources such as videos, lectures, projects, textbooks, podcasts, papers, and many other traditional teaching tools in order to follow the curriculum guide.
A common misunderstanding is that textbooks are “the curriculum.” They are simply a part of a curriculum. There are cases in which a teacher will choose to teach an entire course with no textbook but they still have a curriculum and cover the content necessary to reach the standards required for that course.
Many people consider academic success as completing a textbook. A teacher’s job is done when they have fulfilled the content outlined in the curriculum guide, not when they have finished the textbook. For example, in science, many books have up to 16 chapters. In some cases, the textbooks even clarify that the last five or so chapters are provided so a teacher may pick and choose the content they prefer. Our upper school teachers are required to provide students with a quarter-by-quarter outline of the content they will cover. One will notice that from outset, a teacher’s intentions are not to complete the textbook.
In summary, successful education is the result of trained personnel, with a well-thought-out plan, using multiple resources to execute that plan. Teachers can then help students remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create within a Christian context. That is the goal of education at DCA. Though teaching techniques may change, and the quantity of things to learn grows by leaps and bounds, God’s word provides a skeleton on which we can apply knowledge and help students serve on a daily basis.
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