Making A Difference: Christian Educators in Public Schools

by Donovan L. Graham

Publisher:

Purposeful Design

, 2011

Overview

What would it take for Christian educators to not only survive but even thrive in the challenging circumstances of the public school? What would it take for them to know a sense of calling and to have the power to faithfully pursue it? How might they reflect their faith in the classroom without crossing legal boundaries designed to restrict them? How would such educators hope to make a difference in students’ lives when so many forces are against them? To make a difference in students’ lives, educators must realize that just as with Jesus, lives are changed through relationship. Again, as with Jesus, such relationships are built on grace. The big act of grace is to treat students as image bearers of God-fallen, yes, but still image bearers. To do that, educators much receive that grace from Jesus themselves and live out their calling as His image bearers as well. To maintain that flow of grace from God to educator to students requires that educators have an intimate relationsip with Him. And finally, educators must find or create a community that can support them and join them in pursuit of their calling. Thare are the five major themes “Making a Difference: Christian Educators in Public Schools” sets before teachers and administrators who seek to serve God in the public school arena.

Key Features

• Explains how educators much receive that grace from Jesus themselves
• Explores creating a community that can support them and join them in pursuit of their calling.
• Helps educators who seek to serve God in the public school arena.

Praise for Making a Difference

In this book, Donavan Graham challenges educators to act in accordance with the foundational truth that God created human beings in His image. He illustrates ways in which this truth, taken to heart and applied to educators and students alike can transform relationships at every level in schools. This book extends his vision to the public school setting, building on the foundation laid in his earlier book for Christian school settings “Teaching Redemptivily” And Donovan Graham is one of those rare educators whose own character and practice throughly exemplify and embody the advice he gives to others. I know from working alongside him that he amply incarnates the grace-filled practice that he advocates here

--Dr Daphne Wharton Haddad, Professor of Education and former colleague of Dr Graham, Covenat College, Lookout Mountain, Georgia.

As a Christian public school teacher, I clearly see the dark clouds that threaten our effectiveness in living out the image of God in our teaching: standardized test scores, pacing and curriculum guides, and an overall reductionist approach in regard to students. Dr. Gaham’s newest book encourages and challenges us that we must never forget that our calling is more than getting good test scores from our students. Our calling is to live out the gospel and present to our students the grace of the living and true God, even in the midst of public education.

--Christian Clark, Hixson Elementary School, Hixson, Tennessee

The strength of this book is that it charts a course for how Christians who are teaching in public schools can do so in ways that reflect the gospel of grace without reducing the complexity of our calling. This book is realistic and biblical. It asks and answers the questions that thoughtful Christian public school teachers want to know and provides a framework for faithfulness. Highly recommended!

--Mark Redfern. sixth-grade Social Studies teacher, Burns Middle School, Owensboro, Kentucky

Product Details

• Title: Making A Difference: Christian Educators in Public Schools
• Author: Donovan L. Graham
• Edition: First edition
• Publisher: Purposeful Design
• Print Publication Date: 2011
• Logos Release Date: 2024
• Pages: 216
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subject: Christian teachers
• ISBNs: 9781583313879, 1583313877
• Resource ID: LLS:MKNGDFFRNCSCHLS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-10-08T16:20:03Z

About Donovan L. Graham

Donavan L. Graham, taught at the secondary level and collegiate level for nearly forty years. Early in his career, while completing his doctoral studies in counseling and educational psychology at New Mexica State University, he claimed by God as His own in a most surprising fashion. From that time forward, Dr. Graham has attempted to understand and apply what biblical principles should mean to the way we educate students in anysetting - Christian or secular. An unusual turn in life brought him to a ministry of spiritual care for missionaries and teachers overseas, and he has now seen God weave together the threads of his life to hive him the oppurtunty to establish the Center for Teacher Renewal - a ministry to provide soul care to weary educators and to encourage them in the process of applying the grace of the gospel to what they do every day in school. He and his wife, Wilma, live in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and they are the delighted parents of four children and grandparents of ten.