What Christian Schools Don't Offer

Parents are often surprised by what Christian schools don't offer their students. That's quite understandable. After all when you consider all the good things that kids will discover and benefit from at a Christian school and add all the things that they will avoid by not attending a public school, it can be hard to imagine that there is actually some important facet of learning that Christian schools are overlooking. It may not occur to parents of kids to go looking for what Christian schools don't offer.

Choosing to send your child to Christian school is generally a good guarantee that lots of good things will happen every single day. Your child will learn in all the academic disciplines but will also spend some time each day in prayer, opening the word of God in scripture and in doing Christian service projects. Not only will they approach the world each day through a Christian perspective but they will be encouraged to really live that approach themselves both in and out of the classroom.

For the most part, Christian schools can be depended upon to administer sound but caring discipline. From dress codes to behavior expectations, Christian Schools orchestrate their programs to get the very best from their kids. Because so many students who attend Christian schools will have these same standards re-inforced regularly at home there is less conflict over rules and more of a sense of universal agreement.

While it was not always the case, today many Christian schools can even proudly claim outstanding sports, arts, music and other extra-curricular programs on a par with the best private and public school offerings. And best of all from some points of view, sending your kids to Christian schools means you didn't have to send them to public school.

With less and less funding available to meet public education needs, many parents are rightly concerned about what standards for education and behavior are being used in public education. Sending children to Christian School means avoiding the daily worry that your kids aren't learning as much or as quickly as they should. Worse still is the more nagging fear that if your children attend public school they will be living in a godless and rule-less environment where language, dress and conduct towards others are seldom the subject for school discipline because class sizes are large, staff is ill prepared and administration is always overtaxed.

Parents who choose to send their kids to Christian school then have the best of both worlds. Their kids by attending Christian school are the daily recipients of many positives while at the same time they have thankfully avoided all the negative aspects of public school education. For the most part parents seem to have a win-win situation.

That's why it's important for parents to be wary of and step up to fill in for what Christian schools don't offer. And what might that be? Mainly parents need to be careful to give their children opportunities beyond the classroom to get a broad and accurate view of the world. It is far too easy for children coming out of Christian school experience to think that the whole world is a reflection of what goes on in their rather sanitized educational experience.

For example the world is not always a safe and nice place and even young children need to be reminded and schooled by their parents about the pitfalls that await them in the larger world.

More significantly what Christian schools don't offer that is really important to a well schooled child is the contact with diversity. While there is often some racial diversity in Christian schools there is less often religious diversity. It is too easy for kids going to Christian schools to see the world as a Christian place rather than a place that is filled with many different faiths and ideas about God. While parents have an interest in educating their child in their Christian faith, that education needs to be enhanced by other experiences that point to the reality of a world made up of many religious viewpoints, viewpoints that need our understanding, respect and tolerance.

Outside of Christian schools there really are people who are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and many other organized and dynamic faith communities. There are also millions of people who see the world from a godless perspective or are agnostic in their views. All these millions are active and present in our world and without some real connection to the rest of religious reality Christian Children can become like the Kings children in that old musical the King and I - growing up believing that they were the largest country on the planet and the most civilized.

Choosing a Christian school for your child has lots of positives for sure and it lets you keep your child safe from many negative experiences. But for all the good that Christian schools offer, it is still important to know what Christian schools don't offer so that as parents we can take steps to enrich our children's lives along these lines.