Private Christian K-12 enrollment has experienced a notable increase in the last few years. With the many changes that have occurred in public health, politics, and cultural agendas recently, I believe many parents of younger students are choosing to invest in private education that aligns with their values and priorities.  

In contrast, enrollment at many Christian colleges throughout the nation has been on the decline in recent years. In my current role as Executive Director of the North American Coalition for Christian Admissions Professionals, our researchers concluded that approximately 70% of our member institutions didnotmeettheirenrollmentgoalsfor the fallof2022.

With nearly 30 years of previous experience in the realm of admissions for a small, private Christ-centered university, I have had countless conversations with students and their families. There are several common questions and concerns that have surfaced in these conversations:

One of the great deficiencies of the modern education machine is that it treats learning as a mechanistic exercise in which information is fed to a student’s mind where it is processed, stored, and used as needed, almost as if the student were a computer grinding all the data that it receives from the outside. In this model, the computer itself (i.e. the student) does not really change, it just continues to store and use more information.

Years ago I had to step away from teaching, the vocation that I love, in order to be present for my family in a time of acute need. Not knowing how long my time away from teaching would be, I wrote out a message to my fellow teachers at that time. This message was essentially a list of my personal goals as a teacher, attributes of what I consider to be an effective Christian teacher. Not that each of my colleagues--or any other Christian teacher--must have these exact same goals in order to be effective, but to offer some thoughts to consider as they continue in their calling. 

I have witnessed that it is easy for teachers to get caught up in being graders instead of being teachers. It is also easy for Christian teachers to add their faith on top of their subject, rather than weaving their faith into all that they do--the presentation of material, the curriculum itself, assessments, interactions with students, conduct with colleagues. Faith can be incorporated into every element of teaching because it is part of our identity.

So to remind myself and encourage others, here is the list of attributes I consider vital to being an effective Christian teacher.