Elective courses serve the purpose of helping students fulfill their divine calling as children of God. These courses guide students toward experiencing shalom*, encompassing a sense of wholeness and well-being, in every facet of life. Through the Fine Arts and Applied Skills, students are provided with avenues for action and creation, enabling them to actively engage in the following objectives:
Beauty serves as a lens through which we perceive truth and justice**. Developing the ability to perceive and comprehend the world around us is essential. One effective approach to gauging our growth in understanding is to incorporate beauty into our lives. This can be achieved through actively sharing our aesthetic preferences. Hesitation and reluctance to do so reflect underlying fears and a lack of confidence.
Play functions as a counterbalance to notions of power and control. It allows us to venture into the realm of uncertainty, fostering the courage to confront our fears. By nurturing bravery and reinforcing limits, play empowers us to face the unknown.
Stories act as vessels for morals, ideas, truth, and love. They form the foundation of our worldview, offering a means of construction, sharing, and comprehension. Contemplation holds greater significance than mere knowledge. It entails dedicating time to deep thought and wrestling with content, opposing superficial skimming. Genuine contemplation demands emotional engagement.
Service serves as the vehicle for content delivery. Projects are approached through the lens of service-oriented actions. An area of primary focus involves serving through connection and relationship-building. How do we serve the marginalized (outsiders)? How do we extend our support to those who have been forcibly displaced (unconnected)?
Work stands as the cornerstone of meaningful learning and personal growth. It underscores the belief that true understanding and mastery come not from passive absorption but through diligent effort and perseverance. Engaging in challenging work pushes us beyond the confines of our comfort zones, compelling us to confront and overcome obstacles. This process of active engagement and problem-solving fosters deeper comprehension and retention of knowledge. It teaches us the value of resilience and the rewards of persistence. In this context, work transforms into a form of learning in itself, posing the question: How can we embrace the rigors of hard work to enhance our learning experiences? How does the dedication to our tasks shape our skills and deepen our insights?
Compassion functions as the bridge between personal understanding and collective empathy. It encourages us to see beyond our individual perspectives, fostering a deeper connection with others. Through compassion, we learn to recognize the struggles and joys of others as reflections of our own experiences. This recognition not only deepens our emotional bonds but also motivates us to act with kindness and understanding. In a world where differences often lead to division, compassion offers a pathway to unity and mutual respect. It prompts us to ask: How can we empathize more effectively with those around us? How can we transform our empathy into actions that uplift and support the broader community?
I view the teaching of these courses themselves as an art, in the sense that teachers, like painters, composers, playwrights, and choreographers, make judgements based largely on the qualities that unfold during the course of action. Student actions and works are evaluated and assessed using qualitative judgements, appropriate to the area of study, in order to achieve (often emergent) qualitative ends. We expect to foster expressive communication through all our God given senses, character through process, and skill through self-discipline. We strive for aesthetic excellence, defined as holding: unity (completeness or coherence), internal richness (variety or complexity), and Potency (fittingness or intensity). A description of love is the capacity for unity and multiplicity to exist at once. God embodies this in the Trinity.
The Richmond Christian School Secondary Campus Vision is to provide students with a quality holistic education that invites the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to restore and ignite passionate Christ-followers who display a depth of character and leadership, are driven by wonder and the desire to worship God, and are inspired by the Gospel to use their skills, talents and attributes to meaningfully impact our communities and world.
