Making A Difference: Christian Educators in Public Schools

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.

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.