Christians School Education VS Christian Education + Christian School Education Concentration

Yohan's Study Series No. 1

Hello, this is Yohan Kim. I am studying toward a Master of Arts in Christian Education (MACE) at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas (SWBTS), and Christian School Education is my concentration.

SWBTS has a Christian School Education Master degree, but this is not widely known, and not many people are studying toward it. Therefore, I write here with my limited knowledge in order to introduce this major and answer such questions:

What is a Christian School? What do you learn in Christian School Education? Do you have to have a certain certificate to enter this major, or are you going to receive the certificate? Who teaches? Who studies in this major? Why do we have to study about Christian Schools? What can you do after you finish this course?

 

Briefly introducing myself,

I went to Seine High school in Korea, a Christian school, and went to Korea Baptist Theological University, majoring in English. After that, I worked as a part-time Children's minister in Kangnam Joongang Baptist Church for a year while I was working for Yang-G ESL English Academy. I entered SWBTS, studying in the MACE program in Fall, 2009 and am concentrating in Christian School Education. I am planning to finish my course this August, 2011.

Since this essay is written by my personal experience and research, it is not perfect and thoroughly accurate, and it is based on the major at SWBTS.

 

What is a Christian school?

My basic definition is that a Christian school is an educational institution of teaching basic school subjects and specialized subjects according to the Christian worldview in order to nurture Christian leaders of ability. universities, colleges, graduate schools are also included into that category, but herein, I will focus on elementary school to high school.

If I categorize it, Christian schools are at large divided into government-associated schools and private schools. Government-associated schools are stable in finances, but the government limits and interferes with their curriculum and operation.

Private schools are relatively free of government influence, but have financial trouble or require quite high tuition, and some private school students have to take a test like the GED to get an official high school diploma.

The conception of Korea's Christian schools and America's is different. American Christian private schools are more like Christian alternative schools in Korea.

Furthermore, there are various kinds of Christian school all over the world.

I will explain Christian schools in more detail in my later essays.

 

Christian School Education VS Christian School Educaiton Concentration

Degree	Master of Arts in Christian School Education (MACSE)	Master of Arts in Christian Education with concentration on Christian School Education (MACE with concentration)
Subject	Theology 21 credits / School education 27 credits(+dissertation and internship)	Theology 26 credits/education 20 credits /Schooleducation 15credits/Free 3credits (International students 2 more credits)
Prof.	Dr. Esther Diasbolet (But, because of her health problem, currently Dr. Nason) Dr. Nason worked for ACSI for a long time. Christian school subjects are taught by part-time lecturers (Current principals, experts related to Christian school, etc) SWBTS professors teach theology and Christian education subjects.
Student	Christian school teachers, administrators, public school teachers, and prospective teachers.	Students who want to study both Church and School education.
Certifi-cate	ACSI (Association of Christian School International) certification - You do not automatically get this certification, but have to apply for it. You are qualified to gain it if you study in this degree. The fee is $50, and no test. Refer to ACSI's homepage. www.acsi.org
Future	Christian school teacher, educational mission	Church minister, Christian school teacher, educational mission
Info.	Christian school education classes are open only in summer.
Internet	http://www.swbts.edu/catalog/page.cfm?id=63&open=5_area	http://www.swbts.edu/catalog/page.cfm?id=59&open=5_area

 

Why do we have to study Christian school education?

"Didn't God create the universe by the Bing Bang?" "Didn't God make all living creatures evolve?"

These are replies from a youth in my church when I asked if he believed in creation and the miracles in the Bible. His saying was that he believed that God created the universe by the Big Bang and has maintained the earth by evolution. Children start to go to middle and high schools and be educated by teachers with more abstract and complex ideas. Then, especially the youth who go to church begin to feel discord between their learnings from school and church. Not only science, but also every day pop songs and TV programs, the internet, and morality and worldviews that non-Christian teachers teach greatly affect the formation of the youth's worldview. Youth ministers who know this fact try to make it right through various programs, education, and God's words, but they feel like accomplishing it with only several hours a week is beyond their capacities. We have these issues that, even though they associate with the students' parents, the youth still have ideas that the church and the world are unrelated, or they have to exclude the society and culture of the world, but only depend on churches. Besides, when the youth become more distant from their parents and churches as they go to college, their worldview greatly trembles even to lose their faith from time to time. At best, they make a separation between Christians and non-Christians, and the gap between them gets so deep that each of them cannot understand each other and even have a feud with one another. Even though they should drive out the sinful things of the world but reach the people in the world, they rather stay in the safe Christian community.

 

The most important purpose of Christian schools is to help students to grow to win in the world.

Christian school should teach students the wisdom with which they can discern good and evil, and they are to help their students to own a Christian worldview.

They are to help them not only to have passionate faith, but also to have a real ability along with their faith.

They are to help them to discover God's plan for each of them and to accomplish it.

For the time that the youth and children of today become major leading members in this society 20-30 years from now, Christian schools are to help students to be Christians leading society with the Christian worldview.

Christian school education is a very interesting and significant field for Christians who eagerly want youth and children to serve God through holistic development such as spirituality, physical strength, intelligence, mentality, relationship, self-management, etc.

 

In conclusion, I hope this writing will be helpful for people who do not know much about the Master of Arts in Christian School Education and the Christian School Education concentration with the Master of Arts in Christian Education at SWBTS. In addition, I generally told you the purpose of Christian Schools and the reason why we should study in this field.

 

I also hope that if you are interested or involved in Christian schools, you will contact me to get in touch to share our information and vision. If you have any addtion or critique to my writing, please leave comments or contact me via my e-mail.

This writing is based on the contents in my head, but next time, I will try to write in more detail through research and study. In the future, I am planning to write about the kinds of Christian schools and their trend, jobs related to Christian school, alternative schools in Korea, Mission through Christian schools, specific examples, research, etc.

I feel like writing a paper. It takes a lot of energy and time to write this. I will be so encouraged if I know there are readers who are interested in my writing. Would you please leave any comment, even simply "I read it"? I would appreciate it. :)

 

Bibliography

Christian School Education Research institute (Korea): http://www.cserc.or.kr/

Christian Alternative School Association (Korea): http://www.casak.org/

Association of Christian School International (America): http://www.acsi.org/