Robin Hom, a native of San Francisco, California, has been superintendent of Chinese Christian Schools since 1988. He has a degree in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, and he received his law degree from the University of the Pacific. He serves on ACSI’s Urban and Minority Schools Leadership Council.
“Dominic is going to attend your summer school!” Dominic’s father proudly confided to me at church this spring. This was quite a revelation, since one year earlier, Dominic’s parents almost had to drag him onto our campus after he had been informed by his high school that he was no longer welcome there because of low grades and poor attendance. His only options were the public continuation high school or a private high school. Dominic decided he was too good for the continuation high school, but he wasn’t going to attend our school “filled with elite nerds” either.
“Actually, he has no choice,” Dominic’s father continued. “He flunked a class that he needs in order to graduate, and you’re the only school where he can make it up this summer.” Dominic, true to his word, had not attended the continuation high school or our school, but he had gone to another Christian school in our area. Apparently his academic record had not improved, and now he needed to retake and pass a class or else not graduate.
“Why would you take a student like Dominic into your school?”
Our Mission Field and Our Ministry
Many educators, including Christian ones, ask me at this point, “Why would you take a student like Dominic into your school?” This question, and hundreds like it, always puzzles me. True, Dominic has not succeeded in two high schools, and he has a record of discipline problems. But isn’t education what Dominic needs, and didn’t God call us to be educators? Who else should we minister to, if not Dominic? Jesus said, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:12–13, KJV).
If Jesus had a Christian school, not only would Dominic be welcome, he would be the “target audience.” Academic, social, and spiritual assimilation is not a mystery; it is our ministry. God has called us as Christian educators to take the uneducated and make them educated, to take those on the “outside” socially and bring them “inside,” to reach those outside the faith and lead them into the family of God. So when we think of academic assimilation, we should not be intimidated. If God has called us into Christian education, then He has also prepared us to carry out the ministry of academic assimilation.
(“Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it,” 1 Thessalonians 5:24, KJV.)
So how do you take students like Dominic—students with a history of academic failure—and bring them into a school environment that stresses high academic standards? The good news we have found is that it doesn’t take a lot of money, special training, fancy facilities, or expensive equipment. The bad news is that it is very “costly” because you and your entire staff must commit everything you have to the ministry of academic assimilation. Our experience is that there is no other way, no magic bullet, and no shortcuts to success in this area.
Core Belief
At Chinese Christian Schools, we believe that every student, given the right learning environment, can succeed academically. When we refer to “succeeding academically,” we mean that they can graduate from high school and be prepared for college work. When we use the phrase “the right learning environment,” we mean a culture of work. So in other words, we believe that we can prepare students for college if they are willing to work.
Does your staff believe that every child can succeed academically? I know too many educators who believe that “not everyone is cut out for college.” To the glory of God, in our 28 years, all our 500+ graduates have gone on to college, and only one student has dropped out. We’ve had several students who required additional summers or semesters to graduate. On numerous occasions, our teachers worked with students who studied at home for extended periods because of health or family issues and who did not want to fall behind academically. Making sure that every child succeeds takes a lot of work, but it is worth the cost.
However, it is not enough that your staff believes this; the students must believe it as well. (“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he,” Proverbs 23:7, KJV.) When students enroll in our school, we ask them if they believe they can succeed if they work hard. We tell them that they must be willing to work hard, but we also promise that they will succeed if they do. We do not make any false promises about entrance into top universities or about how we can work miracles for students with severe disabilities. However, we believe that God has blessed the vast majority of our children with the ability to do college work so that they can prepare to carry out His will for their life.
When teachers and students share this core belief, it leaves no room for excuses. Students cannot blame their teachers or circumstances for their failure, and teachers cannot blame their students or circumstances either. There is a common understanding that they are working toward the same goal, so they work together rather than blame each other. At the end of this summer, we asked Dominic how he liked summer school. “It was pretty good,” Dominic said through a weak smile. “I had to work hard, but I think I earned a B+ or an A–.”
Support Structure
Although a core belief in hard work is essential, incoming students who don’t have a solid academic background or foundation cannot be expected to instantaneously “jump into freeway traffic.” As educators, we need to construct long “onramps” that let them build up speed until they are ready to merge onto the road to success. Our student support structure is what provides that academic on-ramp.
If God has called us into Christian education, then He has also prepared us to carry out the ministry of academic assimilation.
After establishing that we are on the same page in core beliefs, the next thing we do with incoming students is assess their abilities. We use standardized test scores in reading comprehension and mathematics, as well as a writing sample, to get an idea of their strengths and weaknesses. We also conduct a personal interview with each student, and we seek references from prior teachers to round out our perspective. Our experience shows that students with a good foundation in the three Rs—reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic—will succeed in every other academic discipline as well. Therefore, we assess how strong students are in these three areas and what needs to be done to bring students “up to speed.”
The next step, student placement, is hard to describe because it is based on individual circumstances. We place students in the grade level that best matches their level of academic achievement, but we also take into consideration the social and emotional needs of the students as well. For that reason, we will not place students more than two years behind their chronological peers.
The academic support we prescribe varies anywhere from extra help and attention given by the classroom teacher, to mandatory tutoring one to five times a week, to an extra period of instruction each day while classmates study other subjects, to full-time instruction outside of school in that area until students are proficient enough to be in a general classroom. An example of the latter would be academically strong foreign students with very weak English skills. We might prescribe that the students work full-time on English with a tutor for up to a year, then place them in one of our grade levels when they have developed enough English proficiency to take a range of classes.
Our experience is that students with weak math and composition skills will need additional support for two to three years. Students with very weak reading comprehension skills will need three to five years of support. This is a long period of time and a lot of extra work on everyone’s part, so there must be that foundational core belief that hard work will lead to academic success.
Although the focus here is academic assimilation, our experience is that students must have emotional and social support as well. Without going into detail, we make sure that students have a supportive group of friends and role models, and we work extra hard to see that there is at least one area in which each student succeeds and excels at school, whether it be in athletics, music, drawing, chess, computers, helping others, or some other pursuit.
Conclusion
As of this writing, Dominic is considering transferring to our school, a major change in perspective from one year ago. He knows that it will be a very difficult transition, but he’s beginning to believe he can do it—with hard work. He no longer thinks that our school is for “elite nerds,” because he sees that our students are not any better or smarter; they just got on the road to success earlier, and he’s now just entering the on-ramp.
God uses the church for our spiritual development and growth, and it is established on core beliefs and a system of fellowship and support:
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. (Hebrews 10:23–25, KJV)
Following this same model, our schools can enable academic development and growth by establishing a core belief in universal achievement and by setting up support structures to help students “ramp up” onto the road of success.
The Meantime Volume 6 Number 1