Could do Better
'Lots of girls and lots of boys
Lots of smells and lots of noise
Playing football in the park
Kicking pushbikes after dark
Baggy trousers, dirty shirt
Pulling hair and eating dirt
Teacher comes to break it up
Back of the 'ead with a plastic cup.'
Madness 'Baggy Trousers', 1980
Our school days conjure a montage of good and bad memories. On a happy note, I remember that U2's 'Pride' was playing in the sixth-form common room just before I hit the road to pass my driving test (first time around.)
But I'm sure I'm not alone in recalling how it was never easy to take a stand for my faith in high school. I swung from downright embarrassment to insensitive zeal - handing out tracts on hell and readily chiding anyone who blasphemed.
My wife Rachel, a full-time schools worker in the London borough of Harrow, agrees that my experience, albeit 15 years ago, is similar to that of many Christian young people today.
And although the recent popularity of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ inspired some young Christians to speak more openly about their faith in school, it's still true that, in the peer-pressure-cooker of the classroom, owning up to owning Christ is a difficult task.
Any Christian community that takes its young people seriously must understand that it's vital to support them within school, not just outside of it at church events.
But more than that, we need to understand that encouraging our young people to provide a vibrant witness is just one way we can engage in 'outreach' through schools work.
Many inspired Christian initiatives have sought to reach the UK for Christ. However, few of them have the far-reaching potential of schools-work when it comes to passing on Christ's message and example in a way that's fresh and engaging.
I was never at the top of my class in maths, but the statistics, at least on this occasion, seem to speak for themselves. Eighty per cent of people who come to faith do so before the age of 25, which shows how crucial it is to reach people while they're young.
Churches, though, come into contact with an ever-decreasing proportion of the nation's youth. As one survey, 'Turning the Tide', points out, 'in 1905, 56 per cent of children and young people went to church. Now (2001), it is about four per cent.'
At the same time, 98 per cent of all children go to school in this country. As the youth-worker-turned-church-leader Andy Hickford rightly suggests, 'If [Christians] are not meaningfully involved in schools then we will be missing our culture as a whole.'
Imagine it: if every school in Britain was permeated with Christian schools-workers, teachers, heads and governors, then most of our population would come into contact with Christians and, hopefully, they'd have had the chance to hear about Christ. As one article in IDEA magazine suggests, 'there are few better opportunities for Christians to be a movement for change than through education.'
But are schools open to the influence of religious groups? We live in a climate of political correctness, and while our government hasn't followed the lead of the French in banning its school children from wearing religious dress and symbols, most schools are (quite fairly) wary of overt evangelism. They do, nevertheless, consistently open their doors to Christian workers who not only provide vital services (breakfast clubs, homework clubs, one-to-one mentoring...) but who get the chance to talk openly about faith.
Schools are legally obliged to provide religious observance and education so that their pupils may enhance their spiritual development and awareness and respect of others. They are monitored to make sure that they encourage faith awareness, and schools that don't provide some form of general religious education for students in years 12 and 13 (the sixth form) will find themselves reprimanded in Ofsted reports.
In our increasingly multicultural communities, we have to dialogue rather than proselytise. When a colleague and I present sixth-form conferences on global poverty for the Damaris Trust, we make it very clear that we are Christians, before we discuss why defending the poor is a central teaching of our faith. We also acknowledge to students that we're aware they may have a different faith to us - or none at all - and as such they're perfectly free to make their contribution.
In the 21st-century market-place of ideologies, religions and philosophies, Christianity, we are convinced, is still the best on offer. And we have every reason as Christians to be confident about what can be accomplished through our work in schools. But we must go about that work in love and with respect; as with all aspects of the church's interaction with local communities, it is vital that we don't just push our own agenda but actively listen to the needs of those we're seeking to serve.
To that end, there are two main aspects to schools-work today. The first involves directly presenting Christian ideals and teaching. This means taking assemblies at key points in the Christian calendar, offering a Christian perspective on ethical issues (such as abortion) within RE lessons, supporting Christian unions and, when schools allow, running missions - perhaps by inviting a popular Christian rap or pop group to take assemblies leading up to a follow-up weekend meeting.
The second has more to do with provocative praxis than direct proclamation, and is the bedrock to successful schools-work. It's how Christians actively support the school community - teachers and students - on the ground. This isn't just about schools-workers providing services such as breakfast clubs, DJ workshops in lunch-times and the mentoring of excluded children; it also means being a friend to students and teachers - developing relationships in staff rooms as well as corridors.
As one Ofsted reporter said, 'The most strategic thing a youth worker can do to reach young people today with the gospel is to build a good relationship with the head of RE at the local high school.' Opportunities to speak to students on a deeper level about faith often only come after friendships with school staff have been carefully nurtured.
Wayne Dixon, a veteran schools worker for Scripture Union, says that one of the keys to successful schools work, alongside prayer and the willingness to take risks in approaching new schools, is the building of trust. As he comments, a positive response to activity in schools 'usually depends on the head teacher. It's more likely to be "yes" if they can see that we are genuine and that we can make a valuable contribution and that we won't overstep the mark.'
As well as supporting other people, Christians can become actively involved in their local schools as well. This may involve committing to becoming a governor. As Lord Dearing stated in a report for the Church of England, 'the Church needs to recognise that to be a school governor is one of the most important roles that a church member can take.'
It could mean joining with other churches to provide a salary for a part- or full-time schools worker. The trust my wife works for - Harrow Churches Schools Link - is a good example of how this idea works for the benefit of all the churches in the locale. The HCSL team works closely with church youth-workers in the area, which means they can connect young people with local churches while removing some of the workload from church youth-workers who are often expected to be full-time schools-workers as well.
Elmfield Church in North London has employed a novel approach to involvement in schools. Every year it sponsors an art competition; pupils create art inspired by a Biblical story and the local mayor presents an award to the winner.
Our churches need to reconsider how they teach our young people, too, to reflect the positive aspects of the changes in school teaching practice over the last few years. Education is no longer teacher-centred - where the teacher is seen as the sole 'wisdom giver'. It is now student-centred - with the teacher as 'wisdom sharer'. Students are actively involved in finding answers to big questions for themselves through the resources at their fingertips. But many of our churches stick solely to older models and then wonder why young people are so often absent on Sunday mornings.
We need also to help provide meaningful answers to the big questions our young people face at school - questions about the uniqueness of our faith, the nature of truth or the historical reliability of the Bible. As David Wilson, leader of the campus outreach group Agape once said, 'teenagers are being taught nuclear physics at school and gentle Jesus meek and mild on a Sunday. No wonder so many drift away from Christianity when they get to university.'
Of course, there are many Christian organisations which have a strong tradition of finding new ways to present Christian truth within changing contexts. And I'm always encouraged by Rachel's tales of assemblies at schools with multi-faith audiences - young people, who've often never heard about the gospel before, sitting rapt as she relates stories about Jesus.
But we could always do better. It's undeniable that schools play a crucial role in the lives of our children, in the life of our communities and the nation as a whole. And as such, we need to encourage our existing schools-workers and create initiatives in places where little or no schools work is done.
For churches seeking to be 'salt and light', it's imperative that we become passionately involved in our centres of education. And who knows? It could mean that our end of term report may just have the odd gold star...
This article originally appeared in edition 15 (December 2004) of LICC's EG magazine.
Books
Effective Schools' Work, Lee Jackson, Kingsway, 2003
Making A Difference in your Community: Becoming a school governor, Mike Simmons and Ann Holt, John Hunt Publishing, 2002
Links
www.scriptureunion.org.uk/schools
www.schoolsministrynetwork.co.uk
www.damaris.org
www.stapleford-centre.org
www.care.org.uk
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