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This section explores the ways in which the churches can support and should be supporting Christian teachers.
For all Christians, growth in the Spirit is the sign of life as a Christian disciple. There is no standing still. There is growth and development or there is decline and decay. This is also true professionally. There is growth and development as a teacher or there is stagnation. Therefore, spiritual growth for a Christian teacher will seek to combine growth in the faith with professional growth. One of the things that marks out the Christian teacher from the teacher who is also a Christian is the interaction between professional and spiritual growth.
For some Christian teachers this will best be supported by Christian teaching that is drawn out from their experience of the world of work. Home groups or small group meetings may be the setting for such discussions where Christians are encouraged to share issues, challenges, joys and opportunities from their work or home life that can be discussed and reflected in the light of the faith.
For others it will be the teaching of faith that comes first. There is a particular skill given to some Christian ministers that enables them to teach the gospel in a way that encourages listeners to reflect on its specific meaning in their own lives.
In contrast, closed teaching, which permits only one meaning, requires no response other than acceptance or rejection and is unlikely to create the interaction with professional growth that is desirable in the Christian teacher.
Among Christian teachers will be those who are already, or who are preparing for, exercising of Christian leadership, perhaps as a headteacher of a Church school. Such public Christian roles make great demands and call for considerable spiritual resources. In the main these will only be developed in the context of the Christian congregation with whom they worship.
In the previous section the importance of time was discussed. It will be apparent that Christian teachers must also create, and be given time to develop and renew, their spiritual resources. They also need the support of their fellow Christians in their work. The fact that they are both skilled professionals and strong in the faith does not reduce their need for support or the effect of indifference or criticism in them.
One of the practical ways in which churches can show the importance that they attach to the Christian vocation to teach is to provide opportunities for teachers to renew their commitment and to be commissioned into a new role. Many dioceses have provided commissioning services for new headteachers of Church schools. These have been an important occasion for the individuals and for their schools. Two short services can be found in Churches Serving Schools, pp. 84-86 (PDF, 64 KB). The first is designed as an act of renewal of commitment and could be incorporated in an Education Sunday service or used during regular Sunday worship, perhaps at the beginning of the school year. The second is an act of commissioning for service. This has been developed out of commissioning services already in use in some dioceses and is suitable, not just for headteachers, but for any teacher taking up a new post.
The vocation to teach
How do Christians become teachers?
Nurturing teachers
How do Christians who are teachers become Christian
teachers?
The headteacher - a special
case?
Support staff
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