First Day...

What are your memories of school?

Do you remember places - classrooms, corridors or yards? Do you remember people - teachers, friends and classmates? Perhaps you remember subjects and lessons? Or do you simply remember emotions – how you felt and responded to situations? 

As we get older some of our memories become more distant. We might remember fewer names, less about the lessons we enjoyed or endured, and a lot more about the feelings engendered by particular moments or places or relationships.

“Trying to do the best for our children when we can’t be there with them through every moment of their day, can be tough.”

Sometimes, when our own children begin their schooling or face challenges, it can be our emotional memory that guides our thinking. Let’s face it, it’s hard being a parent! Trying to do the best for our children when we can’t be there with them through every moment of their day, can be tough. Add on a layer of our own emotional memory of school and it can become a process of navigating our own as well as our child’s responses.

First days can be a particularly focussed time for those emotions. I have had to grapple with these myself at times. At the end of the day, I had to resolve the tension in my mind by realising that I can’t live their lives for them and there are many challenges that, if I remove the opportunity, I remove the chance for them to grow. Of course, there are many occasions when it is important for us to ask questions and to be involved in partnership with the School, but equally, there are times to perhaps just sit and listen without doing, a skill that I am still learning.

“Let’s face it, it’s hard being a parent!”

The Apostle Paul writes in the book of Romans, an incredible description of personal and spiritual growth. He begins with a statement that sounds strange to our ears, “…we also rejoice in our sufferings” and then goes on to explain “because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope”. For those seeking to following Jesus, the next verse should fill us with hope as Paul writes, “and hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:3-5).

I have had the pleasure of hearing many positive stories from our first few days this week. My favourite student reflection has been “good but tiring”. It has been exciting to welcome so many new and returning students to Calvin Christian School. Please pray for our students (and ourselves as parents) that there might be opportunity to take delight in new challenges. Our children, like us, are growing and maturing, being prepared for futures of hope and purpose in God.

Scott Ambrose - Principal

What can’t you live without?

Have you ever stopped to think about the things that you feel you absolutely need?

I find myself missing my ‘cuppa’ if I haven’t had one for a while, or a taste of something sweet after dinner, or simply missing the enjoyment that a quiet moment, preferably with some reading material, brings.

It is interesting how quickly we develop routines of taste and rituals of habit that run our lives. My children’s sense of what they absolutely cannot live without has sometimes surprised me. Apparently, a bowl of sweets on Saturday night whilst watching a movie is a quite essential part of life, or access to a social media connected device. The rituals that we develop grow quickly and can become all-consuming if we are not attentive to our time and areas of focus. Sometimes the passive decisions are the most powerful.

Amongst the first concepts I learnt in my Economics course were the terms ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. It seemed fairly simple then to categorise that things that were required for survival and the things that were not. However, what we can understand in our minds is not necessarily the way that we live. We can be very good at confusing our needs with our wants.

“My children’s sense of what they absolutely cannot live without has sometimes surprised me.”

The author Paul Tripp points out that when we start to call our ‘wants’ needs, then “we tell ourselves that we have to have them, that we cannot live without them, and that we have a right to demand them”. This leads us into a place where we evaluate our relationships with others and our sense of the love of God on whether they provide for our perceived ‘needs’.

An important part of our role as parents and educators, is nurturing a right sense of need in our young people. In part, this happens as we encourage the maturity that seeks the benefit of others above ourselves. It also occurs as we open their eyes to the incredible imbalance in resource across our world and the sometimes inverse relationship between wealth and contentedness (i.e. the more we have the more unhappy we seem to become). Next year’s Service-Based Learning trip to Indonesia for our Year 11 and 12 students is a wonderful example of a life and worldview changing opportunity, a chance to see what is truly required to lead to human flourishing.

As we are reminded in Scripture, “…I have learnt in whatever situation I am to be content” and “my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus”. A real reason to celebrate this Christmas.

Scott Ambrose - Principal

Youth Workforce

Figures released by the ABS in August of this year showed that youth unemployment in Tasmania had risen to 12.6 per cent, a figure substantially higher than the national average of 9.6 per cent (Tasmanian Times, 2023). These statistics are somewhat alarming as they indicate that 12 out of every 100 young people are not working in our state.

The question remains why are our young people struggling to get work?

Research from City & Guilds revealed that one in ten young people do not have any desire to work (Youth Misspent, 2022). Is it that they simply don’t want to work, fuelled on by the laborious, stressful, meaningless or boring working conditions they witness first-hand in their parent's generation?

“We need to demonstrate resilience in our work challenges and encourage our young people to take initiative and courage in developing their career maturity. ”

According to Pollock (2021), youth are failing to obtain work opportunities due to many challenging obstacles such as lack of experience, skills and education, transport issues, mental health struggles or a poor understanding of the demands work often entails. Is it just that these barriers are simply too large to overcome?

Or is it that they are overwhelmed with the plethora of options and avenues open to them that they suffer from choice overload – burdened by the paradox of having too many alternatives to confidently make a decision?

There are many reasons why our young people are struggling to gain meaningful, sustainable and enjoyable employment, and we will never be able to articulate one clear reason.  However, what is evident is that we, as the village raising these children, have a responsibility to nurture and foster their interest, passion, skills and confidence when it comes to career education.  In the Bible (Titus 2), Paul exhorts older men and women to train, teach and educate younger people in knowledge, skill, character, conduct and godliness.  This instruction reveals the desire of God’s heart, that the community shape and educate young people in all aspects of life.  We know that Paul also stipulates that “in all things, we are to give glory to God” (1 Corinthians 10:31) and that surely includes the way we view and act in regard to our work.

As a community, we need to provide safe and supportive educational environments, role-model positive attitudes and display a desire to contribute more broadly to society with our God-given talents through our work. We need to demonstrate resilience in our work challenges and encourage our young people to take initiative and courage in developing their career maturity. We have a responsibility as older members to equip and empower our youth.

That is why it has been so exciting to see many of our Year 10 students step out of their comfort zone and engage in the Calvin Work Experience Program.  While the thought of entering an unknown workplace and interacting with unfamiliar people may have been daunting, these young people, encouraged, supported and urged on by their families, friends and members of the community have expanded their comfort zones and made them larger. They have been able to explore career options, increase their maturity, independence, self-confidence, motivation, communication skills and develop greater awareness of life roles and responsibilities (ANCIS). The village has provided them a safe place to grow and in turn they will give back to community through their work in years to come.

 Carly Brouwer - Pathway Coordinator