Editor’s Note: Eli Spector is the Associate Head of School at FRCS.
Over this past summer, I explored and evaluated educational systems from around the globe (I was required to do this for a class). My classmates and I held interviews with parents, students, teachers, and school leaders from nearly every continent. We spoke to individuals from Hong Kong, Australia, Kenya, and many other countries besides. I am still wrestling with ideas from that time (isn’t that the mark of a really good class?), and I want to share a snapshot of that wrestling with you all here.
Did you know that in Ireland, there is currently such a significant teacher shortage that many principals are also teaching full time course loads? I cannot imagine taking on a full load while also trying to serve as a principal. In England, the culture around high stakes exams is so unhealthy that many schools hire extra trauma counselors to be available on site as students receive their grades. Schools first begin issuing these exams at age 10. They remove PE and recess in order to adequately study and prepare. By contrast, in Denmark schools are not allowed to formally test students until the 8th or 9th grade. Even then, individual achievement on exams is rarely prioritized, and many students take a laissez-faire approach to studying with little negative consequence. While this may seem initially appealing (at least to students), it is also worth mentioning that it is frowned upon to celebrate individual merit or achievement — no valedictorian or salutatorian awards for the Danes. In Finland, teaching is a highly regarded profession which requires a minimum of a master’s degree. Can you imagine what kind of mess would happen in the U.S. if the government required every teacher in the country to hold a master’s degree? One of the outcomes in Finland, at least, is that it has helped to establish teaching as an esteemed profession – many young people desire to become teachers. Picture that: a little boy or girl sweetly saying they want to grow up to be a teacher when they get older. Here in the States, students only want to grow up to be Wembanyama (which I get — he is amazing). (Editor’s note, because she had to look it up: Victor Wembanyama is the center and forward for the San Antonio Spurs.)
Education is complicated. Our task is to prepare students for a future which we do not know and can only imagine. When the current kindergarten class is graduating high school, it will be 2039. What will the world look like in 2039? What skills will be valuable in the job market? Will it still be desirable to pursue a college degree (is it now)? What will politics in America look like — or around the globe? What about the state of the Church? Will students work or travel in ways we cannot currently imagine? What type of skills will students need? I wonder what social issues our students will face and what tools they will need to face them well.
Ecclesiastes would teach us that “there is nothing new under the sun” (1:9). Our task as educators is to teach timeless truth. We are not trying to teach skills for one career path or one type of learner. Rather, we are trying to cultivate students who will possess wisdom and skills which equip them to impact the world for Christ. With this in mind, I have some claims about what school ought to be like.*
- Schools should be places of adversity. We believe that students can do hard things, and comfort is not the same as well-being. It is the task of the teacher to present challenges to students and to help them struggle well.
- Schools should be places of belonging. Only as students learn who they are in Christ and how they can extend hospitality towards others can they experience real belonging.
- Schools should be places of curiosity. We ought to be more concerned with growth for each student than we are with status, recognition, or that ever difficult-to-define word “success.”
As we embark on a new school year, let’s build a school that feels like this for students: a place where we believe we can do hard things, a place where we care about humans over outcomes, and a place where we pursue learning because God is Truth.
*These three ideas come out of The Happiness Crisis by Jon Eckert (2026), which I highly recommend.
