Quotes From "Teaching Redemptively: Bringing Grace And Truth Into Your Classroom" By Donovan L. Graham

Most professional beliefs, especially Christian religious beliefs, are taught through formal, usually verbal, instruction. Such formal instruction may be devoid of personal experience to match the verbal teaching.. . Just as the instruction is verbal, the learner's profession of the belief is verbal. Donovan L. Graham

Our students sometimes use their creativity to do wrong things, and we therefore conclude that we must keep them from being creative. But evil cannot be blamed on creativity. (p31) Donovan L. Graham

Most Christian teachers would profess to believe that their students are made in the image of God.Classroom practices, however, often reveal that students are not treated accordingly. They are not challenged to think through issues and carefully examine the various positions relevant to the issue. Instead they are simply given information as correct answers to be remembered and reproduced on a test or in some other written form. Rather than create an art project that reveals something about the way they view the world, they are given specific instructions for completing each step of the project and criticized, for example, if the trees are not green. While verbally teaching Johnny that he is an important person, a teacher may employ a learning model or classroom discipline system that clearly treats him as on object to be shaped and controlled by a system. (p18) . Donovan L. Graham

Some people claim we have a Christian heritage in America that needs restoring, but such a claim is debatable and is not well supported by the evidence. We have no biblical warrant to deify the past. Consequently, I find it difficult and possibly wasteful to try to identify just what part of our heritage was Christian in hopes that we can somehow get back to it. Donovan L. Graham