Daniel Russ
is headmaster of Trinity Christian Academy, a K–12 college preparatory school in Dallas, Texas. He holds a BA in English from the University of Evansville, an MA in biblical studies from Dallas Theological Seminary, an MA in English from the University of Dallas, and a PhD in literature and psychology from the University of Dallas. Dr. Russ is a Fellow of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. He leads seminars for the Trinity Forum, a Christian university without walls for secular leaders, and is currently writing a curriculum on technology and leadership for the Trinity Forum. He has contributed to two forthcoming books, one on tragedy and the other on globalization and the future.
When I became headmaster in May of 1994, Trinity Christian Academy had a student body of 1124, a faculty and staff of 136, and a 24-acre campus. We now are a community of over 1450 students with a faculty and staff of almost 200 full- and part-time employees, located on over 40 acres that now includes almost 70,000 more square feet of building space, and we are about to build that much more. While we previously served some eight hundred families, we now serve about a thousand. We have added a full-time chaplain/counselor, a full-time middle school guidance counselor, a director of volunteer services, two assistant directors of development, a director of academic technology, and an information systems manager. In short, we have grown quantitatively in all respects. To God be the glory!
By 1998, our school population had reached a plateau. There would be building in the future: the current lower school expansion, future arts facilities, and much-needed additional gym and indoor athletic space. We will probably add a few teachers, administrators, and support staff here and there over the coming years. But we have come to a place of stability in numbers that will characterize Trinity for as long as I can envision. This stability has afforded us the opportunity to reflect on the quality of our school, our character as a community, and the core values we hold dear.
We did not ignore the need for a quality school in prior years. The school heads and I have asked the faculty to reflect with us on who we are and how we express the qualities that we profess in our mission statement, our curriculum, and our other covenants with our Lord and the school community. We have revisited the meaning and implications of our mission and purpose in the SACS school renewal process, asking ourselves to articulate the mission statement of the lower, middle, and upper schools in light of the larger mission of Trinity Christian Academy. This focus on mission has enabled us to understand TCA as a living system of education, any part of which vitally contributes to or detracts from the total mission. The board, administration, faculty, advisory board, and parent volunteers have revised our strategic plan, creating a document designed to guide us for up to five years. We have reviewed and re-envisioned our curriculum in the areas of writing, foreign language, and technology. And we have embarked on a truly original and authentic approach to faculty renewal and evaluation through Dr. Walker Buckalew’s Meaningful Faculty Evaluation. This process has led us to a vital focus on understanding more profoundly and living more deliberately our personal mission in light of Trinity’s mission. For in matters of quality, nothing matters more than the character of the faculty, individually and corporately.
Another way of thinking about the issues of quality and character in a school is to seek to understand what James Collins calls “core values” (Built to Last by James Collins and Jerry I. Porras). Collins defines core values as those timeless, fixed, and fundamental truths that an individual, community, or organization hold to regardless of whether they are popular or practical. He contrasts these with operating practices and cultural norms, which must always be adapted and changed. For example, in the forty years between Exodus and Deuteronomy, the Israelites were instructed in how to adapt to a new land and a new generation, and were given many practical instructions different from and in addition to those given in Exodus; however, the Ten Commandments did not change.
Two years ago, I convened our TCA administrators at the end of the school year to discuss the core values of our school. We attempted to list what we consider to be the things that Trinity truly values. In doing so, we tried to be honestly descriptive, not idealistically prescriptive; i.e., we tried to state what our core values really are, not what they should be. Collins suggests that there usually are no more than three to five core values, the non-negotiable pillars on which an institution is built and endures. Beyond them, there are principles of operation, procedure, and method, all of which must change from time to time.
I was delighted that our administrative team came to consensus during that retreat. We concluded that Trinity holds to four core values that reveal our character and define our ideal of quality. We do not claim that these are the only core values, and when we presented them to the board, advisory board, and faculty, we invited them to challenge these and suggest others. While clarifying our understanding and offering some penetrating insights, the faculty and board members largely agreed that the following are the “non-negotiable pillars” on which Trinity Christian Academy is built:
1. We are an evangelical Christian school whose mission, trustees, teachers, and methods center on an unabashed commitment to the grace of God in Christ and the authority of the Bible. How we [as a community] define this evangelical faith is articulated in the Trinity Christian Academy doctrinal statement.
This evangelical commitment means that we agree with all Christians through the ages that God has uniquely revealed Himself in, and redeemed us through, the person and work of Jesus Christ. We agree with believers of the Protestant Reformation that the Bible in its original writing is the final, inerrant, and infallible authority in all areas of knowledge and practice. Likewise, we affirm the truth that salvation through Christ is by grace through faith, and not by human merit. Practically speaking, this means that when we as board members, administrators, teachers, and staff sign this statement, we indicate that we share the basic doctrines common to many of our denominations and congregations. As leaders of Trinity, we are to emphasize only these doctrines as the basic beliefs of what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity.” Having emphasized our common convictions, we must recognize that many of us, including the trustees, would like to add a qualifying clause or an additional doctrine, coming out of our various evangelical traditions and personal convictions. God has called our school to witness to the unity and harmony of the body of Christ within a biblical, orthodox, and evangelical framework, as defined by Trinity’s doctrinal statement.
2. We are a school committed to educating students in a classical Christian curriculum, grounded in biblical faith and inspired by the joy of learning. Our goal is to offer an excellent education which inspires and enables teachers to teach and students to become lifetime learners of truth and lifetime lovers of God and their neighbors, and for all to be stewards of God’s creation.
Let me briefly define what distinguishes a classical Christian education from a modern or progressive education. A classical education treats human beings and the natural world as created and encompasses the study of the Creator, the study of humanity and human culture as the greatest creation, and a study of the physical universe, of which human beings are stewards but not owners. By contrast, modern education treats human beings as part of a cosmic machine that is an accident of time, space, and chance, and its education treats humanity as a means of production and consumption, or as competing for survival in the marketplace, on planet Earth, and finally in the universe. There is truth and virtue in the classical perspective, and education is about teaching truth and virtue and appropriating them into one’s life. What follows is that certain truths, virtues, and facts are more important to know and teach than others. Thus certain books, philosophical ideas, mathematical and scientific principles, historical persons and events, works of art, foreign languages, and so on are more critical to a fully human education than are others. And the end of all education is to inspire and instruct people to love God and their neighbors with the fullness of maturity marked by such knowledge, skills, and wisdom.
3. We are a Christian community which sees our students first and finally as children of God. As such, it is our privilege to teach them who they are in Christ, how God has gifted each of them, and how to effectively serve God and His world as people who have knowledge, skills, and wisdom.
We commit neither the ancient heresy of treating our children as products of a fate determined by capricious gods nor the modern heresy of treating them as products of history, environment, genetics, and economics determined by capricious mortals. We believe they are called in Christ to be lovers of God and their fellows, and capable of living fully and leading wisely. We know they are sinners, but unlike the pagan Greeks for whom that word meant they were merely mortals, we believe it means they were not intended to live the fantasy of self-made, self-sufficient, and self- absorbed people. They are called in Christ to become the glorious, God-imaged creatures He designed them to be, and to be rulers and stewards of creation by His grace.
4. We value and nurture Trinity as a community of faith and learning. We want to foster relationships with students and their families as well as among faculty and administrators that reflect the grace of God in Christ embodied in a safe, caring, and loving environment.
We are a community of faith and learning because the only reason we exist is that we all love Christ and want our children to have the best education within a Christian community. We do not want to foster a hypocritical community, which fakes piety and hides our children from a sinful and complex world. Our curriculum and teaching ought to challenge our students to think about the deepest values, the universal truths, the greatest books and ideas, and the foundational principles of the design of God’s world, and they ought to be able to do so in an environment that is loving, peaceful, and wholesome.
This is our vision of a quality Christian education grounded in truth and character. Our goal is to ask the Lord and ourselves, In what ways do our programs, policies, procedures, and personal character align with these values? This is a question of integrity.
Reflections on Core Values: A Question of Integrity 4.1