the fray- starting high school

Here we go again. Another two disciples joining the fray in the public school realm. Not the fray. The fray. Today our boys begin their freshman year and join their senior sister in public high school. Depending on where you live, your public schools could be very different than ours in LA, or very similar. We are about as diverse as possible, as expected. There were enough students of a different culture or racial/ethnic group than our boys at their former private school (our church school) that this is no culture shock. That and years of city park and recreation league basketball.

What will be very different for them though, will be the faith background of their new friends. The majority of their classmates were connected to Jesus in some way in our school, with many of their friends attending our specific church. Not so with their high school. They get a huge pool of opportunity to be an influence with new friends. They also get what their sister has received over the last three years at the same school.

• A big opportunity to find new ways to drop the “F” bomb.

• A big opportunity to spend time with kids who don’t know God from a giraffe and are proud of their “atheism.”

• A big opportunity to hear from several faculty members why Bush is an idiot and should be impeached. Lovely to be paying taxes for uninformed blather about the president no matter who that president might be. Not a reasoned examination of the evidence of our political system. Just taking the easy way out of name-calling so no one really questions my research and argument.

So, why do we do it? Send our kids into all of this?

• For the other amazing teachers who thirst to guide them to seek out knowledge and make a difference.

• For the new friends who look at life from a non-Christian perspective so our kids can learn where they may connect, and what the needs and desires their friends have are, which, of course, only Jesus can fulfill. Somehow our kids might provide bridge to him.

• And, yes, to actually get them into classrooms with extreme politicized teachers so they know how weak extreme politicized thinking really is, and they can be better prepared to build bridges of finding common ground with open minded but different minded people so they can join together and actually think through why they think what they think.

• Prepare them for the university and beyond.


This can all be done in a private school setting, but hey, why not? Like Daniel in the Bible, why miss out on all the fun?