Philosophy of Christian Education:
Every Christian’s Responsibility
In last summer’s “Get-to-Know-Dr. Sutton” series, we released a piece about his approach to Christian higher education and featured two points of his 12-point educational philosophy. This semester we will highlight the other ten principles that Dr. Sutton believes should drive Christian education at the classroom level.
Dr. Sutton’s eleventh principle for Christian education is that the Christian educator must
place priority on presenting and explaining content clearly.
Of this principle, Dr. Sutton says, “That education involves content is obvious. However, the
clarity with which content is explained is critical. The educator has a responsibility to present
and explain content so that students can process and manage it in ways that will positively affect
mind, heart, and behavior. Doing so takes considerable time and preparation: ‘winging’
classroom periods is not acceptable in Christian education. Moreover, just as it is important for
the teacher to be a good example, it is important that curriculum materials also have examples
that help students understand the relevance and the meaning of the content. When possible,
curriculum materials should contain both good and flawed examples so that students may learn
by contrasting the ideal with the imperfect.”
