As part of your child’s classical and Christian education, he will learn how to understand the world from a Christian Worldview. You may have chosen Westside Christian Academy for this very reason. So what does that mean to the classical and Christian student?

Christian Overman, author of Assumptions That Affect Our Lives, defines worldview as a “word used to describe a person’s mental perceptions about what is really real.” He goes on to explain that it is “an underlying set of beliefs or assumptions that shapes the way each of us judges the viability of our own life and behavior, whether or not we are consciously aware of those underlying elements.”

This definition implies that perhaps there are influences shaping our judgments of which we are unaware. At Westside Christian Academy there is a conscious effort to shape your children’s judgments with the truth of the Bible. We hold dearly to Jesus’ command in Matthew 22:37 to “…love the Lord your God with all your mind.” Douglas Wilson, the author of Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning articulates this goal beautifully when he says, “If our children do not think like Christians when they study history, math, or science, then they are not obeying the command to love God with all their minds.”

As students learn to love God with all their minds, they receive wisdom and understanding from his word. They begin to examine everything they learn from their understanding of who God is, what he has created, and His purpose for men’s lives in the world. They recognize the attributes of God in the characters they are reading about. They recognize the need to share the plan of redemption with an unregenerate world in history. They recognize the power of the creator when they learn about cell division.

The classical and Christian model of education, by its very nature, reinforces what Christian parents set out to do: help their children understand the world as humble sinners saved by grace extended from a loving and merciful God through His Son’s death and resurrection. In this way, our children will judge the viability of their own lives and behavior so that they will please God. It is a privilege to understand the world from a Christian worldview.