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Teaching For Transformation

What is Teaching for Transformation?

Teaching for Transformation (TfT) is a framework for Christian education used to help activate the SWCHS vision in the classrooms.
Through its core practices, students are empowered to see the story of God’s kingdom and invited to live the story. Classroom activities and instruction are aimed at helping students to see the deeper connections between the content and God’s story. Multiple days of professional development are set aside each year for deepening TfT practices.

Core Practices

  • Each teacher crafts a Deep Hope & Storyline to hook students & help them see the deeper connections
  • Teachers align their curriculum toward the SWCHS Throughlines
  • Teachers design Formational Learning Experiences (FLEx) to invite our students into action

Throughlines

Throughlines are discipleship habits and practices that both form the learners and transform God’s world around them. Throughlines help students, teachers, and parents imagine what it means to be a disciple within God’s story. They articulate a vision for how their school’s graduates will live. 

Thor Benson

Thor Benson

Principal
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Peter Welle

Peter Welle

Director of Teaching and Learning, US History Faculty
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SWCHS Throughlines

Loved By God, Lovers of Others

Loved By God, Lovers of Others

It is our hope that all SWCHS students will understand that they are Loved by God, so that they may become Lovers of Others. Those who are increasingly aware of God’s love for them find themselves growing in their desire to act in ways that show love toward God and others. A Love for God causes self-forgetfulness as both the starting point for true love and the thing that makes it continually possible. It is our hope that all SWCHS students would be overwhelmed by God’s love for them and respond with a love for God and neighbor.

StewardsofCreation

Stewards of God's Creation

It is our hope that all SWCHS students will become stewards of creation. To steward is to care for something or someone on behalf of someone else. God, as the creator, commissioned humanity to manage and care for his creation－including land, animals, and other humans. Stewardship seeks to reverse the fallen nature of creation and its relationships in order to restore it to what God intended while waiting for Christ to ultimately restore His creation and people. It is our hope that all our students will be active participants in this redeeming process.  

SeekersofJustice

Seekers of Justice

It is our hope that all SWCHS students will become Seekers of Justice. This involves engaging the world’s systems and individual people to bring about fairness, equality, and righteousness so that all people are treated with the dignity of being made in the image of God. In the Bible, justice is synonymous with ‘righteousness,’ and is most often reflected in assisting the disenfranchised and poor and expressing the character of God as one without favoritism. It is our hope that SWCHS students will seek justice in a way that reflects God and recognizes that He will ultimately bring justice. 

ServantHeartedWorkers

Servant Hearted Workers

It is our hope that all SWCHS students will become Servant-Hearted Workers, who diligently labor to serve others motivated by their love for God. This service is aimed not at themselves, but rather at bringing about the Kingdom of God as an act of faithfulness to Him. The Bible tells us that humanity is made for work. Without work, we wither and become more distant from the Lord. It is our hope that every student would see the goodness of work itself, desire to benefit others, and ultimately work in a way that God is glorified.  

OrderDiscoverers

Order Discoverers

It is our hope that all SWCHS students will become Order Discoverers. This entails noticing the relationships and patterns that exist between ideas or objects and restoring to harmony and order that has been disordered by sin. The more in harmony the human soul is with God, the creator, the more it will yearn to discover and implement order as God intended. It is our hope that every student will delight in discovering order, patterns, and harmony within each book, equation, ecosystem, rhythm of history, and all arenas of life and seek to bring order as God intended.  

Image Bearers

Image Bearers

It is our hope that all SWCHS students will become Image Bearers. This entails living consistently as someone who has been ‘made in the image of God’ by reflecting the characteristics and qualities of God. Image bearing suggests a recognition of our own intrinsic worth and the value of humanity as people made in God’s image and worthy of his love.

Idolatry Discerners

Idolatry Discerners

It is our hope that all SWCHS students will become Idolatry Discerners. Idols are anything that we look to with the hope that they will satisfy our deepest needs and protect us better than God. These idols offer temptations, distractions, and distortions from the good life found in Christ. By discerning idols in our lives and our culture, we can resist their deception and place our trust in God alone. 

Creators of Beautiful Things

Creators of Beautiful Things

It is our hope that all SWCHS students will become creators of beautiful things. Humans are called to create things that are reflective of God’s eternal goodness. When we make beautiful things without self-interest or personal promotion, we partake in authentic expressions of beauty. These can reflect our own heart’s condition and serve as a way to worship the Creator.

Stories in the Classroom