I recently shared rule #2 from what I call, “The Decorum” online and had a lot of encouraging feedback. I thought to share the whole here.

The Decorum serves as a set of norms that I share with my high school Bible and theology students at the beginning of the year. Taking a cue from Israel’s kings, I have them copy it down word-for-word into their notebooks by hand. It is less a list of rules and more a list of theological assumptions (the why) along with their specific applications (the what) to the life of a student and the context of a classroom. My hope is that this establishes the what and the why of our class expectations throughout the school year so the students are not only know what kind of conduct will be expected of them, but why that conduct is true, good, beautiful, and, above all, honoring to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I’ve got loads more to say about it, which I might do later, but I’ll cut to the quick and share it now.

The Decorum Prologue

We are valuable. Our classmates are valuable. Our teacher, yes, even he, is valuable. Our time is precious. Your goal, if it is to learn truth, become good, and love what is beautiful, is invaluable. Therefore, we embrace and uphold these rules together to protect us from hindrance and propel ourselves toward great knowledge, character, wisdom, and maturity.

While we are not required to be devoted Christians to attend Capistrano Valley Christian School, we are reasonably expected to be respectful students. So, we will conduct ourselves according to the following rules of The Decorum.

One – Seek to Become Whole

We are human beings gifted by God with capacities for rationality (we think and speak), emotion (we feel), morality (we do good or evil), and free will (we choose our path). Those abilities exist within us, but they’re not yet fully developed. We are not what we were, but we also are not yet what we could be. Therefore, we seek education to cultivate our whole being – to sharpen our thinking, refine our character, control our emotions wisely, do good, and choose good. We steward God’s gift of education not just for grades, colleges, or better paychecks, but so we may become fully, wisely, and joyfully human.

Two – Worship God By Growing Like Him

Going to school for a grade is called idolatry and grades are a cruel god. They turn school into slavery with nothing but empty tasks to complete. They turn students into lap dogs that only make efforts when offered a treat. They demand all our focus so we never have time or energy to learn or enjoy anything. They breed misery, anxiety, and hatred for school. This doesn’t mean grades are bad, but worshiping them is. Instead, worship the true God who created you and for whom you are created, the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ; the God who doesn’t take, but always gives. Let your grades become the natural by-product of your hard work to learn and grow. School will be more enjoyable, fulfilling, and fruitful if you do.

Three – Steward the Gift of Time Worshipfully

Time is not eternal; only God is eternal. As weird as it sounds, time is a created thing and God graciously gives it to us to love him and others. Because of this, our time in class is a sacred gift set apart from lunch time, play time, or leisure time. It exists to grow our minds and character together so we can better love and reflect God and care for others. Therefore, we honor God’s gift of time by being seated with our materials at the bell and refraining from packing up until permitted or the bell rings.  

Four – Be Kind

Everyone is fighting a hard battle, be kind.

Five – Give Respect to Whom It’s Due

All people – no matter their gender, nationality, GPA, beliefs, skin color, intellect, physical size, abilities, hobbies, favorite sports teams, likeability, social skills, or favorite color – are made in the image of God – they carry his Name. As such, they are to be treated as valuable, that is, respected, in every conceivable way. To the best of our ability, we will not insult, embarrass, disrespect, interrupt, corrupt, or upset our image bearing peers or teacher with our words, body posture, or attitudes. Instead, we will make valiant efforts to love, honor, encourage, support, compliment, smile at, hold accountable, build up, stir up, and lift up our classmates and, yes, even our teacher. We will strive to be a blessing and not a curse.

Six – Take Responsibility or Yourself in Everything

In most situations, you cannot control what others say to you or do to you, but you are always in control of what you do or say. When we all stand before Jesus on the day of judgment, he will not make us answer for our teachers, our classmates, our family members’ lives, but we will answer for our lives and our words, even, or especially, the careless ones (Matthew 12:36). Therefore, we will not follow our father Adam’s sin and blame others for our faults (Genesis 3:11-12). Instead, we will work to take full responsibility for our timeliness, our assignments, our make-up tests/quizzes, our body posture, our reading and responding to emails, our attitude, and our words. We will pay attention first to the logs in our eyes.

Seven – Care About Other’s Perceiving You Correctly

One key lesson that maturity teaches is that we should care not only about our intentions, but others’ perceptions insofar as we can control. For example, in class, if we are genuinely interested in a class discussion, but we are slouched in our chair, turned away from the group, doodling on our hands with your earbuds in and our hoodies tightened around our face as if in a hurricane, no one knows we’re interested, benefits from our interest, or believes we’re interested. Therefore, we will work to ensure that not only our intentions are pure of heart, but that we conduct ourselves in such a way that they will be easily perceived by our classmates and teacher. In doing this, we’ll better learn how to love our neighbors.

Eight – Prepare Yourself to Work Hard to Grow

If we want to become strong, we must make intentional effort and endure the pain that comes with exercising. If we want to make the team, we must make intentional effort to condition, listen well, correct our bad habits, and endure the pain that comes with those things. If we want to build something beautiful with our hands, we need to measure, cut, nail, glue, sand, and paint and experience the difficulties that come with it. If we want to gain knowledge, grow in wisdom, think intelligently, and become people who are effective in the world, then we have to make intentional effort to read deeply, discuss thoughtfully, listen carefully, debate precisely, and articulate ourselves clearly, concisely, and correctly and be willing to endure the inevitable difficulties that come with that effort. Only the living fish make it upstream.

Nine – Be a Truth Teller in Word & Deed

The 9th commandment teaches us to not bear false witness. Put positively, we are to tell the truth. Therefore, in class we’ll strive to tell the truth, with respect, in conversation and papers about what we honestly think or feel instead of uttering empty, false, or plagiarized words to get good grades or the teacher off our backs. We don’t want to practice becoming good liars. We want to be truth tellers like God.

Ten – Act Like the Adult You Wanted to Be Treated As

We are young adults. We are young, but we are also adults. Therefore, we’d like to be treated as adults and not children. Even more, we want to act like adults. We will do our best to address conflicts in patient and honest ways. We will take responsibility for what we do and what we don’t do. We will seek help from our teacher whenever we need it. We will, with the utmost respect and appreciation, ask our mothers to not carry our hardships for us and, instead, learn to solve them ourselves.