The first known Adventist church school was opened by Martha Byington in 1853 in Buck’s Bridge, New York. Since then, Adventist Education has grown to become “the second-largest parochial school system in the world, with more than 7,500 schools in nearly 150 countries serving 1.5 million students” (adventisteducation.org). Our mission is “to enable learners to develop a life of faith in God, and to use their knowledge, skills, and understandings to serve God and humanity” (ibid).
Each of us have been impacted by Adventist education, whether you attended an Adventist school or not. Our individual experiences vary, but you can probably rattle off the top talking points that we use to promote our school system. You’re probably familiar with the phrase, “Educating for Eternity,” or how we desire to educate the whole-person, spiritually, physically, intellectually and social-emotionally through our excellent student-to-teacher ratio. ValueGenesis 4 (2022) research continues to demonstrate the effectiveness of our schools and the ever-increasing importance that school plays in the faith development of our young people.
While we endeavor to provide the best education possible, I believe it’s important to recognize the wide range of lived experiences. May I take a few sentences to recognize some messy bits?
For all of our tremendous strengths, sometimes our schools have made mistakes. There have been times when our loving God who is full of grace and mercy was taught as a God with unattainable standards and strict judgment. While rules and expectations are necessary, we sometimes failed in our explanations, resulting in many young people developing a skewed picture of God, resulting in the toxic belief that school dress codes or relationship rules impacted their salvation.
For every fabulous friendship and lifelong relationship born within the Adventist education family, there’s also the student who felt lost, excluded, lonely or endured unacceptable hazing or bullying. We are blessed with phenomenal teachers who love their students so much. But even well-meaning teachers can inadvertently cause damage with words spoken and those words are carried for a lifetime.
There are Adventist school alumni who attended small one-teacher schools and have experienced great success, now working in the upper echelons. But for every academic success story, there are also individuals who found themselves behind and struggling academically. Not to mention those with disabilities or special needs who were told that our schools didn’t have enough services available to help them.
Might I Apologize?
The list could go on and on and I don’t want to sound depressing, but I also don’t want our schools to come across as whitewashed tombs. We have each had an experience with Adventist education, some positive, some negative, probably a little of both. I don’t know your unique story, but I’m sure you can resonate. Might I apologize on behalf of Adventist education for the hurt you may carry? If you find bitterness or resentment bubbling up anytime Adventist schools are mentioned, can I ask that you forgive us? I’m truly sorry if our schools fell short or let you down. And I’m especially sorry if your experience with our schools in any way harmed your spiritual walk and personal relationship with God.
In spite of our limitations or difficulties, I stand by Adventist education. I could talk your ear off all day sharing about the amazing things that I see happening in our schools. Every year, I rejoice with heaven as our schools lead students to make personal decisions for Jesus and enter baptismal waters.
The work of education and the work of redemption are one! I truly love Adventist education and believe in its ministry, which includes acknowledging and learning from our mistakes. Please join me in praying for our schools, our teachers, our students and their families. And may we also take time to pray for all our alumni and those we know who may have been hurt by our system. As we prepare for another school year, let’s not shy away from the difficult conversations. Let’s collaboratively brainstorm about how to make our schools better than ever. I’m so glad that God, the Master Teacher, offers us wisdom, inspiration, healing and reconciliation. 2024-2025 just might be the best school year yet!
At the time of this writing, Kelli Wasemiller was elementary education superintendent for the Dakota Conference.
