Like the Real World
From time to time, I hear both students and parents say, ‘Christian schools are a bubble’.
It is an understandable concern, and it raises a thoughtful question for any parent or educator:
Are we preparing young people for the real world?
After all, in a Christian school we pray together, we talk about forgiveness and reconciliation as Christ-shaped obligations, we sing songs about salvation in Assembly, we have long meetings about how Art speaks to Christian faith; indeed, our fundamental values are Faith, Hope and Love. From the outside, this can look like a sheltered environment — a place where students might not experience ‘how things really are’.
But what if we have our definition of the real world the wrong way around?
We often assume the real world is the place where conflict is normal, self-interest dominates, and God feels absent. Yet the Christian story presents the opposite — it is like a reverse of the 1999 blockbuster The Matrix. In the film, Neo discovers that the pleasant world around him is the illusion, and when the veil lifts the ‘real world’ is bleak and hopeless. Christianity flips the script. It begins with a world declared good (Genesis 1:31), where humanity walks with God in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8). The brokenness we now experience (as Genesis 3 continues) is the distortion, not the truest picture of reality. In Jesus — ‘the image of the invisible God’ (Colossians 1:15) — we then glimpse restored humanity, real human life. And Revelation lifts the veil further, not on a distant future, but on what is ultimately true right now: all creation centred on God’s presence and praise (see Chapters 4–5 for the details!).
If that is reality as God defines it, then a world shaped by love, forgiveness, truth and service is not artificial at all. It is, in fact, the real world — the wonderful real world breaking through even now.
And why does this matter? It means that Christian schools should absolutely be more like the real world — and should prepare students to take this real world out to serve a broken reality.
So, when our community gathers to pray at the beginning of exams…
When teachers help students imagine how their subjects speak to faith…
When we practise honouring others above ourselves because Jesus modelled it…
I would suggest we are not hiding students from the real world. We are helping them truly taste it!
To be clear: we do not want students to retreat from current realities. At its best, a Christian school will intentionally, compassionately and rigorously interrogate the most challenging parts of life in developmentally appropriate ways. We would indeed be doing our children a disservice if the first time they confront violence in the world is when they encounter it alone.
But our conviction is that those who:
carry a secure identity
love their neighbours with sincerity
choose forgiveness where others choose retaliation
think and act in Christ-shaped ways
bring hope into places marked by confusion or despair
…are not naïve idealists. They are people prepared for the real world.
May our students grow to recognise what is truly real — and may they become men and women who gently and courageously make every community they enter more like it.
Kyle Fifield - Head of Teaching and Learning
