Insights

Love your neighbor as yourself is the only way to begin an essay on developing a public spirit. Public spirit will be the last of the six social and emotional learning topics covered during the 2021-22 school year. Thus far, we’ve covered identity, the mind, emotions, agency, and social skills. Now, we begin public spirit. As defined in All Learning is Social and Emotional, “Public spirit is active interest and personal investment in the well-being of one’s communities. Those communities include home, school, neighborhood, state or province, region, country, and the world.” Though many schools will make an effort to cover this topic with their students, there is no adequate teaching on the public spirit that does not find its foundation in the Word of God. God requires us to consider the needs of those around us. God commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. 

The Word of God presents us with many examples of what it looks like to love our neighbor as ourselves, and care for our community. We are to be kind to the poor, Proverbs 19:17. We are not to oppress the stranger, Exodus 22:21. We are to “seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, and plead for the widow,” Isaiah 1:17. Reading Exodus and Leviticus helps the Christian learn God’s most basic instructions for living successfully in community. In fact, it is in Leviticus 25 that we find the word Jubilee, now repurposed by Logos Prep for our biennial celebration. The Jewish Jubilee was a time to reset. 

“Those who lacked the power and resources to participate in significant aspects of the community were to be strengthened so that they could. This concern in Leviticus 25, is illustrated by the provision of the year of Jubilee, in which at the end of the fifty year period land is restored to those who had lost it through sale or foreclosure of debts.” - Holman Bible Dictionary

Though our Jubilee is simply a celebration of what God is doing at Logos Prep, I find it symbolic that we kick off our discussion of the public spirit the week of the 2022 Logos Prep Jubilee. During the next month, we will discuss ways you can help your child learn to demonstrate a strong public spirit. We will look at aspects of our Portrait of a Graduate and discuss how these skills empower our students to make an impact on the world around us. We will learn that while many are talking about making an impact in society, it is only by making an impact for Christ that we can recognize true change. Our children are all ambassadors, not of this world, but of Christ and a Kingdom to come.

Tammy McIlvoy
Head of School
Logos Preparatory Academy