Tradition can sometimes have a negative connotation to it.  For many, hearing the word conjures up feelings of desperately holding on to a past, refusing to change.  So when I'm asked what it means to have a 3rd generation of our family attending Shoreline Christian School, I'm hesitant to simply chalk it up to tradition.  That answer isn't wrong, it's just incomplete.

I attended SCS for the full spectrum, Preschool through 12th Grade, graduating in 1999.  If I add in my years as an SCS parent, I've spent over half of my life with this connection.  By the time my youngest, Aurora (Preschool), graduates, I will have spent two thirds of my life involved with SCS.  If you couldn't tell already, math was always my favorite subject.  So what does this all have to do with tradition?  Webster's defines tradition as an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior.  I believe how I think, act, and behave today is largely shaped by my experiences at SCS.

Shoreline Christian has a tradition of instilling a love for knowledge and learning, and of supporting both creative and analytical minds.  It brings me great joy to see the excitement on my daughters' faces when they tell me what they've learned each day.  I recall the encouragement that I received from my teachers, which helped direct my love for math into a career as an insurance actuary, where I spend most days knee deep in numbers.  I feel blessed now seeing my daughters receive that same encouragement.  It doesn't hurt that my oldest, Evangeline (2nd Grade), has been taught by not one, but two of the same teachers I had.  Oddly enough, neither one of them seems to have aged!

Another tradition that immediately comes to mind is that of compassion and patience.  Growing up hearing my father's school stories, it really drove home the need for a teacher's compassion and patience!  I never got into too much trouble myself (that I recall...), but when I did, the teachers handled it with grace.  To see that same outpouring of love to my children today sets the bar for the type of parent I strive to be. 

Even more important than knowledge and compassion, Shoreline Christian has a tradition of teaching that faith and life are not intersecting paths, but inseparable ones.  That we can't just pay lip service to our faith, but have to live it as well.  I fall and fail as much as the next person (often in glorious fashion) but I believe Shoreline Christian School, alongside my family and my church helped equip me to "Fight the good fight of faith" (1 Timothy 6:12).  I believe they helped do it for my father, and I believe they're helping do it for my children.

Composer Gustav Mahler once wrote, "Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire."  My wife, Allyson, and I don't send our kids to Shoreline Christian School because of a family tradition or to continue some DeKoekkoek legacy.  They attend because we see a fire being preserved, the traditions the school has set instilling in them a love for learning, treating them with compassion, and helping us teach them a better way to live.  I wouldn't say the path my life has taken has been exceptionally interesting.  In fact, it's been rather traditional, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

-Jordan DeKoekkoek

Class of 1999