by Adam Kronberger / Head of School

We have all been on the giving or receiving end of being called the wrong name. For my entire childhood I allowed my optometrist to call me “Allen” because I was too embarrassed to correct him. I allowed a colleague from another school to call me “Mr. Kroger” for a time simply because I preferred it. Many of our CCS elementary students call me “Mrs. K.” when I bump into them on campus. Why do they do that? Is it because I have the same sparkling personality and beautiful hair as our Elementary Director who shares the same last name?

There are 2 main reasons we call someone the wrong name. The first case is that we simply forget or misremember, especially those who we don’t know very well. But what about those who are close to us? Our brain often grabs the wrong name from a bucket of people we have previously put in a convenient category.  For example, when a frustrated parent attempts to chastise one of their children in an emotional moment, they often will run through the list of every sibling (and pets) before landing on the correct name. So while our brains may be malfunctioning in the moment, we are applying logic by choosing a name from a similar family category.  At least that’s what I tell myself when students consistently call me Mrs. K!

Disciples are called to become like Christ for the glory of God. One process of discipleship training is renewing the mind through the truths of God and His character. We want our children to think as God would think. As they respond to the challenges of each day, their minds will instinctively lean on the information that has been fed to their brains.  We know that the enemy is actively working to squeeze lies into our children’s understanding. The role of family, church, and school is to systematically and deliberately integrate the truths of God into how they view the world around them.

We should constantly observe and reflect on the buckets of information our children access. Are these buckets supporting or trivializing God’s truths? We should have high expectations for our children, and hold those same high expectations for ourselves. But perfection is not necessarily the goal. Jesus already took care of that for us. If we as parents cannot perfectly apply the names of those close to us, we do not need to necessarily expect our students to perfectly apply all of God’s truths. But while we may forget names at times, we know the person well. In the same way, we want our children to know the personhood of the triune God well and always default to His truths.