A Different Kind Of Education

Ryan Sclater

I am an English major with a minor in Biblical studies and a budding zeal for education. I have recently ended my university career as a volleyball player with back-to-back seasons of both a Canada West and a National Championship for a total of four banners and two rings.

Those who know me would say that much of who I am has been established in the tension of trying to reconcile these areas of my life over the past five years.

Volleyball

When athletics is challenged, as it often is by my academic-focused peers who claim strengthening the body cannot overlap with strengthening the mind, I go back to this one fact: I would not be at Trinity without volleyball.

I can’t throw it away to free up some extra time for my studies. It’s the reason I can even participate at all.

Volleyball is so much greater than just sport. I wouldn’t be who I am without the intense physical effort, ever-increasing mental strain, miraculous victories, and deep relationships that it imposes on me.

Volleyball reveals something about my soul in the moments of despair and joy that a normal life would never fathom. Without sports, I would not have plumbed the depths of what it means to compete, to sacrifice for my teammates, to be disciplined day after day in the pursuit of a goal that transcended my own selfish interests, to fail nearly to the point of despair, and to succeed beyond all expectations.

While some may see volleyball as an impediment to education, I am continually reminded that volleyball is my education.

Classroom

It is the idea of complex education that continues to come back to me.

Outside volleyball, the idea also became clear to me after an intriguing but impromptu class discussion. When it was done, we dutifully proceeded to the next slide of the lesson without living in the value of the tangent. All the life and vigour of our conversation had been tossed aside in service of the curriculum, the PowerPoint, and the ever-approaching exam.

The splendour of a real and honest question, asked without a thought for final grades, is unparalleled. A new, pure, and innocent thought feels like a cloud of darkness slowly being illuminated. But it is only a flicker across our minds, unable to stand a chance when there is ink to spill in service of the next slide.

To be educated, is far more dimensional than sitting in a classroom. Yes, it comes from professors but also on the court, across the lunch table, and in fleeting moments between PowerPoints.

In the end, my most valuable education was not written down.

Faith

All this aside, it really comes down to this: while these are not worthless, they are meaningful only in service of a higher meaning. Rendered unto myself, they wither. But miraculously, if they are rendered unto God, they take on a new dimension. They become building blocks of the kingdom.

If I can really see that Jesus Christ is supremely above anything and everything that Trinity Western has give to me, then, and only then, will I start to receive the real blessing that this place (and all its forms of education) can provide — a relationship with my creator, my saviour, my Lord. And with Him will come all those things again.