Education

Education, or schooling as it is better known for those under twenty, is at a new height of popularity because of the information age. Individual successes in life and national destinies are being increasingly linked to the quality of educational experiences. In a parallel outlook the New Testament emphasizes the necessity of instruction. Paul, for example, talks about counseling and teaching everyone with all wisdom in a way that is similar to preparing students for a final exam (Col. 1:28).

Despite their common concern for education, Greeks and Christians in the first century a.d. saw their educational philosophies as irreconcilable. Many asked, “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?” Athens, the center on which most of our present-day educational traditions are based, espoused a morality and a concept of God totally unacceptable to Christians. This led to a rejection of all that emanated from that source. Some still think that way today, as will be seen when home schooling is discussed.

In fact, the so-called polarization between Jerusalem and Athens was not as clear-cut as it might seem at first glance. The early apologists, including Paul, sought to find common ground between Christian values and the secular world of Greece. Today this concurrency is more visible; secular and Christian educators alike espouse many of the same timeless and universal ideas and values. Wilfred Wees, a Canadian educational leader, touched on this idea in a speech delivered at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in 1965. He described love as the only lasting principle in education, one that, in his words, “would be as true two thousand years hence as it was two thousand years ago in the life of Christ.”

Contemporary debates over educational goals arise from the different values that people bring to them. These values are evident whenever educational plans are made, when overall goals are stated or when content and methods of curricula are defined. At one time H. I. Marrou’s definition of education received widespread acceptance: “Education is a collective technique which a society employs to instruct its youth in the values and accomplishments of the civilization within which it exists” (p. xiii). This is no longer acceptable in our multicultural society of today. As a result, there is a range of opinions on the values that ought to undergird educational programs.

Education in Values

Everything that happens in a school is value-laden. The notion of value-free education is a myth: every choice of teaching materials, every mode of instruction and every action by the teacher carries a set of values. These values can be seen most clearly in a school’s overall goal, be it character formation, academic success, social responsibility or some combination of these. Behind each goal lies a distinct view of human nature and destiny. If character formation is a primary goal, then morality will dominate the curriculum; if it is academic success, then intellectual prowess will get top priority. A Christian goal would lean heavily toward character formation, including the recognition of right and wrong (Hebrews 5:13-14).

Historically almost all education in our Western world is rooted in a Christian view of life. Christians and Christian organizations responding to particular needs, often of the neglected poorer members of society, established private schools. Christian values governed these schools, just as Jewish and Muslim values governed the schools of those religions. Only in modern times, particularly in the United States, has the myth of separate secular and religious schools surfaced. Only in the narrowest sense of religious practices, like baptism, is it possible to separate secular and religious values. For many parents, however, the two are indivisible because they see their religion as that dimension of culture that deals with the meaning of life and humanity’s place in the universe.

Many North Americans say that children exposed to the world’s religions are more tolerant of other viewpoints. Yet in multiethnic Britain during the 1980s, a very different value prevailed. The government decided to make traditional Christianity the basic value system of the schools. Strongest support for the decision came from Muslims, Jews and representatives of several other religions, all of whom felt that a society ought to be true to its roots. Giving equal place to each of the world’s religions would, they argued, confuse rather than help the young.

The primacy of the parental role is at issue in discussions over values, and this priority is fully recognized only when religious values are taken into consideration. This parental role stems from age-old traditions rooted in Jewish and Christian history. In many countries it has been retained throughout the centuries. In the United States, by contrast, the past 150 years witness the dominance of Greek and Roman traditions in which the state holds direct responsibility for the education of its citizens. The debate over primary responsibility for education is ongoing and lies behind the present popularity of private Christian schools.

Private Christian Schools

There are three common types of Christian schools, each representing a different level of accommodation with public education. All of them are costly, because while public financial assistance is sometimes available, families have to pay school fees while continuing to contribute to the costs of public education. At one end of the scale are parents who want only the teachers to be Christian. The teaching materials and procedures may be the same as are found in the general system.

A second type goes further and insists that teachers be Christian and all teaching materials be supportive of Christian values. Books that teach evolutionary theory, for instance, are either banned or linked with biblical descriptions of the origins of life. For parents who choose this type, the school is seen as modeling Christian society; children are aggressively persuaded to choose Christian belief and demonstrate the application of their faith in everyday living. Paradoxically, it was a similar approach that destroyed John Dewey’s famous progressive education movement. He sought to create a model democratic society within the school walls, one that would challenge and, in time, transform the surrounding society.

The third type, the home-schooling movement, is the most radical. In many ways it is reminiscent of the most extreme views of the early church. Parents take their children completely away from school and educate them at home or in places where small groups can share the work. It is a demanding task, particularly in homes in which both parents work. Supporters of home schooling consider it to be the only true biblical education because the Bible has so many references to home-based education. A classic illustration is found in the early part of the Old Testament: “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (Deut. 6:7-9). There are similar injunctions in the New Testament, particularly those that relate to fathers (Ephes. 6:4). Many public education systems now recognize home schooling as an approved method of learning.

Technological advances provide one reason for the success of home schooling. Parents need not be proficient in the content of school subjects. Television, computers and a host of related resources are readily available. In addition, departments of education provide textbooks and self-help study guides for students. Thus a parent’s responsibility can be focused on a Christian perspective in the learning process, stressing responsible behavior and awareness of God at all times.

In ancient Israel only home schooling existed. Parents held an enormous range of influence that could be brought to bear on the education of the child. In many ways that range of influence parallels the plethora of factors that affect learning today (Cremin, p. viii). At the same time, changes over the centuries, partly due to the influence of Christians and partly to a response to societal conditions, have opened the door to Christian involvement in public education in a way that could not have been envisaged two thousand years ago.

Successful Schools

Reports of recent findings of educational research on successful schools illustrate these opportunities for Christian involvement. Researchers conclude that students’ attitudes and achievements are powerfully influenced by teacher expectations, by what the teacher models, by consistency of values throughout the school, by students’ home background, by a community spirit, by curriculum tied to stated goals and by experience of high success in routine exercises. Most of these characteristics rely on good relationships, student to teacher, teacher to teacher, student to student, and rely most of all on the teacher as a model of the school’s values.

A healthy community spirit is possible when these relationships are intact, when every student has some level of acquaintance with every teacher, and conversely. It is quite a different atmosphere from that found in institutional life. Institutions have rules; communities have histories. Christians can readily relate to schools with these kinds of relationships because they resemble the exemplary Christian communities described in the early history of the church (Acts 2:44).

Given the characteristics of successful schools, the Christian can find endless opportunities for influencing public education. Consider, for example, the characteristic of home influence. People once assumed that progress in school derived entirely from the teacher and child. Now we know better, recognizing the tremendous educational value of the home. Children from homes in which parents show love and care and in which interest in good books is encouraged do better at school than those who come from deprived homes. Furthermore, since children are at home for the first four or five years of life, the period of time when critical attitudes and values are acquired, the home influences remain influential throughout life.

Armed with this new information, parents have sought to influence the curricula and methods of their schools. In New England during the 1980s school districts and groups of parents who shared common values forged partnerships. Parents could then select the school that met their values and, at the same time, met their curricular interests. In other settings children from impoverished homes found little success in public schools. Those children’s parents persuaded their political leaders to allow a voucher system. In Milwaukee, for example, parents received vouchers for half the per capita cost of regular schooling. With this money they sent their children to Catholic schools prepared to accept them at the cost level represented by the vouchers. This new method of parental involvement succeeded: attendance and standards of achievement rose dramatically.

Christians in Public Schools

Educational research findings enable Christians to relate to many other aspects of public education. The motto “All truth is God’s truth” must be kept in mind alongside our understanding of the differences between Christian worldviews and those of others. John Dewey, though indifferent to Christian values, saw the necessity of relating all learning to the immediate world of the student. This emphasis is similar to Paul’s stress on salvation’s benefits being immediately relevant to life (2 Cor. 6:2). Many opportunities for participation exist because of the new research findings, but mainstreaming provides perhaps the best place for significant Christian involvement.

Students with physical or mental impairments and those who have extremely high ability do not fit easily into regular classrooms. This is especially true for those who have low intelligence quotients, who would previously have been segregated and taught in special schools. Today the popular solution is mainstreaming, the inclusion of these children in normal classrooms. Not everyone agrees that the change is for the good. Teachers complain that too much time must be devoted to these exceptional students, with the result that the others are ignored. Some describe the whole move as a money-saving scheme, particularly when inadequate support is provided. Debate rages around the borderline cases, those children who cannot be accommodated in a classroom without seriously interfering with the activities of other students. There is general agreement that extremely handicapped children, those who need continuous care at all times, have to be looked after in special institutions, but there is difficulty defining the boundary between the ones who can be accommodated and those who cannot.

Rarely are the facilities completely adequate for the needs of severely disadvantaged children. Parents are expected to provide some help, and teachers are called upon to make special efforts beyond what they would normally be expected to give. Thus there is always an open door for volunteers—someone to drive the child to school, to care for him or her at break times, to be around when an emergency occurs. It is a selfless task, an ideal opportunity for demonstrating Christian values. It is also an occasion when the benefits of mainstreaming can be shown.

The story of one quadriplegic student, who suffers from spastic cerebral palsy but has normal intelligence and can speak, illustrates the positive role of mainstreaming (Gunn, p. 8). Despite the student’s physical impairments, she learns within a regular classroom. Her teacher argues that the value to the other students far outweighs the problems of integration. Regular students can learn to appreciate the enormous amount of energy she must expend to do what must seem to them quite simple things. The so-called handicapped, she says, can become models of humanity for the rest of us, leading to a society in which every individual has equal worth. In a letter to the Corinthian Christians, Paul once voiced a similar sentiment, describing how God accords exceptional worth to those who seem to be the least important members of the community (1 Cor. 12:24-25).

Conclusion

Education has never been more important than today, both for the general community and for Christians. While some Christian parents reject secular school systems for their children’s education, many parents believe that their children are well cared for in public schools. In either case enormous opportunities exist for all Christians to influence our schools, both directly and through the many agencies locally and worldwide that shape the lives of young people.

» See also: Christian Education

» See also: Discipleship

» See also: Equipping

» See also: Parenting

» See also: Spiritual Growth

» See also: Sunday School

References and Resources

J. Bremer and M. von Moschzisker, The School Without Walls (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971); L. A. Cremin, Popular Education and Its Discontents (New York: Harper, 1990); A. M. Gunn, “Champion of the Disadvantaged,” B.C. Catholic 64 (30 May 1994) 8; H. I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. G. Lamb (London: Sheed & Ward, 1956); P. Perkins, Jesus as Teacher: Understanding Jesus Today (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); K. Sidey, ed., The Blackboard Fumble (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books, 1989); G. H. Wood, Schools That Work: America’s Most Innovative Public Education Programs (New York: Penguin, 1993).

—Angus M. Gunn