FIRSTLY WHAT IS EDUCATION?
LEARNING: The process by which every person acquires a certain body of knowledge, and a corresponding set of personal values, attitudes, behaviour, and skills.
STUDENT: A person with a highly impressionable mind, significantly affected by the knowledge, values, attitudes, and behaviours of others, especially by those in positions of authority.
TEACHER: A person in a position of authority who utilizes
his own knowledge, values, attitudes, and skills to influence and develop those
of the student. This influence is nonverbal as well as verbal, in an informal
context as well as formal.
SCHOOL: A formal institution that provides an organized and
structured context conducive to intensive learning.
EDUCATIONAL CLIMATE: The overall goals, ideals, knowledge,
values, attitudes, etc., that characterize the teacher or school, and thereby
promote a particular kind of learning in the student.
VALUE MODELING: The process by which a person influences the
thinking and behaviour of another by exemplifying, implying, and assuming certain
values, without necessarily explicitly stating them. Values are communicated
nonverbally and informally, as well as verbally and formally. Values are not
simply taught, but caught.
KEY EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR A CHRISTIAN SCHOOL:
A child's education is his parents' responsibility. NOT: government, schools,
church, youth director
All aspects and areas of education should be related to God: God as Creator
- He made the world. God as Governor - He watches over and is involved in the
world. God as Saviour - He offers a sinful world change and hope in Christ.
Spiritual truth and moral values are to be continually taught (formally and
informally) and consistently reinforced and modeled before children.
A child's models and companions will greatly influence his values, attitudes,
and behaviours.
"He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers
harm." (Proverbs 13:20)
"Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil men.
Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way." (Proverbs
4:14-15)
"Stay away from the foolish man, because you will not find knowledge on
his lips." (Proverbs 14:7)
"…rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…Have
nothing to do with them." (2 Timothy 3:4-5)
"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand
in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers." (Psalm 1:1)
"A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks
closer than a brother." (Proverbs 18:24)
"Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character." (1 Corinthians
15:33)
The more moldable the mind, the more care should be taken to protect it from
ungodly influence.
HOW DOES MODERN EDUCATION RELATE TO THE KEY BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION?
Modern education has been allowed to assume the God-given parental responsibilities
to educate children. Note: Schools did not usurp it; parents relinquished it.
Modern education does not relate all aspects and areas of education to God.
A. Assumes evolutionary origins-GOD IS NOT CREATOR
B. Assumes world is on man-determined course-GOD IS NOT GOVERNOR
C. Assumes man is not sinful and is capable of making his own changes, generating
his own hopes, and shaping his own destiny-GOD IS NOT SAVIOUR
Modern education does not consistently model spiritual and moral values. It
cannot, since it is not built on the foundation of biblical truth from which
those values originate. Consequently, the climate of modern education is not
conducive to spiritual development, and is sometimes directly hostile to it.
Modern education offers a context for models and companions (peers) that does
not reinforce biblical truth, values, attitudes, and behaviour.
IS THE STATE EDUCATION SYSTEM IN QUEENSLAND GOD-CENTERED?
Not only is a God-centered approach to life and history left untaught, but it
is sometimes regarded as a hindrance to and violation of true education.
The subtlety of this is that God is not usually attacked, but is simply excluded.
"One does not get rid of God by reasoning against Him, but by forgetting
Him, by losing sight of Him, by exercising the function of thinking in such
a way that the question of God cannot appear." (Jacques Maritain)
The foundation of modern education is humanism ("life is man-centered"),
not theism ("life is God-centered).
WHAT DOES A STUDENT LEARN THROUGH THE STATE CURRICULUM?
WHAT MAKES A CHILD THINK AND ACT THE WAY HE DOES?
His mind and will are greatly influenced by:
Parents – 40+ hours per week?
Church - 2 - 3 hours per week?
Media - 30 - 50 hours per week? (TV, radio, reading material)
Peers - 20 - 30 hours per week? (besides at school) School - 30 - 40 hours per week?
Conclusion: Whatever parents and church are striving to teach their children,
it will not likely be learned if it is countered by media, peers, and school.
We can help the church and our students parents here.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Jesus said: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall
into a pit? A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained
will be like his teacher."(Luke 6:39,40)
Can a spiritually blind society lead a child to truth?
If an ungodly society is a child's teacher, shouldn't you expect that child
to become like that society (values, attitudes, behaviour)?
These questions lead to the crucial questions to consider:
What input must a child receive in order to develop a godly character?
We must guard against the influence of society on our school and the push to
be more ‘relevant, sensitive, tolerant, accepting of diversity, etc’
IF in doing so we lose sight of God and the focus on His truth.
Who or what should be the primary source of this input?
Wisdom is properly highlighted in contrast to the prevalent thinking and lifestyle
of the world that doesn't know God (Proverbs, 1 Corinthians 1-2)
Christian education should begin by asking "what does God expect of our
children, our parents and our teachers?"
The answer is specific and clear: "And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to have mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah
6:9).
A Christian basis for evaluating the education we provide:
1. Are our students learning to act justly, that is to behave righteously and
deal fairly with others? Are they learning to put the welfare of others above
their own "rights"?
2. Are our students learning to be merciful, that is to discern the personal
needs of others in family, school, community, society and world, and reach out
to them in love and compassion?
3. Are our students learning to walk humbly with their God, that is to know
him personally, to have a consistent daily movement forward in relationship
with him, and to do so with the humility that recognizes his lordship and their
servant-hood?
What steps can we take to develop all of the above areas in the school?
Scriptures showing relationship between godliness, wisdom and obedient loving
action:
Luke 6:40 A student becomes like his teacher. The best thing
a parent or teacher can do for his students is to demonstrate a Christ-centered
hands-on love for God and others. The parent and teacher's life, attitudes and
actions becomes an unspoken but unmistakable blueprint.
Matthew 7:24-27 The solid foundation for a life is not hearing
the words of God, but doing them. Knowing what is right is necessary, but not
sufficient.
Luke 3:7-14 A person's spiritual condition is measured in tangible
behavioural ways--for example, in how he relates to and handles money and possessions.
Luke 10:25-37 To love people is to have direct contact with
them and to utilize our resources of time, energy, concern and money in a way
that leaves them better off than they were before.
Matthew 25:31-46 What separates the true followers of Christ
from others is that they go out of their way to meet the physical, emotional
and spiritual needs of others. (As important as it is to believe the right things,
this passage says nothing about belief, and everything about action.)
1 Cor. 8:1,12; 1 Cor. 13 Knowledge not acted upon in love,
and skill not used in love, become a source of sterile self-serving pride and
insensitivity to others.
James 1:22-27 There is self-deception in hearing truth without
applying it. There is an illusion of godliness, but unlived truth is hypocrisy,
not godliness. Biblical teaching is remembered when it is obeyed, and forgotten
when it isn't. For every truth taught, guidance and opportunity for appropriate
action should be given. Truth must be wed to life, not divorced from it.
James 2:14-26 True saving faith, a real relationship with God,
must work itself out in tangible sacrificial action for the good of others.
A Christian faith is merely an illusion when children hear and recite truth
but don't live it out.
Ezra 7:10 Each child is called to learn truth, to live
truth, and to share truth.
Knowledge, obedience, communication.
Information, application, transmission.
Are students in our school given opportunity and guidance not only to learn
truth, but to implement it?
And after implementing it, to communicate it to others?
This communication has two primary benefits.
First, it deepens and personalizes the truth for the child communicating. Second,
it conveys the truth to the listener. By learning, obeying and conveying the
truth, students can participate in a community climate with the right kind of
peer pressure--spiritual peer pressure. (Peer pressure is a given--the question
is whether that pressure is toward the irresponsible and ungodly [typical] or
the responsible and godly.)
Christian schools should consider projects that involve direct servant ministry.
e.g. raising money for World Vision, visiting care centers, making gifts for
children of prisoners, staging events for local disadvantaged children, supporting
sister schools in countries like the Soviet Union, road-side clean-up, writing
letters to missionaries, etc.
I know we already do these things, but perhaps we could do them much better by enlisting all students and embedding them into our curriculum in some way.
The more hands-on the better. The more our students are involved with coming
up with ideas and planning them, the more ownership they feel and the more it
will impact their lives.
Our core is Christ. This does not mean that we should endeavour to change in
any way a student whose family’s denomination is Anglican to follow Lutheran
traditions, although this may happen. But it does mean that we preach, teach
and demonstrate the gospel to students whose “spiritual inheritance”
is Buddhist or Atheist, in obedience to Christ and with the pray and fervent
hope that we may save them from eternal separation from God.
It does not matter what cultural or religious diversity is present in our students
with regard to our decision as to whether or not to present the gospel. It matters
to the way we present it, that we are as much as possible, aware of their personal
and family history and culture so that we can be more sensitive and better channel
our efforts.
As a Christian school, we have already very explicitly stated our core values
and focus, so we do not need to further emphasis this in our curriculum offerings
to the point of making everything that may be evangelistic or in any way a message
of redemption through Christ an optional part of the curriculum. Christ should
be so much a part of our curriculum that to divorce Him from it would be to
destroy the school.
We do not have a ‘hidden curriculum’, which is ‘to convert
all our students to accept Christ as their saviour’, yet surely it is
our strongest desire, and the most significant success we can have both individually
and corporately. In basing our curriculum on Christianity we can not be dishonest.
Presenting honesty and truth is most fundamental to all we do.
The violence that fills the world does not arise out of fundamentalism or intolerance
but out of the sinful nature of man.
The world can never truly be a ‘safe place’ until the Lord returns
to rule over it with his Bride.
Paul Herring
24th June 2003
Note: Most of the above article is courtesy of the Christian Author Randy
Alcorn "http://www.epm.org"