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Places of Education April 30, 2007

Posted by Jeff Voegtlin in : Education , 1 comment so far  Print This Post  Email This Post

There is a strong educational emphasis throughout the Bible. The Law addresses all of life and was to be taught to each generation. The history of the Israelite nation was to be remembered and rehearsed. The Psalms are written in one of the most useful pedagogical forms and the Proverbs are explicitly written for the purpose of instruction. The epistles are clearly doctrinal writings. The book of 2 Timothy teaches that all of Scripture is given so that man can be completely equipped for any work with which he is presented. The family is the basic and primary unit of society and therefore has economic, educational and welfare responsibilities. There are many references to education throughout the Bible that are generally mentioned in the context of the family. In Christ’s commission to the church he commanded believers to disciple the nations, baptize and teach. The Ephesian and Colossian epistles in particular address all ages of believers, and the church was gifted with teachers. These truths strongly imply that the church also has responsibility to educate. Christians recognize that education must be Christian in order to be true. They also realize that the institution of schools is hardly observable in Scripture. Therefore schools are only legitimate as they are extensions of legitimate biblical educating institutions—family and church. Schools operate in loco parentis—in the place of the parents.

Educational Practices

Posted by Jeff Voegtlin in : Education , 4 comments  Print This Post  Email This Post

To be successful in education – preparing students to fulfill their divine purposes – the operations or processes involved should be understood.  “Teaching is arousing and using the pupil’s mind to form in it a desired conception or thought.”  This is a skill and a study, an art and a science.  In order to present the concept, it must be known.  One cannot teach unless he has knowledge.  The teacher must know the subject he is teaching and methods to arouse the student’s mind to grasp the subject.  He should study his topics and his students.  He should also practice.  As he does, his skills of expression and explanation will be developed and he will be learning the art of teaching.  Because the teaching involves the student, the student must be a willing participant for effective teaching to occur.  Admittedly, many have been taught by experiences for which they did not volunteer.  Someone can be a “student” and learn something unwillingly.  But more is learned from the teaching when the student anticipates and desires to gain from it.

Learning occurs when someone grasps with his own understanding the concept that is taught.  This involves much more than regurgitation.  If the student can repeat the lesson but does not understand it, or know how to apply or creatively use it, he has not truly learned anything useful.  Useful knowledge or productive learning involves comprehension of the subject and purposeful applications of the knowledge.

There is a reciprocal arrangement between teaching and learning.  While different individuals do each action separately, neither is present without the other.  Teaching cannot be given without someone present to learn, and learning cannot be acquired without someone present to teach.  Teaching must be present for learning to be accomplished; learning must be accomplished to substantiate the claim of teaching.  If no one has learned, no one has taught.

In this arrangement of teaching and learning, there must always be a teacher and a student.  The teacher is someone who knows the lesson.  It is important to point out that teachers must be knowledgeable.  Teachers should attend to their own education seriously.  Not only do they need to know principles and skills of teaching, but they also must know the foundational and graduated concepts of the subject they are teaching.  The student is the one who attends to the lesson.  If the student has no desire to listen or learn, the teaching and learning interaction will be unsuccessful.  This means that the student must be serious about his own education.  This does not take all responsibility off of the teacher.  While the student must attend, the teacher must grab the student’s attention and instruct him in the importance of the subject so that the student wants to attend to the lesson and be serious about his education.

The language medium and the lesson content are also important aspects of teaching and learning.  In order for the teacher to communicate his knowledge and for the student to attend to the lesson, the language used must be common to both the teacher and the student.  This is an obvious statement if taken only to mean that if the teacher is speaking French, then the student must be able to understand French.  But the principle goes further than this.  Even if English is the only language spoken by the teacher and the student, and the words of the lesson are not foreign, communication will not take place unless the vocabulary is common to both.  The student must have the same definition of a word in his mind that the teacher has.  If the teacher uses a word, phrase, or concept in a sense that is “foreign” to the student, the teacher may as well speak in a totally different language.  One of the teacher’s responsibilities is to ensure that there is effective and efficient communication between him and the students.

Not only should the language and vocabulary be common, but also the lesson must begin with common knowledge.  The student will have no place to categorize the lesson if it does not begin with some known concept.  Because all knowledge originates in God, the lesson should always be able to be related to something that is already known.  If not, a disjointed body of knowledge and a disorderly perception of God are portrayed.

The subject matter, what most think of first when they think of school, is the ground of the interaction between teaching and learning.  While God is honored and glory is brought to Him through learning all about His creation, each subject is a means to accomplishing the primary purpose in education more than an end.  The subject matter is where the teacher and the student interact.  In a sense, it is a “tangible” that is taught and learned in the overall scheme of education.  It is the individual lesson the teacher communicates to the student, and it can be a barometer of how well the student attends and learns.  While it is only a means to an end, there must be subject matter to accomplish the ends.

Education: State, Church, or Home? (part three) April 27, 2007

Posted by Kent Brandenburg in : Education , 12 comments  Print This Post  Email This Post

We have ruled out the state school as a viable option for educating children.  That leaves us with the church school, sometimes called traditional education, and the home school.  We church school, so it might just look like we favor that.  You might be right.

THE CHURCH SCHOOL

The Weaknesses

For the weaknesses of the church school, I want to start with 5 basic concerns that home school advocate Greg Harris listed in his book, The Christian Home School.  He’s the father of Josh Harris, who has written the well-known books on courtship (I Kissed Dating Goodbye) and is pastor of a large Charismatic/Calvinist church on the East coast.

• Many Christian Schools Only Clean up the Public School’s Practices.  ”Objectionable material is ferreted out, Bible verses are memorized, and God is mentioned without fear of lawsuit; but these [are] shallow, cosmetic tokens of what a thorough Christian education should be.”  It is true that a Christian school could just be taking a public school model and sort of Christianizing it.  All I can say is that our school is radically different in philosophy than a public school–we certainly do not want to do less than a public school in the basic subjects like math, reading, and English, so we think that it is not contradictory to Bible belief to do a good job in teaching those subjects.  We use a different curriculum, have different teachers, and certainly a different emphasis totally.
• Double-mindedness.  Perhaps enrolling non-believing children could betray the Godly moral environment necessary for Christian parents.   Our focus is discipleship, not evangelism; but one cannot focus on discipleship without focusing on evangelism.  It is a matter of what is enforced, and the strength of leadership.  It is not a matter of not getting in the presence of sin, but getting in the presence of undisciplined sin.  Those students who attempt to disrupt the godly and discplined atmosphere of the school are dealt with in a firm and gracious manner. Our first priority is our own children.
• Age Segregated Peer Pressure is Part of the Christian School Experience.   In order to learn older behavior or more adult behavior, one needs to spend time learning from adults.   Home-schoolers will say that being around children of the same age feeds immaturity–or as I have heard used, “encourages pooled ignorance.”  It is a valid concern–the school must be sure to enforce adult behaviour as the standard, and be disciplined in the extent of associations between students.  The goal is to focus the students on the teacher model, not a peer model.  We have found that what happens at a recess time is the biggest concern, not in the classroom.  This is the reverse of the “socialization argument”–home schoolers lose out on socialization, and they say, “good, I don’t want peer socialization, because it only reinforces immature behaviour.”  On the other hand, adults will be supervising and teaching about how people are to get along, or behave with each other–children can have no secret agendas during the school time.
• Too Many Christian Parents Put their Children in a Private Christian School and then Abdicate their Responsibilities as the Primary Educators. Very true, but we won’t allow it in our church.  Other parents and churches that send their kids to our school, yes, but not our people.  I have found that work and worldliness are far bigger enemies than the school.  We want parents involved based on a highest common denominator for all of our students–thus giving accountability to those parents.
• Christian Schools that Use Classroom Organization Inevitably Face the Problem of Dividing the Teacher’s Time among a Class Full of Students, All of Whom Have Differeing Needs.  This can easily happen.  There must be work with the parents of the children–extra work can be given–students can be evaluated.  Certainly, the dumbing down process can take place by too much attention given to the slower students at the detriment of faster ones.  A school just must work to make sure that does not take place.  Parents must confer with their teacher to help in this matter, not say that the school must give the children the extra.

The Strengths

• Accountability–A student in a church school gets evaluated regularly by others besides the parents for needed objectivity.  He has nowhere to hide.
• Division of Labor–A church school can take advantage of certain strengths one person may have in art, another in music, another in physical education, another in organization and administration, and more.
• Fitting into the Concept of Gifts–1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 can be practiced easily with a church school.
• Local Church Authority–God gave the church authority for truth, not one family.
• Helping everyone–People talk about “no-child-left behind.”  A church can work at that with its membership.  Everyone takes responsibility for each other with a church school.
• Group Activities–Certain activities are more easily done in a church school environment, and the children become accustomed to working with a group, which is often how things get done later in adulthood.
• Becoming Accustomed to Different Leaders–People will often have different bosses as they go through life and they must learn to adjust to different styles of authority.  A child moving through a church school education will have different styles of teaching and authority and will learn to respect and learn from each. 

THE HOME SCHOOL

The Weaknesses

• Wrong Motivation–I have found by experience that often home-schoolers are not motivated by a conviction to home-school.  This is not a broad brush, but it is a besetting temptation.
• Money–Home schoolers won’t have to pay the church school and will also be able to “invest” the resources back into the home.
• Pride–Everyone can be subject to pride, even in church schools, but the home-schoolers will often elevate what occurs in the home above everyone, comparing their children to everyone else in their superiority.
• “Ours is better than everyone else’s.”
• “My child is way ahead.”
• Independent Spirit—Independence can be good, but in so many cases, dependence is superior.  We must learn to trust in God and in leadership.  The independence can foster rebellion when the authority is some other than the parent, or against someone who does something differently than their own way.
• Loss of Team–Certainly teamwork is necessary in the family, but can the home-schooler work with others, or is he a loner that is often off on his own.  He prefers doing his own thing by himself without working with others.
• Loss of Help–”The church is not for us; they stop meeting our needs, and we go elsewhere.”  “Our home and school are more important than our church” (not more important than work, I have found, but more important than church).
• Lack of Protection–The home school movement often looks at everyone around them as a kind of buffet table to get what it wants.  This becomes an avenue of compromise and false doctrine and practice.  They often have a tendency to get with other homeschoolers that are not of like faith and practice and disobey on areas of separation.  The unity of purpose is often educational, separate from God’s church.
• Lack of Accountability–We see an example of this with James and John and their mother.  She assumed her sons should be the greatest in the kingdom.  This lacked a perspective and accountability necessary.
• Lack of Evaluation–Some home-schoolers are the home-foolers, not having the necessary evaluation that comes when opened up to outside evaluation.
• A Largely New Evangelical Movement–The home-schooling movement is largely new-evangelical and the reason for this should be considered.  It relates to everything above, since the church is pillar and ground of the truth.  The church has built-in discipline, the Lord’s Table, the pastor, and more, which will affect schooling.

Strengths

• Parental Responsibilty–Parents are obviously TAKING responsibility big time.  Parental involvement is crucial to educational success.
• Students with Parents More–This could be addendum to the first strength.  Parents (adults) become the model, and adult behavior is definitely the standard.
• Flexibility–School can be whenever the parents want it or need it.  This facilitates trips, good vacation times, dad teaching a class when he gets home from work, etc.
• Able to Help the Special Student More–This might be the biggest plus here.  The child won’t necessarily be held back by the pace of the rest of a class.  He can go as fast or slow as he needs.

The Purpose of Education April 25, 2007

Posted by Jeff Voegtlin in : Education , 1 comment so far  Print This Post  Email This Post

The primary purpose of education is to prepare man to fulfill his divine purposes. Since his created purpose is to bring glory to God and to have dominion over God’s creation, man needs to know all that he can about God and His creation. As a redeemed Christian, he also needs to be equipped to proclaim the gospel to the world. Webster’s (1828) definition of education includes four objectives of teaching–enlightening the understanding, correcting the temper, forming manners and habits, and equipping for useful service. These objectives clearly reflect the need to be prepared in order to fulfill man’s God-ordained purposes. To glorify God, man must have his knowledge and understanding of His creation enlightened. To accomplish this, his fallen nature needs to be corrected, and right manners and habits must be formed. To be God’s ambassadors to a fallen world, man must be equipped with the knowledge, desire, habits, and skills necessary to proclaim the gospel and defend his proclamation of it.

Noticeably, these purposes say nothing about traditional school subjects, such as mathematics, science, language, or social studies. This is because the Christian educator’s priorities go beyond the mundane knowledge of these subjects. All specific objectives for these types of subjects must fall under the umbrella goals of enlightening, correcting, forming, and equipping. To be sure, each of these subjects and several others are tools that can be used to help reach the goals of enlightenment, corrected tempers, well-formed habits, and useful service. As mathematics, language, social studies, and science are learned, understanding is enlightened with the truth. As the student accomplishes the necessary exercise of learning, tempers can be corrected and students can learn productive habits. The knowledge and skills gained help fit the student for usefulness as a Christian. Education’s purpose is to prepare a man to accomplish his divine purposes.

Educational Premises April 24, 2007

Posted by Jeff Voegtlin in : Education , 1 comment so far  Print This Post  Email This Post

Before educational objectives, teaching and learning, or educational institutions can be discussed, the foundational premises and assumptions related to education must be understood.  The nature of truth (knowledge), the nature of man, and the nature of educating man with the truth are presuppositions that should be addressed.

Everyone is concerned with truth.  When the Lord Jesus Christ stood before the Roman governor, Pilate spoke for all men when he asked, “What is truth?” The book of Proverbs tells us that God is the source of all knowledge. All knowledge begins with God, and Hebrews relates that through faith in God, man understands the world around him. The only valid theory of knowledge is one based on the Word of God. From man’s viewpoint, all knowledge is relative to the unknown. The unknown could change the meaning of the known. Therefore, man can know nothing except it be shown him from God, Who is omniscient. Romans teaches that man can know nothing truly unless he interprets what he sees from the viewpoint of a created being. Christians are commanded in 2 Corinthians to bring all knowledge into subjection to Jesus Christ. This understanding brings unity to all knowledge and makes all subjects worthy of study—they all must be brought into subjection to Christ. There is nothing that God does not think about, and Christians must be taught to think as God does about all those things. Mankind is not interested in learning or teaching falsehoods or lies, so the truth must be known. Because of this, true knowledge must also be relevant and meaningful. For this to happen, truth must be external, fixed, and absolute. There are some who claim that this cannot be, but knowledge itself cannot come from within. It cannot change, and it cannot depend upon anything else. This gives truth an exclusive quality. Because truth is exclusive, those who would like to think of themselves as being open-minded are sometimes adverse to it. But claims of truth automatically claim that something else is “not true.” If someone claims a principle to be true, he is also asserting that anyone who disagrees does not believe the truth. Truth, by its nature, is exclusive.

Every religious and philosophical system in the world has a body of “truth” that is exclusive in some way. The Hindus find “truth” in the Vedas. The Muslims find the “truth” in the Koran. Even those whose “truth” teaches absolute tolerance are intolerant of those who admit that truth is exclusive. The problem that all other religions have with Christianity is that its body of truth is actually in a living person, Jesus Christ. Jesus said himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life:  no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” He claimed to be the truth, and then He excluded all others. Truth is exclusive. When we see Jesus Christ as the embodiment of truth, we recognize that truth has eternal, immutable, absolute and indivisible qualities.  Christ is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever,” and so is truth.  It is eternal and immutable.  Christ is not dependent upon other persons.  He is God, and He is one with God.  In the same way, truth is not dependent upon man or man’s interpretation, impression or experience.  Truth is true and indivisible.  Colossians teaches that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, and therefore, gives Him and truth a comprehensive quality.  All true knowledge is in Christ.  Nothing can be truly known outside of Christ.  Therefore, all truth is Christ’s.

In contrast with worldly philosophies, Christianity recognizes that man stands in stark contrast with truth.  He is distinct from all other created beings, yet he is a fallen creature.  Despite this, every man has a divine purpose he should fulfill.  Because man is a created being, he is dependent upon his Creator for all things. Because man is created in the image of God, he is the crown of God’s creation.  In Genesis, man was given dominion over the rest of creation even though he was a creation of God himself.

Because God is one and man is created in God’s image, he is also one, organically.  Because we are a creation with finite knowledge, we cannot completely comprehend God or his creation. We can better understand man by dividing him into “beings.” Luke shows that man is intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual. Organically, the essence of these cannot truly be separated, but we can organize our thoughts about man by putting him into these divisions.  As an intellectual being, man is rational, valuing and historical.  Adam named the rest of creation exhibiting his rational abilities – he could communicate and categorize.  We put a value on everything in our lives, and we think in terms of time – yesterday, today, tomorrow – making us historical beings.  Man also has a physical body, a social aspect, which allows us to interact with other human beings, and a spirit, which gives us an eternal quality.  This spiritual aspect is what sets mankind apart from the rest of creation.  In creation, God breathed into mankind spiritual life.

As a creation of God made in His image, man must be taught how to grow into the image of God and how to take dominion over all the rest of creation. Man is God’s vice-regent on the earth. He has authority and responsibility to promote the welfare and advancement of God’s creation.

While man was created perfectly in God’s image with the freedom to do right, he rebelled against his Creator and chose to disobey God.  The book of Romans teaches that because all mankind was in Adam when he sinned, everyone now has a sinful nature.  It further states that in this fallen condition, man still has the freedom to do what is right, but his sinful nature is bent toward rebellion against God.  Because man is no longer the perfect creation of God, he has limited intelligence.  The book of Romans says that this is particularly true in those who do not acknowledge God as their Creator.  When man does not recognize that he is a created being, his capacity for intelligence is severely limited.  Yet, as a creation of God in His image, mankind is still quite capable of brilliance.  All scientific and technological advancements made in history are a testimony of the abilities given to mankind in creation.  No other “species” has made any discoveries that advanced the conditions of the species.  Man is the creation made in God’s image and capable of intellectual brilliance.

Revelation teaches that man was created in order to bring glory to his Creator.  The Bible teaches throughout its pages that man is to glorify God and that his purpose on earth is to do just that.  In fact, when man knows God and does not glorify Him as God, God works against him and gives him over to foolish, reprobate thinking.  When man recognizes God as his Creator and trusts in His Son for salvation and freedom from the bondage of his fallen nature, he is given another reason for existing.  When Christ saves a man, he gives him the ministry or duty of reconciliation.  Christian men have the responsibility to glorify God and to call the world to God.  The book of 2 Corinthians teaches that we are His ambassadors.

Because education involves finite man and infinite truth, it is a process that is never complete and never neutral.  No one human being, truly no collection of human beings, could ever comprehend the riches and depths of knowledge and truth that are in Christ Jesus.  The more a man knows, the more he knows how much he does not know.  William Feather said, “An education isn’t how much you’ve committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t know.”  As man acquires more knowledge, he recognizes that there is even more to be learned.  Education is never complete.  Education also can never be neutral.  Because it involves truth, and Christ is the truth, only those who teach Christ and His truth are truly educating.  Anyone who attempts to teach otherwise, whether opposed to Christ or merely neutral about Christ, is teaching a lie.  Christ said that all who do not support Him oppose Him.  All truth is His, and those that do not acknowledge His lordship over all of life, lie about life.

An Education on Educating April 20, 2007

Posted by Dave Mallinak in : Education , 1 comment so far  Print This Post  Email This Post

About a year before I became the pastor of Berean Baptist Church, I began to think very seriously about the true nature and mission of education. The reason, which some readers will probably relate to, was that I now had children of my own. Education took on a whole new meaning to me, and no doubt like many of you, children made me re-think both the philosophy and the resultant methodology of teaching.

My wife and I knew that we were not satisfied with ACE as a methodology of teaching, but we also were not willing to throw off a system in a reactionary way. Some might be tempted to think that Christian educators have three basic choices — a Christian school can be “ACE,” “A Beka,” or “Bob Jones.” In other words, the choice is between systems, rather than a choice between approaches. But we were not willing to reject one system in favor of another, only to find after ten years that we were equally dissatisfied with the new system. We did not want divorce and re-marriage to become the pattern.

Instead, we began to search for the true mission, the Biblical mission of education. What was it we were trying to accomplish? What did the Bible have to say about it? How should this affect our methodology? In other words, we were not content simply to buy a “system” and let them direct what happened in the school. We wanted Scripture to shape our system, rather than let a textbook manufacturer shape it.

That being said, we understand that the Father is responsible for the education of his children. But we disagree that this responsibility requires the Father to do the educating. Fathers are equally responsible to feed and clothe their children, but that doesn’t require them to take up farming and tailoring. Scripture makes room for delegation, and it certainly is lawful for a Christian school to stand in the place of parents in this regard.

In fact, I have enrolled two of my children in our Christian school so far, and I have done so with authority. We chose the school for our children. We have taught our children that when the teacher gives an instruction or a command, he is speaking for me, and my children are to view that command as a command from me. If they disobey that command, they have disobeyed me. And the teacher has been commissioned by me to discipline my child as prescribed by the school. By enrolling my children in the school, I have given the teachers authority to discipline my children for me, using the form of discipline I would (which includes spanking). In fact, if the teacher fails to discipline my child as agreed, I discuss this with the teacher. I expect the teacher to uphold the guidelines of the school. This is what we agreed on when I enrolled my children in the school. We are settled on godly Christian schools, and are delighted with their services in educating our children.

But we also have an admittedly unique role in our Christian school. We are parents, and we are administration. You might recall that I did not want a Christian school. But like it or not, that is what I got. Based on the situation of many families within our church, closing the school was not an option, a fact that we determined after much consideration. God placed a school in our lap, and commissioned us to educate.

Unfortunately, since the inception of Christian schools, some pastors have been much more enthusiastic about having a school than they have been about educating young people. It seems that many spend more time determining whether or not to have a school than they spend thinking about what kind of school to have, or how to educate. Once a church decides to have their own school, they pick one of the “big three” systems, and go with it. As a result, for over thirty years now Christian schools have been producing bitter, disconnected, disillusioned, and poorly educated young people. Sadly, it would not be unreasonable to guess that the majority of Christian school graduates have dropped out of Christianity. We certainly have not graduated a majority of Christian thinkers, despite all those high-octane chapel hours and heavy-duty Bible memory programs. Prayer in school might not be the answer. Maybe we should give some thought to the actual education we are giving.

Not wanting to continue the trend, we at Berean determined to consider carefully what a truly Christian education should look like. To do this, we did not ask the curriculum representatives to come sell us on their systems. We already had a textbook company telling us what to do. Instead, we began to look at philosophy. We understood that there was more to education than textbooks. So, we began reading more about what was out there.

After a year of study, I spent a year teaching our church the nature of a truly Christian education, and at the end of that year, we as a church began to transition our school from an ACE school to a Classical and Christian School. Now, I should interject here that we by no means think that Classical and Christian is the exclusive way to educate your children Scripturally. But we do believe that Classical and Christian enables us to educate them in a Biblical manner, and that through the Classical and Christian approach, we can accomplish the Biblical mandates for education. Classical and Christian is not a master. It is a servant. Though it could easily become a master.

Rather than spend time discussing the distinctions of Classical and Christian (our academy handbooks will help familiarize you with the concept), let me instead discuss what we see as the advantages of the Classical and Christian approach. Education’s true mission, as I said in my last post, is summed up in the first seven verses of Proverbs 1. In short, we want to give our students knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Knowledge without understanding and wisdom is incomplete. Understanding without knowledge is impossible, as is wisdom without understanding. The three are interconnected, interdependent, even inseparable: perhaps one could call them a Trinity of thought. The teacher’s task is not completed when he has given knowledge to his students. The student needs to understand what he knows. But when the teacher has given his pupils an understanding of the material to be learned, the teacher’s task is not yet completed. For what is the student to do with the information that he knows and understands? I may know the Pythagorean Theorum, but do I understand it? Do I know what it is useful for? Do I know and understand how it relates to the world in which we live? Can I explain how it pertains to my Christian faith? Or is it another useless piece of information for me?

Regardless of the approach taken in education, no education is complete that fails to impart knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. By knowledge, I mean a knowing the fundamental principles that pertain to all subjects and to every subject. A knowledge of history would include more than a casual acquaintance with the names, places, dates, and events essential to understanding our civilization and other civilizations. A knowledge of math would include the numbers, operations, patterns, and rudiments of mathematics. A knowledge of English would include words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and all the various structures that allow communication.

By understanding, I mean a grasp of the relationship that exists between the fundamental principles of the various subjects. Students must understand not only the fundamental truths themselves, but also how they relate to each other, how they are interconnected, and most importantly, how they demonstrate the Lordship of Christ in everything.

By wisdom, I mean an ability to put those fundamental truths to good use in life. When a student gets wisdom, that knowledge has become a part of his very being, is ingrained in him, and cannot be rooted out. That student understands what he knows, can tell it to others, is guided by it, and finds it profitable in everything. Wisdom truly is the culmination of true education.

In some sense, we could say that knowledge, understanding, and wisdom are the processes that every teacher uses. Take for example the first day of Algebra class. The teacher should, from the very first day, show what “Algebra” really is. The teacher should strive to show what will be studied and (hopefully) learned during the course of the year. As part of this process, the teacher familiarizes the class with the terms that are unique to Algebra class, and drills those terms until the students know them. The teacher introduces the operations used in Algebra, shows the students how to use them, and has the students practice. These are the rudiments of Algebra, and the teacher seeks to give the students that knowledge.

But the teacher who teaches these rudiments has not taught Algebra. In addition to giving the basic principles, the teacher must help her class to understand the unique terms in their own minds, so that the students know these terms for themselves. The teacher must teach his class why the operations work, and why we use them. And the students must use these operations until they become useful to the students. The teacher must give the students a firm grasp of the relationship between terms and concepts, so that the student knows the material for himself. This is understanding.

But when the student understands Algebra, the student has not yet learned Algebra. The completion of the learning process is found in the student’s ability to re-create the material in his own mind, and clearly express the meanings of terms, the operations and processes of Algebra. The student has learned Algebra when the student can explain it in his own terms, and can apply it to everyday life. This we could call wisdom, and is the culmination of learning. Every teacher should strive for this finished product.

We see the process of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom in each subject, but if we look carefully we will also see this same process in our entire learning experience. A young child gathers knowledge with a voracious appetite. He wants to know what everything is. He treats his parents to a barrage of questions. He is fascinated by the names of colors, by numbers, by letters. He learns to read and then reads everything he can get his hands on. He loves to learn. All the facts of the world are available to him, and he devours them with the fresh enthusiasm of one who does not know but longs to. This stage of his development corresponds to knowledge. Later, he will begin to question things. He will not be so willing to take your word for it. He will want to know why it is so and how you know that. He tries to make sense of the jumble of information that he consumed in previous years. This stage of his development corresponds to understanding. As he grows in understanding, he begins to blossom into a young man, and once again his mind begins to change. He knows and understands, and wants to express what he knows and understands. He naturally grows more sophisticated, and wants to be even more refined than he is now. He longs for maturity, and wants to make impressions on those around him. This stage of his development corresponds to wisdom, and at this stage, teachers seek a finished product.

Berean Baptist Academy chose the Classical and Christian approach to education because we felt that it would help us reach these educational goals. The Classical Trivium, as outlined by Dorothy Sayers in her essay “The Lost Tools of Learning,” adequately addresses these three stages of learning, enabling teachers to give knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. The Trivium allows the teacher to “teach with the grain,” emphasizing knowledge at a time when the student craves knowledge, developing understanding at a time when the student desires understanding, and maturing wisdom at a time when students seek wisdom and long for maturity. Two years ago, we completed the transition, and we are thrilled with the progress in our students. They love learning, and delight in truth. Two weeks from now, our Juniors and Seniors will present their theses, the culmination of their education. One will argue against remarriage for divorced people, not as a parrot might argue (he will differ with his pastor), but as one who has formed his opinions and constructed arguments designed to change minds. One will argue for school uniforms. When they finish presenting their arguments, they will face hard questions from faculty judges. They will defend their arguments against a purposely-hostile audience. And they will shine.

We are grateful for the progress we have seen thus far, while realizing that we are only two years into this approach. The view behind us brings cheer, yet we realize that there is much of the mountain that remains to be scaled. We are glad to be scaling rather than circling the mountain.

Education: State, Church, or Home? (part two) April 18, 2007

Posted by Kent Brandenburg in : Education , 1 comment so far  Print This Post  Email This Post

Should church schools exist? Parents teaching their own children is the most fundamental form of education. The parents are responsible to train their children (Ephesians 6:1-4). Some home schoolers argue that home-schooling is the only legitimate Scriptural way of teaching. I don’t think so. Here’s why.

First, the disciples were taught by someone other than their parents. You say, “They’re adults.”  Fine, but obviously home-schooling isn’t the only way.

Second, Paul authorized the tutor with his illustration. The schoolmaster in Galatians 3, 4 isn’t a parent. The parent used someone else to teach his child. In the history of education, godly people often have done it this way. In colonial America, wealthier families hired tutors, and often several families hired a teacher for an “old-field school,” thus named because it was in an old field where the soil was too depleted to support crops.  In the early 1800s, education was the responsibility of parents, but they most often hired someone else to teach their children.

Third, using teachers recognizes the weaknesses one has. The Holy Spirit divided severally as He would (1 Corinthians 12:11), meaning that no one person had all that he needed to manifest the body of Christ. It doesn’t take a village, but it does take a body. God equips the church with diversity. A parent should take advantage of the diversity.

Fourth, not everyone can do as good as other parents at teaching his own children. We are to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). By using other body parts, everyone can get a better education. If you as a parent want your child to go further, you should go ahead. Help them go further. Help them learn things not taught in the church school. However, by supporting the church school, you are helping others come along as fast as your children might. We aren’t against capitalism, but it is still a flawed system. We want young people to compete and do their best, but we want everyone to come along the path. The goal of the Christian life isn’t getting there first, but getting there and bringing other people with you. That’s how a church school can help more people do a better job.

I think there are other good arguments for church schools, but let’s cogitate on these for awhile and see if they hold water. Parents should take responsibility, but they should support the church and everyone in the church, attempting to leave no one behind.

State Education

The school district in which I live was the first in the history of the U. S. ever to go bankrupt. When it did, parents were saying, “They can’t do this to us.” You can see how that they had become dependents of the state. Many think the state owes them an education. However, God nowhere gives the state the authority to educate children. The church can teach the truth. Parents have authority over their children. The state has neither of these. I think the government wants authority over your children. They either think they have the truth or that no one, including them, has the truth. Without the authority or the responsibility, the state is bound for failure.

A few years ago, we actually voted on school vouchers in the state of California. Not that we would have received any voucher money, but I voted for it. I thought and still think it is a no-brainer. Early in the campaign, a large majority of citizens polled said that they supported vouchers. The teachers union began using members’ dues to buy deceptive television ads that fooled the public in California. Vouchers lost. Literally, people voted not to be able to send their children to the school of their choice. They wanted to keep the state education system alive. I want it to die, the sooner the better. Education would be so much more efficient and so much better for children if the public school would disappear.

If it doesn’t, public education isn’t ordained by God, so it will fail. I’m not saying that some kids may not turn out to be axe murderers. They may even be decent, but it won’t primarily be because of the system. It will mainly be because of parents who took responsibility. It could be because a certain teacher really did work hard at it. I don’t recommend the public schools for many Scriptural reasons. I think you know what they are (Psalm 1; 1 Corinthians 15:33; Ephesians 5:11). The state has an agenda that I don’t want my children exposed to.

Is the public school wrong? I don’t think so. If that were the case, then Daniel stopped short when he rejected the diet and drink of the king. Daniel took his stand on conviction from Scripture. Scripture did not prohibit attending Babylonian schools, or he should not have even gone to class, let alone said “no” to the meat and wine the king offered him. Moses and Daniel went to public school. They drew the line at practice. They would not align themselves with their state education.

Of course, Moses and Daniel didn’t have a choice. If you do, then you should choose a church or home school. Why send your kids to a school where you are hoping that they won’t be influenced? I thought we were supposed to hope for the influence of a teacher and a school. Not being influenced defeats the very purpose of education. When you have the choice, you should do your best for your children. Public school is definitely not that.

(to be continued. . . . I will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of home schools versus church schools)

An Education on ACE April 15, 2007

Posted by Dave Mallinak in : Education , 11 comments  Print This Post  Email This Post

Educators will agree that a true education is more than mere tidbits of knowledge randomly collected, then scattered throughout the brain. In educating young people, we are not trying to produce Trivial Pursuit champions. We don’t want our graduates leaving high school with diploma in one hand and a bread basket full of crumbs in the other, even if there are enough crumbs to feed a family of five. Yet, the “systems” of education available to Christian schools today offer little more than that. Students are given, in each class, random bits of knowledge, useful no doubt in competitive trivia games, but without any real connection to life, the world God created, or even to their other classes. This is not education.

To educate involves more than stuffing a head full of things to know. The mind, as one educator said, is not a shoebox. Nor is it a filing cabinet. Nor is it a computer. True, computers work in similar ways, one might say in imitation of the human brain. But the mind is so much more than a mere machine. Truly, we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and to educate a young person (as opposed to, say, educating a mind) is a serious responsibility.

The word educate comes from the Latin root duco, meaning “to lead.” The root duco should be familiar to us, as we find it in many familiar words: conduct, deduct, produce, induce, seduce, inductive, deductive, conducive, to name a few. Each of these variations give a different perspective of leading. Education focuses more on imparting knowledge, on leading children and young people from immaturity to maturity, from ignorance to understanding through instruction. Perhaps the most eloquent statement of education’s true mission can be found in the first four verses of Proverbs. The educator’s task is to cause the student

to know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment and equity; to give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

However, if a teacher were to examine the “systems” available for consumption by Christian Schools, he might get the impression that education’s task is to help students find right answers. Students are fed list after list of facts to be memorized through mnemonic devices, and then are required to regurgitate those lists on tests ad nauseum. Special prizes are of course reserved for those who excel at regurgitating, including but not limited to Honor Roll certificates, diplomas, and Valedictorian medallions. But “knowing many things” does not mean “educated” as we are no doubt aware.

Seven and a half years ago, when I first felt the desire to pastor a church, I prayed specifically that God would not send me to a church that had a Christian school. Among my reasons for this was that I wanted to devote my time to pastoring and schools are awfully time consuming. However, God in His wisdom gave me a church with a Christian school and a great need to sustain that Christian school. Over half of the families in our Christian school would be forced to send their young people to a Government school, the equivalent of offering them up to Molech, if we closed our Academy. So, God gave me a church with a Christian school. Our academy, operated by the church for over 25 years, had always used the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) curriculum (also known as The School of Tomorrow). I was familiar with the system, having attended an ACE school in 5th grade and in junior high school, and serving as the Secondary Supervisor in our ACE school for four years before becoming the pastor. I had worked with the system long enough to have a developed opinion–a strong opinion in fact–of the value of that particular system. Over the course of the next three years, our church and our school parents worked together to bring our academy out of the ACE system, a feat which we accomplished two years ago.

The purpose of this post is to give our reasons.

Read More…

Education: State, Church, or Home? (part one) April 11, 2007

Posted by Kent Brandenburg in : Education , 12 comments  Print This Post  Email This Post

A battle rages between home and traditional education. Churches say to the home-schoolers, “You don’t support the church.”  Home-schoolers cry, “The church doesn’t help home-schoolers.”  While many home-schoolers contend, “Home is the only Biblical way,” church schools argue, “It takes a church: look at the example of Jesus.” Public school advocates will say, “We’re missing out on a mission field; letting public school students go to the devil.” Since the Bible is sufficient (2 Timothy 3:16-17), God’s Word gives us everything we need in order to understand how He wants children educated. Let’s see if we can sort out what Scripture says about education: state, church, or home?

We Know Home

Home schoolers, you can start cheering, because we do know that Scripture teaches home-schooling. I’m not going to break down Deuteronomy 6:4-9 for everyone, but you know how authoritative that passage is for educating your own children.  Parents are responsible; so if they take full responsibility, that’s not just good, it’s required. Yet, no Israelite family could practice those verses without its involvement in the congregational worship of Israel (Deuteronomy 12:11-12, 17-18; 16:10-11). Every Israelite home school needed the nation. In Deuteronomy 31:22, “Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.” Before dad taught his sons, he learned from the leaders of Israel (Deuteronomy 4:1, 5:31). Home schooling is a God-ordained means in the right context.

The Church and the Truth

The Nature of Knowledge

In education there is a concern with the nature of knowledge, that is, how we attain knowledge. It is common for the world to divide knowledge into two areas or types, secular and religious. The secular is the knowledge that deals with reason and the things of the world. The religious is the knowledge that deals with faith and the things of God. The secular is sometimes called philosophical, and the religious is called theological.

This twofold division was developed by Thomas Acquinas, a famous 13th century Roman Catholic so-called “theologian.” From his standpoint, there were two ways to arrive at knowledge–reason and revelation. He believed that both were true methods of arriving at a knowledge of God. He taught that by revelation we could know more about God, but by reason, independent of revelation, we will end in the truth. All of this is based on the Roman Catholic conception of the nature of man.

Roman Catholicism taught that from creation Adam was not quite perfect and had a tendency toward evil. To help him, God gave him a superadded gift of original righteousness called donum superadditum to assist him. In spite of the gift, Adam sinned. The result was that he lost this original righteousness–that was all the effect the fall had on him. Acquinas talked of his reason being wounded, but not in any sense that he could not reason properly or could not arrive at truth independently of God. Acquinas would say the Greek philosopher Aristotle, whose philosophy forms the basis of much of Roman Catholic theology, arrived at the truth in many areas.

The problem with this twofold division is that man was not simply “wounded” by the Fall. The Bible describes him as being blind, dead, and unable to receive or know the things of the Spirit of of God (Ephesians 2:1; 1 Corinthians 2:14; 2 Corinthians 4:4). The Scriptural picture is that he is totally depraved and totally unable to do anything good (Romans 3:10-23; 8:7-8; Jeremiah 17:9). In order to know the truth, man needs regeneration; he needs to be born again by the Spirit of God. Only then can he know the truth.

• There is only one kind of knowledge, and it is theological.
• Wisdom is from above (James 3:17).
• God created the world, and He works things after the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11).
• Everything in the world has the meaning and interpretation which God has put into it.
• All knowledge is God-created, related, and interpreted knowledge.
• One cannot truly know anything unless he understands it in the light of his relationship with God.
• All unbelievers cannot relate knowledge to, with, or through God, so theirs is limited and distorted (Romans 1:18-25).

Only when our minds are in conformity with the mind of God can we know the truth about anything. The mind of God is as He revealed it in His Word. Since man is depraved, He cannot discern or understand the truth of God’s Word–it is only spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). Therefore, only a believer can have real truth, for only a believer can subject his mind to the mind of God. Knowledge is a unit, and all that transpires in the history of men and of nations shows His guiding and controlling hand (Acts 17;26; Romans 13:1; Daniel 4:25). So can an unbeliever know 2+2=4?  Yes, but it is because that is the way our God created and controls the world of His, and He is the One Who makes it so.

This view that wisdom can be received only supernaturally, through God’s intended means, is the theme of Job 28, a good chapter to study to get your belief about the source of knowledge. John Gill spends time fleshing out the meaning of that chapter, and begins just his dealing with verse twelve:

Though there is a vein for silver, a track where that lies, and is to be come at, and a place where gold is found, and where it may be refined, and parts of the earth, out of which brass and iron, and bread corn, may be produced, and even from whence may be fetched brilliant gems and precious stones; which, though attended with many difficulties, in cutting through rocks, draining rivers, and restraining the waters, yet are got over through the art and skill, industry, diligence, and labour of men; so that their eyes behold every precious thing their minds desire, and they bring to light what have been laid up in darkness from the creation of the world: but, though these things may be found by search and labour, the question is, what vein is there for wisdom, or where is the place in which that may be found? by which may be meant the wisdom of God, as a perfection in him; which, though displayed in some measure in the works of creation and providence, yet not completely, and especially in his dealings with the children of men; in all which there is undoubtedly the wisdom of God; yet it is such a depth as is unfathomable by mortals:

No one should attempt a biblical philosophy of education without an intense exegesis of Job 28, which reveals the divine character of genuine knowledge and truth.

The Place of the Church in Knowledge and Truth

Authoritative education requires authoritative content. If we teach well, but teach the wrong thing, it’s still wrong, no matter how well students learned it. The truth is the content for education, as opposed to lies. Lies are the purview of Satan and the world (John 8:44; 16:11). God’s way is the truth (John 14:6; 17:17).

The church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15), not one dad and his family. We can’t teach the truth outside of the context of the church. The whole New Testament is practiced in and through the church. The Holy Spirit guides through the church (1 Corinthians 3:17; Ephesians 4:1-7). Agreement among church members is how God will judge the world (1 Corinthians 6). Ultimate obedience to Christ, the Great Commission, occurs corporately through the church (Matthew 28:18-20). The model of Christ is fulfilled through His body, not any one individual (Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12). The one who concludes otherwise, thinks more highly of himself than he ought to think (Romans 12:3).

When Jesus began teaching followers, He did not take a group of fathers and tell them to train their children. He took an assembly of disciples and taught them together. The Lord should be teaching everyone, and He can through His church. His leaders, perhaps the better students, He gave more personal attention than others. Whatever training the mother of James and John was giving her sons (Matthew 20:18-20), she needed the perspective of Jesus to get it right. Jesus is the head of the body (Colossians 1:18). The man that properly leads his family obtains his headship from the leadership of Jesus Christ in the church (1 Corinthians 11:3). No one possesses the fulness of the body of Christ, only a measure of that fulness, so every other body part needs the working of the other body parts to receive that fulness. Everyone’s children need more than their parents to receive the full measure of the body of Christ. Every home school should be a church school.

(to be continued)

Lunch Break! April 10, 2007

Posted by Jack Hammer in : Jack Hammer , 6 comments  Print This Post  Email This Post

With 100 posts stuffed safely beneath our burgeoning belts, we’ve pulled off the hard-hats, set aside the protective eye-wear, taken off the sweaty leather gloves, and sat ourselves down under the shade tree for sandwiches and a tall glass of icy lemonade. It’s a great time to spin some yarns and tell a few tales!

We’ll get back to work in a bit… after we’ve polished off the lunch mom sent. Meanwhile, in commemoration of the JACKHAMMER 100th, we’re inviting you to a little contest. Pull up a seat under the shade tree, and let’s have a short-story/fable/parable contest. When the dust settles some day, we’ll declare us a winner.

So get those creative juices flowing, and give us your best shot. Don’t be shyin’ away now. You know you want to. I’ll put in my contribution(s) in a bit…

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