The church of the living What! Is that some new, low-budget, horror film?
Well no, not exactly... While it may not be a new Sam Rami film staring Bruce Campbell, it is a pretty horrifying way to describe the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
Sadly, according to Jim Elliff, this is an accurate description of the vast majority of Southern Baptist churches in America today. According to his article titled “Southern Baptists, an Unregenerate Denomination”, Jim gives us some pretty gory details of how this once very lively denomination, has become rotten and lifeless. And while this may not be new news to most, it was very telling to me, especially when you consider our current numbers along side those of a few hundred years ago. Yes, we may boast of 16 million members, but when you look at the real numbers, we are not so impressive.
Anyway, this was a great article, I highly recommend it.
You know, I'm not a big comedy fan, but I do enjoy a good laugh every now and then, and this reminds me of a joke told by Mark Lowry on one of the Gaither homecoming programs. I don’t actually remember the joke, but it had something to do with raising the dead. The punch line was that if Jesus did that in his Baptist church, he’d have to raise everyone! I wonder if Mark Lowry reads Jim Elliff?
Grace & Peace!
Dave Scarbrough ~ dave@scarbrough.net
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Thursday, November 02, 2006
EDUCATING CHILDREN - Government and Education
By 1918, every state in United States had passed some form of compulsory attendance law, and the still fledgling Department of Education was now deeply involved. Though by this time, it had already been through several transformations. Originally it was created for the purpose of collecting information on schools and teaching, and to help the States establish more effective school systems, at least that was what the original charter said. But this didn’t last long; in 1869 it was transferred to the Department of the Interior as the Bureau of Education. Then in 1939 it was transferred again, by executive order, to the Federal Security Agency, which in 1953 became the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Although during these years, there was not an "official" Department of Education, the concept was still very much alive in Washington DC, and the eyes of the government were still clearly focused on education in America, and the potential it had for shaping society.
During the same years that the Department of Education was going through its many transformations, the National Education Association (NEA) was also making its long journey to become what it is today. Since its inception, it has been a "uniquely privileged organization."[1] As a federally chartered corporation it was exempted from property taxes, which is a very unique status that not many unions enjoy. But as was stated earlier, the NEA was not actually started as a union in the modern sense. It was originally started as simply a professional organization, an organization whose goals were the promotion of new educational trends, improving schools, helping teachers, and improving cooperation among educators. But by the 1960s, their transformation into a powerful lobbying group and activist labor union was nearly complete. It was President John F. Kennedy who, in 1962, opened the way for the NEA to become a full fledged labor union. The President issued Executive Order 10988 which approved the formation of federal public sector unions. This allowed labor unions to organize and represent public sector employees, something that had not previously been done. Up until this point, the vast majority of unions were private sector unions. They were primarily concerned with things like better wages or better working conditions. But these new public sector unions were more concerned with things like political power and directing more funds toward their employer, which in this case was the Federal Government. So with this new status, the NEA could now organize and promote teachers strikes and other militant type actions under the protection of the union, and completely within the limits of the law. This gave the NEA the clout and staying power that it needed to effect changes in the education system. While the percentage of Americans in private sector unions has been in a steady decline over the past fifty years, the percentage of Americans in public sector unions has continued to grow, with groups like the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) leading the way. Together, their combined membership, in 2005, was well over 4 million, and they account for about 40 percent of the total membership of all public sector unions today. But even though they had the power and the numbers, they still didn’t have the official voice that they wanted or needed in Washington DC.
By the early 1970s, the NEA had become one of the nation’s largest political lobbying groups. Armed only with a great number of America’s teachers, they set out to regain their voice in our nation’s capitol. In 1972, the then NEA president, Catherine Barrett, was quoted as saying "We are the biggest potential striking force in this country and we are determined to control the direction of education."[2] Like many of the educational reformers before them, they knew that if they could control education, they could control the direction of the country. With that as their goal, they set out to win their biggest political score to date, the election of Jimmy Carter as president. In 1976, that is exactly what happened. Jimmy Carter won the election, but just having "their" candidate in office was not enough. In return for their support, they, along with their new President, proposed legislation that would reestablish the Department of Education as an official government department again. This would give them the voice in Washington DC that they wanted and increase their political bargaining power exponentially. While there were many opposed to the idea of a new federal Department of Education, congress did manage to pass the new Carter/NEA legislation by a narrow margin of 215 to 201. By 1979, the Federal Department of Education was once again an independent branch of the government, and this time, it had a huge partner in crime, the NEA.
As an interesting side note, the night before President Carter signed the new bill into law creating the new Department of Education, a leading NEA official was quoted as offering a toast saying: "Here’s to the only union that owns its own Cabinet Department."[3]
Once again, fully funded and ready to work, the Federal Department of Education was back on the job. While the stated mission of the Department of Education is "to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation"[4] it would seem that a more accurate translation of this mission statement would be; to influence state education through legislation and the selective disbursement of federal aid based on compliance with federal standards as directed by the NEA. And it is that direction of the NEA, which continue to influence the efforts of this now colossal political force. With the strength of these two combined groups, the agenda of the educational reformers seems almost unstoppable, and for "public" education, that very well may be the case.
But what is their agenda? What sort of education reforms are they after? Well, the real problem is that most of their agenda has very little to do with education, and very much to do with politics. As they have become more politically involved, they have also become more radically liberal, and with this shift, their radical agenda has continued to drift away from Christian values of our forefathers. By the early 1990s, the NEA along with its smaller sister organization the AFT, displayed their tremendous political prowess to elect Bill Clinton as president. During the 1992 Democratic convention, the NEA alone accounted for one-fourth of all the delegates who attended the convention that year. As their political efforts increase, their radical agenda continues to evolve. Over the last 50 years their focus has been drawn more and more away from education and more towards any and all forms of radical social reform. In the past decade alone, the NEA has lobbied for "a host of non-education, culture-transforming resolutions supporting" many such things as: "abortion, homosexuality, radical feminism, nuclear disarmament, and world government."[5] In their Annual Meeting held on July 7, 2005, in Los Angeles, California, one of the major business items that passed was a measure committing the NEA to "develop a strategy to counter new attacks on curricula and practices that support gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students and staff in public schools."[6] In other words, they have committed themselves to promote homosexuality as a normal lifestyle through the public education systems. But that was not all, they also passed several other resolutions that had absolutely nothing to do with education, they included a call to boycott Wal-Mart, statehood for the District of Columbia, affirmative action, opposition to private accounts in Social Security, opposition to capital punishment, gun control, "single-payer health care", and endorsement of the International Criminal Court and the UN Declaration on Human Rights, just to name a few.
In an article entitled "How Public Schools Have Changed", Phyllis Schlafly commented that there were a few NEA resolutions that did pertain to education, they "called for the teaching of global, multicultural, suicide, environmental, and bilingual education." But as she also mentioned, apparently "resolutions about the need for improvement in the teaching of phonics or basic math didn't make the cut."[7] So my question is; is this organization really in the education business? It is hard to tell, but one thing is for sure, they are a group with a current membership of nearly 3 million and they work daily with, and have direct access to, 99 percent of all school aged children in the United States![8] That is exactly the kind of influence they want. According to a recent report from the Family Research Counsel, that’s roughly 48 million children,[9] that is about 1 out of every 6 people in our country! That makes the NEA a group with a tremendous potential realm of influence. But while the NEA’s radical left agenda has become increasingly damaging, none of its efforts have been more devastating to the children of America than its efforts to promote social reform through what has come to be known as "progressive education." This continues to be the ultimate goal; the promotion of social reform through progressive education policies and philosophies.
What exactly is progressive education? Well, progressive education comes in many different flavors. The American model is basically a group of ideas and philosophies that are aimed at making schools more effective agents of our democratic society. They are also aimed at the improvement of the democratic social order as a whole. Some have called it "child-centered", some have called it "social reconstructionist", but whatever the current label, they are all "progressive education," and it has been popular in this country for almost a century.
Progressive education is really nothing more than a term used to describe all these various ideas and philosophies that are used to promote of social reform through education. Although there are many different methods espoused among progressive educators, they all share a common conviction that democracy means the active participation by all citizens in the social, political and economic decisions that will affect all our lives. While on the surface this certainly sounds like a worthwhile goal, a deeper look into the specific philosophies reveals some serious flaws, especially when compared to the model found in Scripture. According to the philosophy of progressive education, the production of good citizens should consist of two essential elements.
First, it must require respect for diversity. This means that each individual should be recognized for his or her own abilities, interests, ideas, opinions, and cultural identity. It also means that each of these abilities, interests, ideas, opinions, and cultural identities are of equal value. One set should not be held above another because all are equally valid. There is not one single way of life or one single set of moral values that are better than all others! All are equally valid.
Secondly, it should require the development of a critical, socially minded intelligence. In other words, all persons should be required to develop a way of thinking that always considers community first, with the majority as the standard. This helps the individual to understand and participate effectively in the affairs of their community. Only as a collective can people achieve the common good, and they will only do that, according to the philosophy of progressive education, when they have been educated correctly, as good, tolerant minded, citizens. Through the promotion of progressive education, the thoughts and ideas of the individual actually become secondary to that of the community. There is also no one standard for right and wrong; everything is relative to the current situation or the current feelings of the majority. The desired outcome is simply unity under all standards as long as the common goal is achieved.
So where do these ideas come from? Well, American progressive education has its roots in the thoughts of many men. Men like the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, German philosopher Johann Herbart, and German educator Friedrich Froebel. All these men "sought to substitute natural methods for the traditional implements of learning."[10] By natural methods we mean that they emphasized the experience of the learning situation over the mere learning of facts during an educational experience. While they were all successful in promoting this method, no one has influenced the propagation of progressive education, especially in America, more than John Dewey.
John was born in 1859 in Burlington, Vermont. His father owned a general store there. As a boy, John delivered papers. He was raised in a traditional American home and attended the White Street Congregational Church in Burlington. John was a bright young man who loved to read. At age fifteen, he entered college. He attended the University of Vermont and graduated head of his class with a major in philosophy. After graduation, he taught high school for two years in Oil City, Pennsylvania. Later he earned his doctorate degree from the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences at John Hopkins University. He studied under men like G. Stanley Hall, George S. Morris and Charles S. Price, all of whom were deeply influenced by the rationalism[11] and the philosophy of German educators. After he earned his doctorate, John went on to teach at the University of Michigan and later the University of Minnesota. Soon after this, he moved to the University of Chicago where he assumed the role as the chair of the combined departments of psychology, philosophy and pedagogy.[12] During his stay at the University of Chicago, he, along with the help of his wife Alice, conducted the first major experiment using progressive education techniques in a classroom setting. Dewey said that school "must represent present life – life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground."[13] Dewey believed the best way for children to learn would be through hands on experience, and the things that they needed to learn were those things that helped them live out their day to day lives as participants in their communities. In this, we see the focus of the social reforming aspect of progressive education. The focus was removed from the dull every day subjects such as reading, writing and arithmetic and placed on hands-on activities such as sewing, cooking, gardening, carpentry, building, dramatics, storytelling, and recreating basic occupations.[14] Dewey’s model "Laboratory School," was an exciting school. It was unlike anything that had ever been done in America before. Children were exposed to many different instructional techniques and experiences, and while the results of this experiment are questionable, each side of the debate claims victory. Dewey critics say it was a total failure. They say that history and the current state of education in America has proven this point. But Dewey supporters say it was an overwhelming success. They say that while many other attempts to run schools like Dewey’s have failed, they all did so because they did not carefully duplicate Dewey’s vision. So while no one really knows the outcome of this first model school experiment, I tend to side with his critics. We can look to the results of an experiment to determine its success or failure, and after decades of progressive education in our government school systems, all we have is decreased test scores and decreased moral values. Without a doubt, Dewey’s experiment was a failure.
After John left the University of Chicago, he was called as the head of the prestigious Teachers College at Columbia University in New York. In this position, by the 1950s, he became the nation’s most influential educator. As many as 20% of all American school superintendents and 40% of all American teacher college heads received advanced degrees under Dewey.[15] Robert L. Cooke wrote about Dewey saying that he "probably applied his philosophy directly to education in a greater degree and in broader ways than any other man."[16]
With the help of the NEA and the Department of Education, John Dewey’s educational philosophy has become the predominant method for training teachers in the United States. Even greater than his predecessor Horace Mann, John Dewey’s educational ideas have spread far and wide. While both had similar convictions about education they both also had their own religious bent as well. This is primarily where the two began to part ways. Mann was a Unitarian, and believed in teaching a form of religious morality to children, a form based on his own Unitarian beliefs. Dewey on the other hand was an atheist, and a humanist, and did not feel that moral training had any place in education. Where Mann believed that morals should be taught apart from the specific religious doctrines about a higher authority, Dewey believed that there was no higher authority to be accountable to. As one of the co-signors of the Humanist Manifesto I,[17] Dewey believed that there were no moral absolutes, everything was relative to the situation at hand and that was relative to the quality of the experience. This was clearly visible in Dewey’s teaching style. It was one of his best known teaching techniques, known as experiential learning. The closing remarks of the Humanist Manifesto I sums up Dewey’s beliefs very clearly, it states:
"So stand the theses of religious humanism. Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task."[18]
So to Dewey, positive experience was everything, the "quest for the good life" was the central task for all of mankind including children. If the experience was good to the child, if it brought him closer to the good life, then this was something of value to the child and should be retained. If it was not, then this was not something the child needed and should be put aside. The accumulation of mere facts was no longer the focus of education, only the accumulation of positive learning experiences. In this we see some of the most devastating effects of the progressive education movement. Not only has it resulted in the academic decline of the American student, but it has also been the chief cause of the moral decline as well. Thanks to progressive education, American students now achieve some of the lowest scores in the world on standardized tests. They also have little or no morality to go with them. Right and wrong have been relegated to the quality of the experience, to whether or not it feels good at the time. If it does, then it has value, otherwise it is simply discarded as outdated or unneeded.
This is the foundation that our current system of public education is built on. With the help of men like Horace Mann and John Dewey, and organizations like the NEA and AFT, the federal government has redefined the way education is to be carried out.
[1] Charles J. Sykes, Dumbing Down Our Kids, Why American Children Fell Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, or Add (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1995), 230.
[2] Samuel L. Blumenfeld, NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education (Phoenix, AZ: The Paradigm Company, 1985). 78.
[3] Sykes, 231.
[4] U.S. Department of Education, ED.gov official website, http://www.ed.gov/about/.
[5] John A. Stormer, None Dare Call it Education: What’s happening in our schools? (Liberty Bell Press, 1999), p43.
[6] National Education Association Website article, Annual Meeting, July 7, 2005, http://www.nea.org/annualmeeting/raaction/index.html
[7] Phyllis Schlafly, How Public Schools Have Changed, (Eagle Forum Newsletter, Aug. 17, 2005).
[8]Brian D. Ray Ph.D., 2004 - 2005 Worldwide Guide to Homeschooling: Facts and stats on the benefits of home school (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2004), 27.
[9] Family Research Counsel newsletter, August 17, 2005.
[10] Towns, 319.
[11] Towns, 310.
[12] Ravitch, Diane, Left Back, A Century of Battles Over School Reform (Touchstone, 2000), 57.
[13] John Dewey's declaration concerning education (The School Journal, Volume LIV, Number 3 January 16, 1897), 77-80.
[14] Ravitch, Left Back, 172.
[15] Stormer, 39-40.
[16] Towns, 319.
[17] Stormer, 44.
[18] Humanist Manifesto I, Copyright 1973 by the American Humanist Association
During the same years that the Department of Education was going through its many transformations, the National Education Association (NEA) was also making its long journey to become what it is today. Since its inception, it has been a "uniquely privileged organization."[1] As a federally chartered corporation it was exempted from property taxes, which is a very unique status that not many unions enjoy. But as was stated earlier, the NEA was not actually started as a union in the modern sense. It was originally started as simply a professional organization, an organization whose goals were the promotion of new educational trends, improving schools, helping teachers, and improving cooperation among educators. But by the 1960s, their transformation into a powerful lobbying group and activist labor union was nearly complete. It was President John F. Kennedy who, in 1962, opened the way for the NEA to become a full fledged labor union. The President issued Executive Order 10988 which approved the formation of federal public sector unions. This allowed labor unions to organize and represent public sector employees, something that had not previously been done. Up until this point, the vast majority of unions were private sector unions. They were primarily concerned with things like better wages or better working conditions. But these new public sector unions were more concerned with things like political power and directing more funds toward their employer, which in this case was the Federal Government. So with this new status, the NEA could now organize and promote teachers strikes and other militant type actions under the protection of the union, and completely within the limits of the law. This gave the NEA the clout and staying power that it needed to effect changes in the education system. While the percentage of Americans in private sector unions has been in a steady decline over the past fifty years, the percentage of Americans in public sector unions has continued to grow, with groups like the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) leading the way. Together, their combined membership, in 2005, was well over 4 million, and they account for about 40 percent of the total membership of all public sector unions today. But even though they had the power and the numbers, they still didn’t have the official voice that they wanted or needed in Washington DC.
By the early 1970s, the NEA had become one of the nation’s largest political lobbying groups. Armed only with a great number of America’s teachers, they set out to regain their voice in our nation’s capitol. In 1972, the then NEA president, Catherine Barrett, was quoted as saying "We are the biggest potential striking force in this country and we are determined to control the direction of education."[2] Like many of the educational reformers before them, they knew that if they could control education, they could control the direction of the country. With that as their goal, they set out to win their biggest political score to date, the election of Jimmy Carter as president. In 1976, that is exactly what happened. Jimmy Carter won the election, but just having "their" candidate in office was not enough. In return for their support, they, along with their new President, proposed legislation that would reestablish the Department of Education as an official government department again. This would give them the voice in Washington DC that they wanted and increase their political bargaining power exponentially. While there were many opposed to the idea of a new federal Department of Education, congress did manage to pass the new Carter/NEA legislation by a narrow margin of 215 to 201. By 1979, the Federal Department of Education was once again an independent branch of the government, and this time, it had a huge partner in crime, the NEA.
As an interesting side note, the night before President Carter signed the new bill into law creating the new Department of Education, a leading NEA official was quoted as offering a toast saying: "Here’s to the only union that owns its own Cabinet Department."[3]
Once again, fully funded and ready to work, the Federal Department of Education was back on the job. While the stated mission of the Department of Education is "to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation"[4] it would seem that a more accurate translation of this mission statement would be; to influence state education through legislation and the selective disbursement of federal aid based on compliance with federal standards as directed by the NEA. And it is that direction of the NEA, which continue to influence the efforts of this now colossal political force. With the strength of these two combined groups, the agenda of the educational reformers seems almost unstoppable, and for "public" education, that very well may be the case.
But what is their agenda? What sort of education reforms are they after? Well, the real problem is that most of their agenda has very little to do with education, and very much to do with politics. As they have become more politically involved, they have also become more radically liberal, and with this shift, their radical agenda has continued to drift away from Christian values of our forefathers. By the early 1990s, the NEA along with its smaller sister organization the AFT, displayed their tremendous political prowess to elect Bill Clinton as president. During the 1992 Democratic convention, the NEA alone accounted for one-fourth of all the delegates who attended the convention that year. As their political efforts increase, their radical agenda continues to evolve. Over the last 50 years their focus has been drawn more and more away from education and more towards any and all forms of radical social reform. In the past decade alone, the NEA has lobbied for "a host of non-education, culture-transforming resolutions supporting" many such things as: "abortion, homosexuality, radical feminism, nuclear disarmament, and world government."[5] In their Annual Meeting held on July 7, 2005, in Los Angeles, California, one of the major business items that passed was a measure committing the NEA to "develop a strategy to counter new attacks on curricula and practices that support gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students and staff in public schools."[6] In other words, they have committed themselves to promote homosexuality as a normal lifestyle through the public education systems. But that was not all, they also passed several other resolutions that had absolutely nothing to do with education, they included a call to boycott Wal-Mart, statehood for the District of Columbia, affirmative action, opposition to private accounts in Social Security, opposition to capital punishment, gun control, "single-payer health care", and endorsement of the International Criminal Court and the UN Declaration on Human Rights, just to name a few.
In an article entitled "How Public Schools Have Changed", Phyllis Schlafly commented that there were a few NEA resolutions that did pertain to education, they "called for the teaching of global, multicultural, suicide, environmental, and bilingual education." But as she also mentioned, apparently "resolutions about the need for improvement in the teaching of phonics or basic math didn't make the cut."[7] So my question is; is this organization really in the education business? It is hard to tell, but one thing is for sure, they are a group with a current membership of nearly 3 million and they work daily with, and have direct access to, 99 percent of all school aged children in the United States![8] That is exactly the kind of influence they want. According to a recent report from the Family Research Counsel, that’s roughly 48 million children,[9] that is about 1 out of every 6 people in our country! That makes the NEA a group with a tremendous potential realm of influence. But while the NEA’s radical left agenda has become increasingly damaging, none of its efforts have been more devastating to the children of America than its efforts to promote social reform through what has come to be known as "progressive education." This continues to be the ultimate goal; the promotion of social reform through progressive education policies and philosophies.
What exactly is progressive education? Well, progressive education comes in many different flavors. The American model is basically a group of ideas and philosophies that are aimed at making schools more effective agents of our democratic society. They are also aimed at the improvement of the democratic social order as a whole. Some have called it "child-centered", some have called it "social reconstructionist", but whatever the current label, they are all "progressive education," and it has been popular in this country for almost a century.
Progressive education is really nothing more than a term used to describe all these various ideas and philosophies that are used to promote of social reform through education. Although there are many different methods espoused among progressive educators, they all share a common conviction that democracy means the active participation by all citizens in the social, political and economic decisions that will affect all our lives. While on the surface this certainly sounds like a worthwhile goal, a deeper look into the specific philosophies reveals some serious flaws, especially when compared to the model found in Scripture. According to the philosophy of progressive education, the production of good citizens should consist of two essential elements.
First, it must require respect for diversity. This means that each individual should be recognized for his or her own abilities, interests, ideas, opinions, and cultural identity. It also means that each of these abilities, interests, ideas, opinions, and cultural identities are of equal value. One set should not be held above another because all are equally valid. There is not one single way of life or one single set of moral values that are better than all others! All are equally valid.
Secondly, it should require the development of a critical, socially minded intelligence. In other words, all persons should be required to develop a way of thinking that always considers community first, with the majority as the standard. This helps the individual to understand and participate effectively in the affairs of their community. Only as a collective can people achieve the common good, and they will only do that, according to the philosophy of progressive education, when they have been educated correctly, as good, tolerant minded, citizens. Through the promotion of progressive education, the thoughts and ideas of the individual actually become secondary to that of the community. There is also no one standard for right and wrong; everything is relative to the current situation or the current feelings of the majority. The desired outcome is simply unity under all standards as long as the common goal is achieved.
So where do these ideas come from? Well, American progressive education has its roots in the thoughts of many men. Men like the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, German philosopher Johann Herbart, and German educator Friedrich Froebel. All these men "sought to substitute natural methods for the traditional implements of learning."[10] By natural methods we mean that they emphasized the experience of the learning situation over the mere learning of facts during an educational experience. While they were all successful in promoting this method, no one has influenced the propagation of progressive education, especially in America, more than John Dewey.
John was born in 1859 in Burlington, Vermont. His father owned a general store there. As a boy, John delivered papers. He was raised in a traditional American home and attended the White Street Congregational Church in Burlington. John was a bright young man who loved to read. At age fifteen, he entered college. He attended the University of Vermont and graduated head of his class with a major in philosophy. After graduation, he taught high school for two years in Oil City, Pennsylvania. Later he earned his doctorate degree from the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences at John Hopkins University. He studied under men like G. Stanley Hall, George S. Morris and Charles S. Price, all of whom were deeply influenced by the rationalism[11] and the philosophy of German educators. After he earned his doctorate, John went on to teach at the University of Michigan and later the University of Minnesota. Soon after this, he moved to the University of Chicago where he assumed the role as the chair of the combined departments of psychology, philosophy and pedagogy.[12] During his stay at the University of Chicago, he, along with the help of his wife Alice, conducted the first major experiment using progressive education techniques in a classroom setting. Dewey said that school "must represent present life – life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground."[13] Dewey believed the best way for children to learn would be through hands on experience, and the things that they needed to learn were those things that helped them live out their day to day lives as participants in their communities. In this, we see the focus of the social reforming aspect of progressive education. The focus was removed from the dull every day subjects such as reading, writing and arithmetic and placed on hands-on activities such as sewing, cooking, gardening, carpentry, building, dramatics, storytelling, and recreating basic occupations.[14] Dewey’s model "Laboratory School," was an exciting school. It was unlike anything that had ever been done in America before. Children were exposed to many different instructional techniques and experiences, and while the results of this experiment are questionable, each side of the debate claims victory. Dewey critics say it was a total failure. They say that history and the current state of education in America has proven this point. But Dewey supporters say it was an overwhelming success. They say that while many other attempts to run schools like Dewey’s have failed, they all did so because they did not carefully duplicate Dewey’s vision. So while no one really knows the outcome of this first model school experiment, I tend to side with his critics. We can look to the results of an experiment to determine its success or failure, and after decades of progressive education in our government school systems, all we have is decreased test scores and decreased moral values. Without a doubt, Dewey’s experiment was a failure.
After John left the University of Chicago, he was called as the head of the prestigious Teachers College at Columbia University in New York. In this position, by the 1950s, he became the nation’s most influential educator. As many as 20% of all American school superintendents and 40% of all American teacher college heads received advanced degrees under Dewey.[15] Robert L. Cooke wrote about Dewey saying that he "probably applied his philosophy directly to education in a greater degree and in broader ways than any other man."[16]
With the help of the NEA and the Department of Education, John Dewey’s educational philosophy has become the predominant method for training teachers in the United States. Even greater than his predecessor Horace Mann, John Dewey’s educational ideas have spread far and wide. While both had similar convictions about education they both also had their own religious bent as well. This is primarily where the two began to part ways. Mann was a Unitarian, and believed in teaching a form of religious morality to children, a form based on his own Unitarian beliefs. Dewey on the other hand was an atheist, and a humanist, and did not feel that moral training had any place in education. Where Mann believed that morals should be taught apart from the specific religious doctrines about a higher authority, Dewey believed that there was no higher authority to be accountable to. As one of the co-signors of the Humanist Manifesto I,[17] Dewey believed that there were no moral absolutes, everything was relative to the situation at hand and that was relative to the quality of the experience. This was clearly visible in Dewey’s teaching style. It was one of his best known teaching techniques, known as experiential learning. The closing remarks of the Humanist Manifesto I sums up Dewey’s beliefs very clearly, it states:
"So stand the theses of religious humanism. Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task."[18]
So to Dewey, positive experience was everything, the "quest for the good life" was the central task for all of mankind including children. If the experience was good to the child, if it brought him closer to the good life, then this was something of value to the child and should be retained. If it was not, then this was not something the child needed and should be put aside. The accumulation of mere facts was no longer the focus of education, only the accumulation of positive learning experiences. In this we see some of the most devastating effects of the progressive education movement. Not only has it resulted in the academic decline of the American student, but it has also been the chief cause of the moral decline as well. Thanks to progressive education, American students now achieve some of the lowest scores in the world on standardized tests. They also have little or no morality to go with them. Right and wrong have been relegated to the quality of the experience, to whether or not it feels good at the time. If it does, then it has value, otherwise it is simply discarded as outdated or unneeded.
This is the foundation that our current system of public education is built on. With the help of men like Horace Mann and John Dewey, and organizations like the NEA and AFT, the federal government has redefined the way education is to be carried out.
[1] Charles J. Sykes, Dumbing Down Our Kids, Why American Children Fell Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, or Add (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1995), 230.
[2] Samuel L. Blumenfeld, NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education (Phoenix, AZ: The Paradigm Company, 1985). 78.
[3] Sykes, 231.
[4] U.S. Department of Education, ED.gov official website, http://www.ed.gov/about/.
[5] John A. Stormer, None Dare Call it Education: What’s happening in our schools? (Liberty Bell Press, 1999), p43.
[6] National Education Association Website article, Annual Meeting, July 7, 2005, http://www.nea.org/annualmeeting/raaction/index.html
[7] Phyllis Schlafly, How Public Schools Have Changed, (Eagle Forum Newsletter, Aug. 17, 2005).
[8]Brian D. Ray Ph.D., 2004 - 2005 Worldwide Guide to Homeschooling: Facts and stats on the benefits of home school (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2004), 27.
[9] Family Research Counsel newsletter, August 17, 2005.
[10] Towns, 319.
[11] Towns, 310.
[12] Ravitch, Diane, Left Back, A Century of Battles Over School Reform (Touchstone, 2000), 57.
[13] John Dewey's declaration concerning education (The School Journal, Volume LIV, Number 3 January 16, 1897), 77-80.
[14] Ravitch, Left Back, 172.
[15] Stormer, 39-40.
[16] Towns, 319.
[17] Stormer, 44.
[18] Humanist Manifesto I, Copyright 1973 by the American Humanist Association
Friday, October 06, 2006
EDUCATING CHILDREN - Education in Early American History
Education in America has gone through a major evolutionary process. But unlike the so-called "evolution of man" which is widely taught in the government school systems, the evolution of the American school is based on fact and not fiction. It is a process that started with the Pilgrims and Puritans who first settled this country in the 1600’s and is still continuing today.
So who were these Pilgrims and Puritans? Why did they come to America? The most common answer is religious freedom, and while this may be the most common answer, it may not be the best. So let us take a closer look at these two groups for a more complete answer.
The Pilgrims were mostly farmers, and with the exception of their leaders, they were generally not well educated. However, this did not mean they were illiterate, because standards for literacy were much higher then. All this really meant was that while most them could read and write, they had little or no formal university education. The Puritans on the other hand were generally better educated. They were primarily from England’s middle and professional class.[1] Though the Pilgrims and Puritans were drastically different in makeup, their goals were strikingly similar. Each group wanted very similar things. They wanted the freedom to worship God in accordance with their own beliefs, they wanted the freedom to teach those beliefs to their children, and most of all they wanted all men everywhere to know the Lord. But while each group wanted similar things, they each took a drastically different approach to achieve them.
The Pilgrims wanted no part of the Church of England. To them, it was too much like the Roman Church. Too much of the emphasis was on pomp and show with little focus on reading and interpreting scripture. There was also a great divide between the clergy and the laity, and the King of England, James I, wanted it to stay that way. It was his opinion that royally appointed bishops were one of the pillars of a strong monarchy. His response to their protests was "No bishop, no king."[2] So the only real recourse that the Pilgrims had was to flee the country. But only after several different failed attempts did they finally escape to Holland. It was on February 12, 1609 that they settled in Leyden, Holland, which was a small town about twenty miles southwest of Amsterdam. Here they remained for the next eleven years. It was here that they finally experienced the religious freedom that they had so longed for back in their mother country of England. But, if they had finally found religious freedom among the Dutch, why did they make the dangerous voyage to America? The real reason can be found in the document known as the Mayflower Compact, it says:
"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain. France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, & etc. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together in a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and the of the ends aforesaid: and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient of the general good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November, in the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620."[3]
So the main reason for their final departure to the Americas was "for the Glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian Faith." They were missionaries at heart and wanted to carry their faith to the uttermost parts of the world. Here in the "New World", they would have the freedom to worship God according to their own beliefs. They would have the freedom to teach those beliefs to their children. Most of all, here they would be able to carry the gospel to a land where it had not been before.
While the Pilgrims were busy trying to escape their current situation, their better educated and more affluent counterparts, the Puritans, were doing what they could to reform the church and the government from within. They didn’t really want to form a new church; they just wanted to purify the one they had. They were the dominant party in the English House of Commons,[4] and they tried to use their positions of influence to persuade the English people and her king, to adopt a form of government that was more religiously tolerant. While this was only partially successful, many of their members, some 900 or so Puritans, saw the proverbial writing on the wall and sailed to America in 1630 under the leadership of John Winthrop.
John was born in Suffolk, England in 1587. He was the only son of Adam Winthrop, the lord of Groton Manor. He was privately educated as a youngster and later attended Trinity College in Cambridge. After a few years of college, he returned home to help run his fathers estate. He was later married and had 10 children. John went on to study law and then at some point became part of the Puritan movement. Once in this new movement John became more and more dissatisfied with the Church of England and worked feverishly to try and implement change from within. But after much effort, John discovered that change was not coming, so he decided to leave his home in search of a better place to raise his family. This is when John became involved with a company known as the Massachusetts Bay Company. This was a newly chartered company that would travel to the New World and setup an entirely new way of life. John, with his background in management and law was quickly elected the first Governor. With that, John and the rest of the Puritans sailed aboard the ship Arbella along with a flotilla of eleven other ships to the New World, and like the Pilgrims, who went before them some ten years earlier and had drafted the Mayflower Compact, these men also drafted their on covenant to explain their actions. It stated:
"God Almighty in His most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind as in all times some must be rich, some poor; some high and eminent in power and dignity, others mean and in subjection. First, to hold conformity with rest of His works, ... Secondly, that He might have the more occasion to manifest the work of His spirit, ... Thirdly, that every man might have need of other, ... All men thus (by divine providence) ranked into two sorts, rich and poor, under the first are comprehended all such as are able to live comfortably by their own means duly improved, and all others are poor, according to the former distribution. There are two rules whereby we are to walk, one toward another; justice and mercy. ... There is likewise a double law by which we are regulated in our conversation, one towards another; in both the former respects, the law of nature and the law of grace, or the moral law of the Gospel. (1) For the persons, we are a company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ; (2) the care of the public must oversway all private respects by which not only conscience but mere civil policy doth bind us; (3) the end is to improve our lives to do more service to the Lord, the comfort and increase of the body of Christ whereof we are members; (4) for the means whereby this must be effected, they are twofold: a conformity with the work and the end we aim at. ... Thus stands the cause between God and us: we are entered into covenant with Him for this work; we have taken out a commission, the Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles, ... if we shall neglect the observation of these articles ... the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us. ... Therefore, let us choose life, that we, and our seed may live; by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity."[5]
While the Mayflower Compact was a distinctly religious document, the Arbella Covenant was even more so. The final line of the document gives a very clear summary: "Therefore, let us choose life, that we, and our seed may live; by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity." So if the Pilgrims were missionaries to the new world, the Puritans were missionaries too, but with a primary purpose of being a godly example for all to see, a light on a hill[6] to shine before all men. They would strive to live according to the laws of God, and would train their children to do likewise.
In their search for religious freedom, both the Pilgrims and the Puritans eventually came to America, and once they were there, they would establish homes, churches and schools modeled after the pattern given in scripture. It is here, among the lives and homes of these early European settlers, that we find the Christian roots of education in American.
So what were some of these early Christian roots of American education? Well, from its earliest beginnings, the schools founded in this country were distinctly Christian. Harvard University for example, founded in 1636, just sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock,[7] was founded on Christian principles. In her report, Plymouth Rocked: America Departs from Founding Values, Wendy Griffith states that "Harvard, chartered in Boston in 1636, was established primarily to train ministers of the Gospel, and to evangelize the northern Atlantic seaboard. A statue of John Harvard, a young minister when he came over from England, stands in Harvard Yard. For more than 200 years, Harvard remained dedicated to Christian education…"[8] If you look at the statue of John Harvard, you will see an open Bible in his right hand. Harvard was clearly founded with Christian values in mind, but has since left those values behind and replaced them with the values of the world. But this was not the only school founded on Christian values that has become secular. Every historical Ivy League school founded in this nation had the same Christian moral roots. Take Columbia University for example; this is the 6th oldest school in our nation. According to an article in the New York Mercury on June 3, 1754, announcing the opening of King's College, the original name for Columbia, it stated that:
"The chief thing that is aimed at in this college is to teach and engage the children to know God in Jesus Christ and to love and serve Him in all sobriety, godliness, and righteousness of life, with perfect heart and a willing mind, and to train them up in all virtuous habits and all such useful knowledge as may render them creditable to their families and friends, ornaments to their country, and useful to the public weal in their generations."
But does Columbia still have those same lofty goals? Not in the least! Columbia University today is a totally secular institution. In fact, this is the same university where the well known humanist and atheist, John Dewey, was called as the head of its teacher’s college. But that is an issue that will be covered in greater detail later.
So who were these Pilgrims and Puritans? Why did they come to America? The most common answer is religious freedom, and while this may be the most common answer, it may not be the best. So let us take a closer look at these two groups for a more complete answer.
The Pilgrims were mostly farmers, and with the exception of their leaders, they were generally not well educated. However, this did not mean they were illiterate, because standards for literacy were much higher then. All this really meant was that while most them could read and write, they had little or no formal university education. The Puritans on the other hand were generally better educated. They were primarily from England’s middle and professional class.[1] Though the Pilgrims and Puritans were drastically different in makeup, their goals were strikingly similar. Each group wanted very similar things. They wanted the freedom to worship God in accordance with their own beliefs, they wanted the freedom to teach those beliefs to their children, and most of all they wanted all men everywhere to know the Lord. But while each group wanted similar things, they each took a drastically different approach to achieve them.
The Pilgrims wanted no part of the Church of England. To them, it was too much like the Roman Church. Too much of the emphasis was on pomp and show with little focus on reading and interpreting scripture. There was also a great divide between the clergy and the laity, and the King of England, James I, wanted it to stay that way. It was his opinion that royally appointed bishops were one of the pillars of a strong monarchy. His response to their protests was "No bishop, no king."[2] So the only real recourse that the Pilgrims had was to flee the country. But only after several different failed attempts did they finally escape to Holland. It was on February 12, 1609 that they settled in Leyden, Holland, which was a small town about twenty miles southwest of Amsterdam. Here they remained for the next eleven years. It was here that they finally experienced the religious freedom that they had so longed for back in their mother country of England. But, if they had finally found religious freedom among the Dutch, why did they make the dangerous voyage to America? The real reason can be found in the document known as the Mayflower Compact, it says:
"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain. France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, & etc. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together in a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and the of the ends aforesaid: and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient of the general good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November, in the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620."[3]
So the main reason for their final departure to the Americas was "for the Glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian Faith." They were missionaries at heart and wanted to carry their faith to the uttermost parts of the world. Here in the "New World", they would have the freedom to worship God according to their own beliefs. They would have the freedom to teach those beliefs to their children. Most of all, here they would be able to carry the gospel to a land where it had not been before.
While the Pilgrims were busy trying to escape their current situation, their better educated and more affluent counterparts, the Puritans, were doing what they could to reform the church and the government from within. They didn’t really want to form a new church; they just wanted to purify the one they had. They were the dominant party in the English House of Commons,[4] and they tried to use their positions of influence to persuade the English people and her king, to adopt a form of government that was more religiously tolerant. While this was only partially successful, many of their members, some 900 or so Puritans, saw the proverbial writing on the wall and sailed to America in 1630 under the leadership of John Winthrop.
John was born in Suffolk, England in 1587. He was the only son of Adam Winthrop, the lord of Groton Manor. He was privately educated as a youngster and later attended Trinity College in Cambridge. After a few years of college, he returned home to help run his fathers estate. He was later married and had 10 children. John went on to study law and then at some point became part of the Puritan movement. Once in this new movement John became more and more dissatisfied with the Church of England and worked feverishly to try and implement change from within. But after much effort, John discovered that change was not coming, so he decided to leave his home in search of a better place to raise his family. This is when John became involved with a company known as the Massachusetts Bay Company. This was a newly chartered company that would travel to the New World and setup an entirely new way of life. John, with his background in management and law was quickly elected the first Governor. With that, John and the rest of the Puritans sailed aboard the ship Arbella along with a flotilla of eleven other ships to the New World, and like the Pilgrims, who went before them some ten years earlier and had drafted the Mayflower Compact, these men also drafted their on covenant to explain their actions. It stated:
"God Almighty in His most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind as in all times some must be rich, some poor; some high and eminent in power and dignity, others mean and in subjection. First, to hold conformity with rest of His works, ... Secondly, that He might have the more occasion to manifest the work of His spirit, ... Thirdly, that every man might have need of other, ... All men thus (by divine providence) ranked into two sorts, rich and poor, under the first are comprehended all such as are able to live comfortably by their own means duly improved, and all others are poor, according to the former distribution. There are two rules whereby we are to walk, one toward another; justice and mercy. ... There is likewise a double law by which we are regulated in our conversation, one towards another; in both the former respects, the law of nature and the law of grace, or the moral law of the Gospel. (1) For the persons, we are a company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ; (2) the care of the public must oversway all private respects by which not only conscience but mere civil policy doth bind us; (3) the end is to improve our lives to do more service to the Lord, the comfort and increase of the body of Christ whereof we are members; (4) for the means whereby this must be effected, they are twofold: a conformity with the work and the end we aim at. ... Thus stands the cause between God and us: we are entered into covenant with Him for this work; we have taken out a commission, the Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles, ... if we shall neglect the observation of these articles ... the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us. ... Therefore, let us choose life, that we, and our seed may live; by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity."[5]
While the Mayflower Compact was a distinctly religious document, the Arbella Covenant was even more so. The final line of the document gives a very clear summary: "Therefore, let us choose life, that we, and our seed may live; by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity." So if the Pilgrims were missionaries to the new world, the Puritans were missionaries too, but with a primary purpose of being a godly example for all to see, a light on a hill[6] to shine before all men. They would strive to live according to the laws of God, and would train their children to do likewise.
In their search for religious freedom, both the Pilgrims and the Puritans eventually came to America, and once they were there, they would establish homes, churches and schools modeled after the pattern given in scripture. It is here, among the lives and homes of these early European settlers, that we find the Christian roots of education in American.
So what were some of these early Christian roots of American education? Well, from its earliest beginnings, the schools founded in this country were distinctly Christian. Harvard University for example, founded in 1636, just sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock,[7] was founded on Christian principles. In her report, Plymouth Rocked: America Departs from Founding Values, Wendy Griffith states that "Harvard, chartered in Boston in 1636, was established primarily to train ministers of the Gospel, and to evangelize the northern Atlantic seaboard. A statue of John Harvard, a young minister when he came over from England, stands in Harvard Yard. For more than 200 years, Harvard remained dedicated to Christian education…"[8] If you look at the statue of John Harvard, you will see an open Bible in his right hand. Harvard was clearly founded with Christian values in mind, but has since left those values behind and replaced them with the values of the world. But this was not the only school founded on Christian values that has become secular. Every historical Ivy League school founded in this nation had the same Christian moral roots. Take Columbia University for example; this is the 6th oldest school in our nation. According to an article in the New York Mercury on June 3, 1754, announcing the opening of King's College, the original name for Columbia, it stated that:
"The chief thing that is aimed at in this college is to teach and engage the children to know God in Jesus Christ and to love and serve Him in all sobriety, godliness, and righteousness of life, with perfect heart and a willing mind, and to train them up in all virtuous habits and all such useful knowledge as may render them creditable to their families and friends, ornaments to their country, and useful to the public weal in their generations."
But does Columbia still have those same lofty goals? Not in the least! Columbia University today is a totally secular institution. In fact, this is the same university where the well known humanist and atheist, John Dewey, was called as the head of its teacher’s college. But that is an issue that will be covered in greater detail later.
The founding of Christian schools of higher education was only the beginning of Christian education in this country. Just a few years after the founding of Harvard University, the first mandatory school law was established for elementary education. It was the Massachusetts Bay School Law of 1642. This law required parents and masters to teach their children the principles of religion and the capital laws of the commonwealth.[9] The main idea behind this law was that it was the duty of those responsible for the children: parents and masters, to see that they could read the scripture for themselves and by doing so could become good citizens.
Five years after this first school law was passed another new law was enacted. It was the Massachusetts Law of 1647,[10] also known as the Old Deluder Satan Act. This law stated that all towns with at least 50 residents should hire a school master. It seems that we’ve seen something similar to this somewhere before in history. You see prior to this, all elementary education was primarily carried out in the home. But there must have been some concern as to the quality of the education that parents were giving. Just like the Jewish leaders in the last century BC, those early American leaders questioned the ability of parents to teach their own children. So they sought to establish a system of improved education that would be better than what most children could receive at home, and what was the primary reason? The preamble to the Massachusetts Law tells us why, it stated:
"It being one chief e project of ye old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of ye Scriptures, as in former times by keeping him in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from ye use of tongues, yt so at least ye true since & meaning of ye original might be clouded by false glosses of saint seeming deceivers, yet learning may not be buried in ye grave of or fathers in ye church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting or endeavors…" [11]
The Massachusetts Law of 1647, like the School Law of 1642, was also drafted to ensure that children had an opportunity to learn to read the scripture. While it was enacted with good intentions, it would later lead to a national system of government controlled schools that would be totally devoid of Christianity; although that would not happen until many years later. But in the mean time, Christian influence in education was still going strong.
The next major milestone for education occurred in 1690 with the first printing of the New England Primer. The New England Primer used Bible lessons and spiritual training to teach children to read and was the home education book of choice for most Americans. It included such subjects as Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, The Lord's Prayer, The Ten Commandments, a Bible alphabet, two catechisms, Bible questions, a dialogue between Christ, the youth and the devil, and the advice John Rogers gave his nine children before he was martyred for Christ. A quick look at the rhyming alphabet of the New England Primer reveals a bit of the books Christian heritage. Here is a sample from the 1777 version, it begins with:
· A – In Adam's fall – We sinned all.
· B – Heaven to find – The Bible Mind.
· C – Christ crucified – For sinners died.
· D – The Deluge drowned – The Earth around.
· E – Elijah hid – By ravens fed. [12]
For nearly two-hundred years, the New England Primer was used to provide a Christian education to countless boys and girls in the home and schools all across our country.
As early American history progressed, many such events transpired; events that tie together education and Christianity. Events that clearly define what the founding fathers had in mind when they first established a new life in this country. While these events are exciting to look at, and would show us many different aspects of our early Christian educational roots, I believe it would be more helpful to narrow our focus to a more specific path. I would like to concentrate on those events which took us from our early Christian roots of education in early America, to the totally secular educational system of modern day America.
The first two of these major events are defining moments in our nation’s history. They would take place at the end of the 18th century. But while these events were of utmost importance to the direction of our country, they had absolutely nothing to do with education. So what were they? Well, the first one was the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788.[13] This event helped set the stage for all future law in this country. The second was the Bill of Rights in 1790,[14] which were the first 10 amendments to the constitution. So if these events have nothing to do with education, then why mention them at all? Well, these documents define the boundaries of the authority of our government. While they cover many different areas of our national or public life, nowhere do they mention anything about the government’s responsibility to educate children. But for some reason, here we are in the first part of the 21st century, little more than two-hundred years later, and the education system is controlled, almost entirely, by the federal government. So how did it get that way? Well, it all began with a population explosion in the early 1800s. Many immigrants were coming to America and most could neither speak nor read the English language. So a cry went forth for more "common" schools to help in the process of Americanizing these new citizens and their children. While many thought that schools could be supported privately through churches and private citizens, many others feared that too many would not accept such charity. So the end result lead to the need for tax funded "free" schools. But since the Federal government had no authority in the area of education, the majority of this process was left up to the individual states. At that time in the New England states, specifically Massachusetts, this effort was lead by a young lawyer named Horace Mann. Horace was also known as The Father of American Public Education.[15] It was here that Horace and his fellow education reformers would set the pace for education in America, a pace that would be followed by educators for many years to come.
Horace was a bright young man with a passion for education. Although he had humble beginnings, he eventually graduated at the top of his class from Brown University. He then went on to study Law at Litchfield Massachusetts Law School. Later, Horace was elected to the Massachusetts state legislature where his passion for education manifested itself in legislation that ultimately formed the Massachusetts Commission to Improve Education. An organization that later became the Massachusetts State Board of Education.[16] Eventually, in 1837, Horace gave up his law practice to become the Secretary of this organization.[17] It was through his efforts as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, that state funding to education was doubled, teacher salaries increased, and many educational related laws and reforms were passed. These laws not only shaped education in his day, but also education for generations to come.
But what was Mann’s vision for education? Well, Horace believed that education should be free and available to all, no matter what a person’s status. He thought all children should be given the opportunity to learn the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Horace also felt that children needed moral instruction as well, and he patterned this instruction after his own liberal Unitarian beliefs;[18] beliefs which stressed the unity of the nature of God as opposed to his tri-unity and promoted more "free-thinking" about who God was. Unitarians were extremely liberal, theologically, as were their Universalists counterparts. The two groups eventually merged into one to form the Unitarian Universalism church that we have today.[19] This is the kind of ideology on which Mann patterned his public school model. It was a kind of nonsectarian religious education, one where moral principles would be taught, without the doctrinal ties that, to Mann, tended to divide the various religions of the day. So how was he to accomplish his dream of a unified well educated population? He would do it through education reform.
The first major step toward Mann’s educational ideal was the Compulsory Attendance Act of 1852.[20] It was enacted, with his help, in the state of Massachusetts and required mandatory school attendance for children between the ages of eight and fourteen for at least three months out of each year. While there were other educational laws prior to this one, this was really the first that defined the total scope of what children would learn. So while local communities would provide the meeting place, Man and the other education reformers would supply the teachers and the curriculum. For those parents that would not participate, they would be threatened with a hefty twenty dollars fine. However, there was definitely more bark to this dog than there was bite. The problem was, the school board didn’t have the authority to arrest people or enforce the fine, so obviously something more was needed.
Another major step in the process of educational reform was to start the training earlier. The Compulsory Attendance Act of 1852 had already captured children as young as age 8 years old, but this wasn’t early enough to build a good foundation for reform. So in 1860, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, the sister of Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, who was the wife of Horace Mann, started the first English Language Kindergarten[21] in Boston. By reaching children at an even earlier age, the chances were much greater that they could be molded into the model universal citizens that were at the center of Mann’s vision. The Peabody sisters were both Unitarian Transcendentalist, and they "strove to realize their vision of human goodness through practical application in the world."[22] It was through the kindergarten where the practical application began. It was a process where by children could be molded and shaped at an even earlier age.
So as the schools progressed, Mann and his fellow education reformers found that they lacked real authority. So in 1873, the Massachusetts compulsory attendance law was revised. The school year was expanded from twelve to twenty weeks per year and they added the built in ability to enforce the law by forming jurisdictions for prosecution. They then hired truant officers to enforce the attendance laws, and as they did, many more towns began to fall into compliance.
Meanwhile, as this new business of mandatory state education progressed, it started to catch the attention of education leaders in other states. In 1850, many of these leaders got together and formed The National Teachers Association, which a few years later, in 1857, became the National Education Association[23] or NEA. On the surface, this appeared to be a professional organization whose goals were the promotion of new educational trends, improving schools, helping teachers, and improving cooperation among educators. But in reality, the main idea behind this group was the promotion of government owned public schools, and the demise of private education.[24] Because Mann and his cohorts in Massachusetts were doing such a great job with their education reform efforts, many education leaders of other states used Massachusetts as their model, and the NEA was the means for promoting these model ideas. As the process of government education matured in Massachusetts, more and more other states began to follow suit with the help and efforts of the NEA. As the movement continued to grow on a national scale, the Federal Government began to take notice. It was merely ten years after the official creation of the NEA, that in 1867, the US Department of Education was formed, and along with it, the rise of Federal Government involvement in the policies and practices of state education, and with this event, we have officially moved into the modern age of education.
So again, we see history repeat itself; just like the Roman Catholic Church of the sixth century, and the Jewish Rabbis of the first century, "Horace Mann and the education reformers [of his day] worked to extend the state’s role in defining what would be taught in schools and [also] preparing those whom would teach in them."[25] As they expanded their efforts, other states followed through with the help and activities of the NEA which was followed by Federal Government involvement. Within a few short decades, education in America had gone from a mostly home based system founded on Christian principles, to one that was totally secular and controlled by the government. The foundation is now laid for a total government takeover of education in America. This event, along with many that came before it, have all added to the cause of the willing abdication of educational responsibilities by millions of parents all across the land.
[1] Kienel, 370-371.
[2] History of the Monarchy > The Stewarts > James VI and I (Crown Copyrithg, 2005), http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page136.asp.
[3] Harold Jinks Editor, The Book of Freedom, Our American Heritage (Merkle Press Inc., 1968), 3.
[4] Robert E. Lerner, Standish Meacham, and Edward McNall Burns, Western Civilizations Volume 2, Eleventh Edition (W W Norton, 1988), 531-534.
[5] The Arbella Covenant or "A Modell of Christian Charity" 1630, http://www.curriculumunits.com/crucible/background/arabella.htm.
[6] Matthew 5:14-16
[7] President and Fellows of Harvard College, (Harvard College 2005), http://www.news.harvard.edu/guide/intro/.
[8] Wendy Griffith, Plymouth Rocked: America Departs from Founding Values (CWNews, The Christian Broadcasting Network, 2005), http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/CWN/073004plymouth.asp.
[9] The Massachusetts Bay School Law 1642, http://personal.pitnet.net/primarysources/schoollaw1642.html.
[10] The Massachusetts Law of 1647, http://www.extremeintellect.com/08EDUCATION/masslaw1647.htm.
[11] The Massachusetts Law of 1647, http://www.extremeintellect.com/08EDUCATION/masslaw1647.htm.
[12] The Rhyming alphabet from the New England Primer, printed by Edward Draper, 1777
[13] ACLJ, American Center for Law & Justice, Foundations of Freedom booklet, 5.
[14] ACLJ, 35.
[15] Interactive State House, Education Timeline, http://www.mass.gov/statehouse/statues/mann_landing.htm.
[16] Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia 1938 Edition, Volume 9 (F.E. Compton & Company, Chicago, 1938), 53.
[17] Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia, Volume 4, 178.
[18] Susan Ritchie, Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography, Horace Mann (Unitarian Universalist Historical Society (UUHS) 1999-2004), http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/horacemann.html.
[19] John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions (Harvest House Publishers, 1999), 503.
[20] Vicky Grocke, COMPULSORY EDUCATION, http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/%7Ecfrnb/compulso.html.
[21] Interactive State House, Education Timeline, http://www.mass.gov/statehouse/1800.htm.
[22] Susan Ritchie, Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography, The Peabody Sisters (Unitarian Universalist Historical Society (UUHS) 1999-2004), http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/peabodysisters.html.
[23] Jodie Gilmore, National "Indoctrination" Association (The NewAmerican, Vol. 20, No. 17, August 23, 2004), http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2004/08-23-2004/indoctrination.htm.
[24] Lowell Ponte, Unholy Trinity (FrontPageMagazine.com, July 16, 2004), http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=14258.
[25] Matthew J. Brouillette, School Choice in Michigan: A Primer for Freedom in Education, (Mackinac Center for Public Policy, 1999), 9.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
EDUCATING CHILDREN - Education and the Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a time of spiritual renewal and awakening that brought the world out of the Dark ages. However, it wasn’t a time of peace; it was a time of great conflict and struggle. It was a time when many faithful men and women gave their lives in the fight to return the truth of God’s Word to the common man on the street. This was a war that was waged on many different fronts, but none more important than the front of education.
For hundreds of years, men had allowed themselves to be lied to because of their lack of education. They had lost the ability to read and understand the scriptures for themselves, and the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church were able to hold them captive in ways that would not have been possible if more people had been armed a proper education. But it was through the efforts of certain brave Christian men, many of whom were Catholic clergy, that years of ignorance was about to end. This was the time of the reformation, a reformation of education.
So who were these reformers; who were those who had the greatest impact on education during the reformation? Well, the first of the noted reformers was a man named John Wycliffe. He was known as "The Morning Star" of the reformation.[1] Though he lived almost 200 years before the reformation officially began, the role he played was still crucial in bringing about reform. Wycliffe was a Catholic priest and an Oxford professor who disagreed with many of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church.[2] But none of these did he disagree more with, than the Church’s stand on the availability of scripture for the common man. The church practically held the common man captive with its tight reign on who was allowed to read the Bible and who was not. But Wycliffe believed that everyone should have an opportunity to read the scripture for himself. So he took on the challenge of translating the scripture from the Latin Vulgate, into the English language. The finished work however did not receive any wide spread distribution, mainly because it had to be copied by hand[3], but it did have a serious impact on future translations. Being the first English translation of the Bible, it encouraged the likes of Tyndale, Luther, Calvin and others to put the scripture in the hands of the common man. This was one of the leading factors that allowed the reformation to begin. The common man and woman once again began to read and understand the scripture for themselves, and because of this, they could no longer be held captive by any pope or church.
Now while Wycliffe had a profound impact on the students of Oxford University, his reach did not stop there. His doctrine had spread as far away as Bohemia, into the hands of a man named John Huss. Huss, like Wycliffe, was also a Catholic priest and a professor. However, Huss taught at the University of Prague in Bohemia. Because of some of the students, who had come from Oxford,[4] he became familiar with the works of Wycliffe and accepted them with great zeal. Huss used his position as a professor and later as president[5] of the university to propagate Wycliffe’s teachings throughout the educational community. Huss was extremely popular among the student body but much less so among most of the faculty, and because of this, he was eventually excommunicated. However, through a relationship with the Bohemian aristocracy he was allowed to live for a short while in exile and was not immediately condemned to die. Though exiled, he was still very active in promoting the teachings of Wycliffe. Then finally in 1415 at the Council of Constance, he was condemned as a heretic, and on July the 6th, he was burned at the stake.[6] Though this was the end of Huss the man, his legacy lived on long after his death. His supporters were so outraged, that they started what is now known as the Hussite revolt,[7] which tore the Bohemian country away from the grip of the Catholic Church for the next several hundred years.
Although men like Wycliffe and Huss had a profound impact on education, their roles were small in comparison to the man known as the Father of the Reformation. Martin Luther was without a doubt the most influential of all the great reformers. From the nailing of his famous 95 Thesis to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg Germany, until the time of his death in 1546, Christian education had no greater champion than Martin Luther.
Luther was a young Augustinian monk who did not start out to be a reformer. But through the study of scripture, he was led to question many of the teaching of the Catholic Church.[8] First and foremost, was the churches teaching on soteriology; the doctrine of salvation. But it didn’t stop there. Luther began to challenge the church in many different areas. But no area was Luther more passionate about than the area of Christian education. While the church tried to keep strict control over who could attend school and what they could be taught while they were there, Luther thought that everyone should enjoy the benefits of a proper education. Luther actually wrote more on Christian education than any other reformer of the sixteenth century.[9] He was a passionate proponent of Christian education, and always encouraged parents to take seriously their role in the education process. In one letter; the Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, Luther wrote:
"I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God's word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now. Nobody is to blame for this except the pope, the bishops, and the prelates, who are all charged with training young people. The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scriptures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell."[10]
Luther also wrote many other letters and sermons addressing the subject of education, but was almost always met with staunch opposition. But on this issue, the opposition didn’t come as much from the Church as it did from apathetic parents[11] and leaders. It was Luther’s idea that education should be a partnership between the home and the church. A partnership where the parents would take the lead and the church would assist. However, the vast majority of ex-catholic parents were content to turn over all the responsibility of educating their children to the church, and when the church could no longer do the job, the parents were content to do nothing as well. The problem was; these parents had been trained by their educational system to think that way, and they didn’t realize that there was another, better, way to educate their children. But Luther was so overwhelmed with the idea of the need for Christian education that he compromised his original plan, and invited another member into this educational partnership, the city government.[12] But even this arrangement proved to be an uphill battle. In another letter written to the mayors and councilmen of all the towns of Germany Luther wrote:
"Beloved rulers, if we find it necessary to expend such large sums as we do yearly upon artillery, roads, bridges, dykes, and a thousand other things of the sort, in order that a city may be assured of continued order, peace, and tranquility, ought we not to expend on the poor suffering youth therein, at least enough to provide them with a schoolmaster or two?"[13]
His new educational partnership was eventually semi-successful. It was a reform that would last for several hundred years and also impact other public education systems for years to come. It was a three way partnership between parent, church, and government. Yet he would not live to see how this new partnership would become corrupted in the years that would follow. He would never see how it would be used to lead countless children away from the savior that he so desperately wanted them to know.[14]
Although Martin Luther was known as the "Father of the Reformation" and was the proverbial spark that started the wild fire of reform burning, it was John Calvin that kept the blazes burning far and wide. Luther’s doctrine had spread across Germany and into many of the educational establishments of the day, and in that way continued to spread. But Luther took a more haphazard approach to spreading his message than Calvin did. He knew where he wanted to go, but didn’t really have a formal plan for getting there.[15] But Calvin, on the other hand, knew exactly where he was going, and he had a very systematic plan for getting there. Calvin’s teaching would eventually influence Switzerland, France, England, Hungary, Holland, Scotland, and even America.[16] But while their approaches were different, their goals were still vary similar. Like Luther, Calvin devoted as much of his time reforming education as he did to reforming the church. In reality, to Calvin, the two could not be separated. Even though each had its own function, one could not survive without the other.[17] While Luther’s final approach to education was a three way partnership between parents, church and state, Calvin’s system was a bit different.
Calvin proposed a mandatory system of education through an autocratic[18] type of government. Here, the government not only controlled the social life, but also the religious life as well. In this form of government, there was no separation between church and state at all. It was a system where the state totally controlled the schools and parents were obligated to send their children there. But unlike our modern day schools where the state controls both the school and curriculum from a totally secular prospective, in Calvin’s state system, the state did its best to perform its duties according to the precepts of God. In Calvin’s system, the church and state were more like partners, with the church being the senior partner. So while the church and state both helped with funding and enforcement of the laws, the church was the one that decided what should be taught and even who would do the teaching.
So Calvin, Luther, Huss, and Wycliffe all had a great impact on the direction that education took during the reformation period, but they were not alone; there were many others. Men like William Tyndale who also translated the Bible into English. With the aid of the printing press, he was able to distribute fifteen thousand copies of the New Testament to England between the years of 1525 and 1530.[19] The 1611 King James Bible, which is the most widely distributed and widely read translation of the Bible in the world, is almost a 90% word for word copy of Tyndale’s translation. There were others too, men like the Swiss theologian, Ulrich Zwingli,[20] who in his essay "Of the Education of Youth", wrote of God’s providence in the education process, and of our responsibility to God to learn all we can in order to know him better. And John Knox[21] who, under the leadership of John Calvin, wrote many works dealing with the education of children. He also, along with many others, was able to reform the entire educational system of land of Scotland prior to his death.
So the reformers had a profound effect on the educational system of their own day. But it didn’t stop there. Many of those effects are still felt today. Not only in the educational systems of their European homes, but also in the educational of America as well.
[1] Paul A. Kienel, A History of Christian School Education (The Association of Christian Schools International, 1998), 137.
[2] Edward McNall Burns, Robert E. Lerner, and Standish Meacham, Western Civilizations Volume 1, Tenth Edition (W W Norton, 1984), 386.
[3] Kienel, 137.
[4] Burns, 386.
[5] Kienel, 139.
[6] John Foxe, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Grinton W. Berry editor (Spire, 1999), 134.
[7] Burns, 387.
[8] Burns, 466
[9] Elmer L. Towns, A History of Religious Educators (Baker Book House Company, 1975), 104.
[10] Martin Luther, Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Respecting the Reformation of the Christian Estate, 1520, (The Harvard Classics, 1909–14).
[11] Kienel, 171.
[12] Kienel, 172.
[13] Martin Luther, Address to the Councilmen of all towns of Germany that they Establish and Maintain Christian Schools, 1524. Translated from the German of Karl von Raumer (Henry Barnard’s American Journal of Education).
[14] Kienel, 173.
[15] Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind, Third Edition. (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1984), 469-470.
[16] Kienel, 212.
[17] Kienel, 221.
[18] Towns, 168.
[19] Philip W. Comfort Ph.D., Essential Guide to Bible Versions (Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. 2000), 139.
[20] Towns, 124-134.
[21] Kienel, 175,
For hundreds of years, men had allowed themselves to be lied to because of their lack of education. They had lost the ability to read and understand the scriptures for themselves, and the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church were able to hold them captive in ways that would not have been possible if more people had been armed a proper education. But it was through the efforts of certain brave Christian men, many of whom were Catholic clergy, that years of ignorance was about to end. This was the time of the reformation, a reformation of education.
So who were these reformers; who were those who had the greatest impact on education during the reformation? Well, the first of the noted reformers was a man named John Wycliffe. He was known as "The Morning Star" of the reformation.[1] Though he lived almost 200 years before the reformation officially began, the role he played was still crucial in bringing about reform. Wycliffe was a Catholic priest and an Oxford professor who disagreed with many of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church.[2] But none of these did he disagree more with, than the Church’s stand on the availability of scripture for the common man. The church practically held the common man captive with its tight reign on who was allowed to read the Bible and who was not. But Wycliffe believed that everyone should have an opportunity to read the scripture for himself. So he took on the challenge of translating the scripture from the Latin Vulgate, into the English language. The finished work however did not receive any wide spread distribution, mainly because it had to be copied by hand[3], but it did have a serious impact on future translations. Being the first English translation of the Bible, it encouraged the likes of Tyndale, Luther, Calvin and others to put the scripture in the hands of the common man. This was one of the leading factors that allowed the reformation to begin. The common man and woman once again began to read and understand the scripture for themselves, and because of this, they could no longer be held captive by any pope or church.
Now while Wycliffe had a profound impact on the students of Oxford University, his reach did not stop there. His doctrine had spread as far away as Bohemia, into the hands of a man named John Huss. Huss, like Wycliffe, was also a Catholic priest and a professor. However, Huss taught at the University of Prague in Bohemia. Because of some of the students, who had come from Oxford,[4] he became familiar with the works of Wycliffe and accepted them with great zeal. Huss used his position as a professor and later as president[5] of the university to propagate Wycliffe’s teachings throughout the educational community. Huss was extremely popular among the student body but much less so among most of the faculty, and because of this, he was eventually excommunicated. However, through a relationship with the Bohemian aristocracy he was allowed to live for a short while in exile and was not immediately condemned to die. Though exiled, he was still very active in promoting the teachings of Wycliffe. Then finally in 1415 at the Council of Constance, he was condemned as a heretic, and on July the 6th, he was burned at the stake.[6] Though this was the end of Huss the man, his legacy lived on long after his death. His supporters were so outraged, that they started what is now known as the Hussite revolt,[7] which tore the Bohemian country away from the grip of the Catholic Church for the next several hundred years.
Although men like Wycliffe and Huss had a profound impact on education, their roles were small in comparison to the man known as the Father of the Reformation. Martin Luther was without a doubt the most influential of all the great reformers. From the nailing of his famous 95 Thesis to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg Germany, until the time of his death in 1546, Christian education had no greater champion than Martin Luther.
Luther was a young Augustinian monk who did not start out to be a reformer. But through the study of scripture, he was led to question many of the teaching of the Catholic Church.[8] First and foremost, was the churches teaching on soteriology; the doctrine of salvation. But it didn’t stop there. Luther began to challenge the church in many different areas. But no area was Luther more passionate about than the area of Christian education. While the church tried to keep strict control over who could attend school and what they could be taught while they were there, Luther thought that everyone should enjoy the benefits of a proper education. Luther actually wrote more on Christian education than any other reformer of the sixteenth century.[9] He was a passionate proponent of Christian education, and always encouraged parents to take seriously their role in the education process. In one letter; the Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, Luther wrote:
"I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God's word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now. Nobody is to blame for this except the pope, the bishops, and the prelates, who are all charged with training young people. The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scriptures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell."[10]
Luther also wrote many other letters and sermons addressing the subject of education, but was almost always met with staunch opposition. But on this issue, the opposition didn’t come as much from the Church as it did from apathetic parents[11] and leaders. It was Luther’s idea that education should be a partnership between the home and the church. A partnership where the parents would take the lead and the church would assist. However, the vast majority of ex-catholic parents were content to turn over all the responsibility of educating their children to the church, and when the church could no longer do the job, the parents were content to do nothing as well. The problem was; these parents had been trained by their educational system to think that way, and they didn’t realize that there was another, better, way to educate their children. But Luther was so overwhelmed with the idea of the need for Christian education that he compromised his original plan, and invited another member into this educational partnership, the city government.[12] But even this arrangement proved to be an uphill battle. In another letter written to the mayors and councilmen of all the towns of Germany Luther wrote:
"Beloved rulers, if we find it necessary to expend such large sums as we do yearly upon artillery, roads, bridges, dykes, and a thousand other things of the sort, in order that a city may be assured of continued order, peace, and tranquility, ought we not to expend on the poor suffering youth therein, at least enough to provide them with a schoolmaster or two?"[13]
His new educational partnership was eventually semi-successful. It was a reform that would last for several hundred years and also impact other public education systems for years to come. It was a three way partnership between parent, church, and government. Yet he would not live to see how this new partnership would become corrupted in the years that would follow. He would never see how it would be used to lead countless children away from the savior that he so desperately wanted them to know.[14]
Although Martin Luther was known as the "Father of the Reformation" and was the proverbial spark that started the wild fire of reform burning, it was John Calvin that kept the blazes burning far and wide. Luther’s doctrine had spread across Germany and into many of the educational establishments of the day, and in that way continued to spread. But Luther took a more haphazard approach to spreading his message than Calvin did. He knew where he wanted to go, but didn’t really have a formal plan for getting there.[15] But Calvin, on the other hand, knew exactly where he was going, and he had a very systematic plan for getting there. Calvin’s teaching would eventually influence Switzerland, France, England, Hungary, Holland, Scotland, and even America.[16] But while their approaches were different, their goals were still vary similar. Like Luther, Calvin devoted as much of his time reforming education as he did to reforming the church. In reality, to Calvin, the two could not be separated. Even though each had its own function, one could not survive without the other.[17] While Luther’s final approach to education was a three way partnership between parents, church and state, Calvin’s system was a bit different.
Calvin proposed a mandatory system of education through an autocratic[18] type of government. Here, the government not only controlled the social life, but also the religious life as well. In this form of government, there was no separation between church and state at all. It was a system where the state totally controlled the schools and parents were obligated to send their children there. But unlike our modern day schools where the state controls both the school and curriculum from a totally secular prospective, in Calvin’s state system, the state did its best to perform its duties according to the precepts of God. In Calvin’s system, the church and state were more like partners, with the church being the senior partner. So while the church and state both helped with funding and enforcement of the laws, the church was the one that decided what should be taught and even who would do the teaching.
So Calvin, Luther, Huss, and Wycliffe all had a great impact on the direction that education took during the reformation period, but they were not alone; there were many others. Men like William Tyndale who also translated the Bible into English. With the aid of the printing press, he was able to distribute fifteen thousand copies of the New Testament to England between the years of 1525 and 1530.[19] The 1611 King James Bible, which is the most widely distributed and widely read translation of the Bible in the world, is almost a 90% word for word copy of Tyndale’s translation. There were others too, men like the Swiss theologian, Ulrich Zwingli,[20] who in his essay "Of the Education of Youth", wrote of God’s providence in the education process, and of our responsibility to God to learn all we can in order to know him better. And John Knox[21] who, under the leadership of John Calvin, wrote many works dealing with the education of children. He also, along with many others, was able to reform the entire educational system of land of Scotland prior to his death.
So the reformers had a profound effect on the educational system of their own day. But it didn’t stop there. Many of those effects are still felt today. Not only in the educational systems of their European homes, but also in the educational of America as well.
[1] Paul A. Kienel, A History of Christian School Education (The Association of Christian Schools International, 1998), 137.
[2] Edward McNall Burns, Robert E. Lerner, and Standish Meacham, Western Civilizations Volume 1, Tenth Edition (W W Norton, 1984), 386.
[3] Kienel, 137.
[4] Burns, 386.
[5] Kienel, 139.
[6] John Foxe, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Grinton W. Berry editor (Spire, 1999), 134.
[7] Burns, 387.
[8] Burns, 466
[9] Elmer L. Towns, A History of Religious Educators (Baker Book House Company, 1975), 104.
[10] Martin Luther, Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Respecting the Reformation of the Christian Estate, 1520, (The Harvard Classics, 1909–14).
[11] Kienel, 171.
[12] Kienel, 172.
[13] Martin Luther, Address to the Councilmen of all towns of Germany that they Establish and Maintain Christian Schools, 1524. Translated from the German of Karl von Raumer (Henry Barnard’s American Journal of Education).
[14] Kienel, 173.
[15] Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind, Third Edition. (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1984), 469-470.
[16] Kienel, 212.
[17] Kienel, 221.
[18] Towns, 168.
[19] Philip W. Comfort Ph.D., Essential Guide to Bible Versions (Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. 2000), 139.
[20] Towns, 124-134.
[21] Kienel, 175,
Saturday, August 26, 2006
EDUCATING CHILDREN - Education in the Early Church
In the early days of the first church, education was almost identical to that of the Jewish community. Although the bulk of Christian converts over the centuries have been gentiles, almost all of the first converts were Jews. While these Jewish Christians made up only a small percentage of the Jewish population, [1] their numbers were enough to bring notice to this new movement. Along with the new movement, a new church was started in Jerusalem. Again, with mostly Jewish Christians, and the majority of these Jewish Christian parents continued to educate their children in the same way that they themselves were educated. (The normal practice of teaching how you were taught is an old one.) Some of the education was still carried out in the home, but the majority was given over to the synagogue school and to the hazzan or attendant that was in charge of the synagogue. However, with the rise of Christianity, a rift began to emerge between the Christians and Jews. A rift that was so serious, that it would drive the Christians even further away from their homes and finally out of the synagogues and synagogue schools forever.
During the first years of the church; the years immediately following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the early Christians continued to worship along side their Jewish counterparts in the temple and in local synagogues. Services were typically held on the Sabbath or Saturday, and then additional services were held on Monday and Thursday.[2] While these services remained thoroughly Jewish, the Christians began to supplement these with daily meetings in the temple and in the homes of fellow believers.[3] They also began to meet regularly on the first day of the week as a day of celebration and remembrance for the Lord’s resurrection.[4] Now these new meetings, along with their new doctrine, did not go un-noticed by the Jewish religious leaders. One group in particular; the Pharisees, who had much influence over the synagogue and over those that met there for regular worship, were the ones chiefly responsible for much of the hardship that the early Jewish Christians endured. The Pharisees; a word derived from Aramaic word "perushim",[5] which means "separated", were the primary religious party among the Jews at the time of Christ. Their primary interest was in the protecting of their positions of authority and their religious traditions. These were the religious zealots of Judaism; they insisted on the strict observances of the Jewish laws, the Torah and the Jewish calendar, and they were greatly opposed to the occupation of their homeland by the Romans. While they could tolerate, at least initially, the coexistence of Christians in their community, they could not tolerate the presence of the Romans, and this was the beginning of the end of Jewish and Christian relations. The Christians were primarily pacifists. They chose to take the teachings of Christ literally, by turning the other cheek.[6] Since this was the case, the Christians abandoned the fight for Jerusalem, at least initially, and left it totally between the Romans and the Jews. For the Jews, this was the proverbial final straw. Under the leadership of Gamaliel II, Samuel ha-Katon composed the "benediction against the minim" or Benediction Twelve:
Bikat HaMinim
"And for slanderers [sectarians; minim] let there be no hope, and may all the evil in an instant be destroyed and all Thy enemies be cut down swiftly; and the evil ones uproot and break and destroy and humble soon in out days. Blessed art You, LORD, who breaks down enemies and humbles sinners."[7]
This was part of the synagogue prayer, also known as the Eighteen (later nineteen) Benedictions. This was a prayer that was invoked against the Nazarenes; the Jewish Christians, and others who were considered heretics. They were all grouped together and called by the general term minim. The prayer was meant to exclude such heretics from the synagogue, and was to be recited by all faithful Jews three times daily. The primary result of this was increased persecution of the Christians by the Jews within the synagogue and then their ultimate, final expulsion from the synagogue and, also along with it, its system of education. While this may seem to be a bad thing, it only proved to strengthen, at least for a time, the type and quality of education that these early Christians were giving to their children.
For the next several hundred years, education among Christians reverted back to being centered in the home, and it was through this system of home education that Christianity had its greatest number of converts.[8] Although they had moved away from the persecution of the Jews, they moved into a new era of persecution from the rest of the pagan world. It was a persecution that started with the Roman Empire and is still continuing through various outlets today. But just like silver that is refined in the fire,[9] the persecution only served to strengthen these early Christians.
As the persecution began, many Christians lost their lives in some of the most horrible ways imaginable. Like their Savior, some were crucified, others were fed to the lions, others were burned at the stake, and still others were beheaded. Even those that did not lose their lives still faced being exiled, sold into slavery, or put into forced labor. But the truth is, the persecution that the early church went through only served to strengthen her faith and lend credibility to the story of the risen Messiah; because while many would possibly suffer some persecution to cover for a fabricated story, none were foolish enough to die for one. So the fact that the early Christians were willing to die is even further proof that Christianity was based on fact and not fiction. Not only were they willing to die for the cause, they even took extra efforts to prepare for it. No, they didn’t exercise to build up endurance, they prepared spiritually; they started martyr’s schools.
The martyr’s school was one of the first forms of uniquely Christian education. In the years immediately following the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD, Christians suffered from some of the worst persecution imaginable. Because of this, most Christians knew that on any given day, they might have to choose between confessing their Savior and dying, or denying him and living. And since martyrdom was such a real possibility, the early church trained for it.[10] And although this training may not be considered by some to be the same as "school education", it was well organized, and it profoundly affected the lives of Christians in the early church.
But it wasn’t until Constantine and the Edict of Milan in 313, that Christian education really began to flourish.[11] Because it was here that they were finally given the freedom to operate publicly, without persecution. In a joint edict between Constantine Augustus, who ruled the West, and Licinius Augustus who ruled the East, they stated:
"we thought, among other things which we saw would be for the good of many, those regulations pertaining to the reverence of the Divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that we might grant to the Christians and others full authority to observe that religion which each preferred;"[12]
So in 313, with the Edict of Milan, Christians began again to publicly and actively train their children through the school system. It was by the efforts of the early Christians that the pagan schools of the day began to be replaced by schools that taught Christian doctrine.
But just like any other freedom, there always comes abuses. It was during this time that the Roman Catholic Church began to emerge.[13] Although Christians had been around since the death of Christ, this formal organization known as the Roman Catholic Church had not. It was not until the year 438 that Emperor Theodosius II established the name "Catholic Christians",[14] which simply meant Christians that were part of the universal church. Prior to that, they were simply known as Christians, or people of the Way, and their Christian leaders were primarily concerned with doctrine. The main reason that many of the early church fathers; the leaders of the first church, came together, was to find common ground and to establish standard statements of faith. It was during some of these gatherings,[15] such as the Counsel of Nicaea or the Council of Chalcedon that many heresies were put to rest and many of the official doctrines of Christianity, that up until this point were only transmitted verbally, were finally formally written down. But as this new church age began to form, many of the church "leaders" started to have a different focus, and by 590 AD, the Roman Catholic Church began to take more control the state government.
The one person that can be given much credit for this was Pope Gregory I,[16] also known as "Gregory the Great." He had extraordinary skill as a statesman, as well as a theologian. Through this man, the Roman Catholic Church began to take more and more control of the government. As a result, state government began to slowly evolve into a new form of church-state government. It was through this the new church-state type of government that a new form of persecution came into being. This was much less physical that the persecution of the years before, but no less devastating. This new persecution came in the form of control and restrictions. The authority of parents to educate their children however they wanted was removed and it was placed into the hands of the official State "Church."[17] The presiding pope along with his official group of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and monks would set the tone for Christian education that would, for the most part, last throughout the Middle. During this time, education in general was reserved for those dedicated to the service of the church, and even then, many were still illiterate. Only a few choice individuals were allowed access to education, and even fewer were allowed access to the Holy Scriptures, and in many cases, the penalty for simply reading the Bible was death.[18]
While the grip of the Roman Church was far reaching, there were still bands of separate Christians that opposed them. These believers, for the most part, were hunted down and persecuted by the Roman Church, but they still withstood assimilation into the "official" state church of the day. They did whatever it took to remain separate, and because of this, many were martyred. They were known by many different names; including the Waldensians, the Lollards, the Hussites, the Anabaptists, and many more.[19] Although they were persecuted for their beliefs, these individuals considered educating their children, especially in the scripture, to be of a very high priority. A privilege and a command that was given to them by God Himself, and no human authority would tell them otherwise. So by the grace of God, there remained a remnant of true believers that were able to pass along the doctrines of the apostles in the way that God intended.
So in many ways, education in the early church, just like education in the Jewish community, was stifled by organized religion. The "religious" leaders of the people thought they knew what was best for all, and began to control what was taught and who it could be taught to. But while the majority conformed, there was still a small group of dedicated men and women who continued to educate their children God’s way. They took seriously their God given responsibility to educate their children and would not conform even under the penalty of death! And there they stayed until the Protestant Reformation.
[1] ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, Origin of Christianity: the early Christians and the Jewish community (ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, 2000), Internet Article
[2] Pfeiffer, 1640
[3] Acts 2:46.
[4] Mark 16, Luke 24, Acts 20:7, others.
[5] Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind, Third Edition. (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1984), 312
[6] Matthew 5:39, Luke 6:29
[7] The Weekday Amidah Prayers, Part II: Blessings of Petition, Blessing Twelve - Bikat HaMinim (Against Heretics).
[8] Paul A. Kienel, A History of Christian School Education (The Association of Christian Schools International, 1998), 41.
[9] Zechariah 13:9
[10] Kienel, 37.
[11] Paul L. Maier, Eusebius, The Church History, (Kregel Publications, 1999), 345.
[12] Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European history, (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press [1897-1907]), Vol 4:, 1, 28-30. This text is in the public domain.
[13] Kienel, 46-52
[14] Kienel, 56
[15] Smart, 363-373
[16] Edward McNall Burns, Robert E. Lerner, and Standish Meacham, Western Civilizations Volume 1, Tenth Edition (W W Norton, 1984), 273.
[17] Kienel, 57-77
[18] John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Grinton W. Berry editor (Spire, 1999) many pages.
[19] Kienel, 79.
During the first years of the church; the years immediately following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the early Christians continued to worship along side their Jewish counterparts in the temple and in local synagogues. Services were typically held on the Sabbath or Saturday, and then additional services were held on Monday and Thursday.[2] While these services remained thoroughly Jewish, the Christians began to supplement these with daily meetings in the temple and in the homes of fellow believers.[3] They also began to meet regularly on the first day of the week as a day of celebration and remembrance for the Lord’s resurrection.[4] Now these new meetings, along with their new doctrine, did not go un-noticed by the Jewish religious leaders. One group in particular; the Pharisees, who had much influence over the synagogue and over those that met there for regular worship, were the ones chiefly responsible for much of the hardship that the early Jewish Christians endured. The Pharisees; a word derived from Aramaic word "perushim",[5] which means "separated", were the primary religious party among the Jews at the time of Christ. Their primary interest was in the protecting of their positions of authority and their religious traditions. These were the religious zealots of Judaism; they insisted on the strict observances of the Jewish laws, the Torah and the Jewish calendar, and they were greatly opposed to the occupation of their homeland by the Romans. While they could tolerate, at least initially, the coexistence of Christians in their community, they could not tolerate the presence of the Romans, and this was the beginning of the end of Jewish and Christian relations. The Christians were primarily pacifists. They chose to take the teachings of Christ literally, by turning the other cheek.[6] Since this was the case, the Christians abandoned the fight for Jerusalem, at least initially, and left it totally between the Romans and the Jews. For the Jews, this was the proverbial final straw. Under the leadership of Gamaliel II, Samuel ha-Katon composed the "benediction against the minim" or Benediction Twelve:
Bikat HaMinim
"And for slanderers [sectarians; minim] let there be no hope, and may all the evil in an instant be destroyed and all Thy enemies be cut down swiftly; and the evil ones uproot and break and destroy and humble soon in out days. Blessed art You, LORD, who breaks down enemies and humbles sinners."[7]
This was part of the synagogue prayer, also known as the Eighteen (later nineteen) Benedictions. This was a prayer that was invoked against the Nazarenes; the Jewish Christians, and others who were considered heretics. They were all grouped together and called by the general term minim. The prayer was meant to exclude such heretics from the synagogue, and was to be recited by all faithful Jews three times daily. The primary result of this was increased persecution of the Christians by the Jews within the synagogue and then their ultimate, final expulsion from the synagogue and, also along with it, its system of education. While this may seem to be a bad thing, it only proved to strengthen, at least for a time, the type and quality of education that these early Christians were giving to their children.
For the next several hundred years, education among Christians reverted back to being centered in the home, and it was through this system of home education that Christianity had its greatest number of converts.[8] Although they had moved away from the persecution of the Jews, they moved into a new era of persecution from the rest of the pagan world. It was a persecution that started with the Roman Empire and is still continuing through various outlets today. But just like silver that is refined in the fire,[9] the persecution only served to strengthen these early Christians.
As the persecution began, many Christians lost their lives in some of the most horrible ways imaginable. Like their Savior, some were crucified, others were fed to the lions, others were burned at the stake, and still others were beheaded. Even those that did not lose their lives still faced being exiled, sold into slavery, or put into forced labor. But the truth is, the persecution that the early church went through only served to strengthen her faith and lend credibility to the story of the risen Messiah; because while many would possibly suffer some persecution to cover for a fabricated story, none were foolish enough to die for one. So the fact that the early Christians were willing to die is even further proof that Christianity was based on fact and not fiction. Not only were they willing to die for the cause, they even took extra efforts to prepare for it. No, they didn’t exercise to build up endurance, they prepared spiritually; they started martyr’s schools.
The martyr’s school was one of the first forms of uniquely Christian education. In the years immediately following the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD, Christians suffered from some of the worst persecution imaginable. Because of this, most Christians knew that on any given day, they might have to choose between confessing their Savior and dying, or denying him and living. And since martyrdom was such a real possibility, the early church trained for it.[10] And although this training may not be considered by some to be the same as "school education", it was well organized, and it profoundly affected the lives of Christians in the early church.
But it wasn’t until Constantine and the Edict of Milan in 313, that Christian education really began to flourish.[11] Because it was here that they were finally given the freedom to operate publicly, without persecution. In a joint edict between Constantine Augustus, who ruled the West, and Licinius Augustus who ruled the East, they stated:
"we thought, among other things which we saw would be for the good of many, those regulations pertaining to the reverence of the Divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that we might grant to the Christians and others full authority to observe that religion which each preferred;"[12]
So in 313, with the Edict of Milan, Christians began again to publicly and actively train their children through the school system. It was by the efforts of the early Christians that the pagan schools of the day began to be replaced by schools that taught Christian doctrine.
But just like any other freedom, there always comes abuses. It was during this time that the Roman Catholic Church began to emerge.[13] Although Christians had been around since the death of Christ, this formal organization known as the Roman Catholic Church had not. It was not until the year 438 that Emperor Theodosius II established the name "Catholic Christians",[14] which simply meant Christians that were part of the universal church. Prior to that, they were simply known as Christians, or people of the Way, and their Christian leaders were primarily concerned with doctrine. The main reason that many of the early church fathers; the leaders of the first church, came together, was to find common ground and to establish standard statements of faith. It was during some of these gatherings,[15] such as the Counsel of Nicaea or the Council of Chalcedon that many heresies were put to rest and many of the official doctrines of Christianity, that up until this point were only transmitted verbally, were finally formally written down. But as this new church age began to form, many of the church "leaders" started to have a different focus, and by 590 AD, the Roman Catholic Church began to take more control the state government.
The one person that can be given much credit for this was Pope Gregory I,[16] also known as "Gregory the Great." He had extraordinary skill as a statesman, as well as a theologian. Through this man, the Roman Catholic Church began to take more and more control of the government. As a result, state government began to slowly evolve into a new form of church-state government. It was through this the new church-state type of government that a new form of persecution came into being. This was much less physical that the persecution of the years before, but no less devastating. This new persecution came in the form of control and restrictions. The authority of parents to educate their children however they wanted was removed and it was placed into the hands of the official State "Church."[17] The presiding pope along with his official group of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and monks would set the tone for Christian education that would, for the most part, last throughout the Middle. During this time, education in general was reserved for those dedicated to the service of the church, and even then, many were still illiterate. Only a few choice individuals were allowed access to education, and even fewer were allowed access to the Holy Scriptures, and in many cases, the penalty for simply reading the Bible was death.[18]
While the grip of the Roman Church was far reaching, there were still bands of separate Christians that opposed them. These believers, for the most part, were hunted down and persecuted by the Roman Church, but they still withstood assimilation into the "official" state church of the day. They did whatever it took to remain separate, and because of this, many were martyred. They were known by many different names; including the Waldensians, the Lollards, the Hussites, the Anabaptists, and many more.[19] Although they were persecuted for their beliefs, these individuals considered educating their children, especially in the scripture, to be of a very high priority. A privilege and a command that was given to them by God Himself, and no human authority would tell them otherwise. So by the grace of God, there remained a remnant of true believers that were able to pass along the doctrines of the apostles in the way that God intended.
So in many ways, education in the early church, just like education in the Jewish community, was stifled by organized religion. The "religious" leaders of the people thought they knew what was best for all, and began to control what was taught and who it could be taught to. But while the majority conformed, there was still a small group of dedicated men and women who continued to educate their children God’s way. They took seriously their God given responsibility to educate their children and would not conform even under the penalty of death! And there they stayed until the Protestant Reformation.
[1] ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, Origin of Christianity: the early Christians and the Jewish community (ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, 2000), Internet Article
[2] Pfeiffer, 1640
[3] Acts 2:46.
[4] Mark 16, Luke 24, Acts 20:7, others.
[5] Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind, Third Edition. (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1984), 312
[6] Matthew 5:39, Luke 6:29
[7] The Weekday Amidah Prayers, Part II: Blessings of Petition, Blessing Twelve - Bikat HaMinim (Against Heretics).
[8] Paul A. Kienel, A History of Christian School Education (The Association of Christian Schools International, 1998), 41.
[9] Zechariah 13:9
[10] Kienel, 37.
[11] Paul L. Maier, Eusebius, The Church History, (Kregel Publications, 1999), 345.
[12] Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European history, (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press [1897-1907]), Vol 4:, 1, 28-30. This text is in the public domain.
[13] Kienel, 46-52
[14] Kienel, 56
[15] Smart, 363-373
[16] Edward McNall Burns, Robert E. Lerner, and Standish Meacham, Western Civilizations Volume 1, Tenth Edition (W W Norton, 1984), 273.
[17] Kienel, 57-77
[18] John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Grinton W. Berry editor (Spire, 1999) many pages.
[19] Kienel, 79.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
EDUCATING CHILDREN - The Jewish Roots of Christian Education
Here’s a question you may have never considered; why do you educate your children the way you do? Have you ever considered that? As you look around at the traditions that we have, especially those regarding educating our children, you have to wonder, where did it all come from? Why do we educate our children this way? Well, just like many other “traditions”, this one too has been influenced by many different factors. But I would say; there is no other single factor that has had greater influence on our modern educational system than that of historic Judaism. Judaism you ask? That’s right, we as Christians can thank or despise, our Jewish brothers for many, if not most, of our religious and educational traditions. As Paul said in Romans; they, referring to the Jews, were the ones that God originally entrusted with His Word! So to begin with, we can thank our Jewish brothers for passing on the Holy Scripture as it was given to them by God, because it is in the Holy Scripture where they found their model for educating children. And it is in those same scriptures, where many of our traditions for educating our own children can also found. Scriptures like those in Genesis chapter 18, Exodus chapter 12, and Deuteronomy chapters 4, 6 and 11. These scriptures were foundational to the Jewish concept of education and were the primary principles that the Jewish people used to create their own educational systems. Like everything else that is Jewish, the Torah, or Holy Scripture, laid the ground work for everything that they did. It explained why they were to educate their children, who was responsible for carrying it out, and even how it was to be accomplished.
Now as for the “why” of Jewish education; it was primarily religious in nature. The primary text book was the Torah, or Old Testament scriptures, and the goal was for the child to gain an understanding of the laws and statutes of God, and then to learn what it meant to be one of God’s chosen people. They were taught these laws and statutes from a very early age. Even before they could read, Jewish children were exposed to the Holy Scriptures through many different instructional means. One such means that is still incorporated in many Jewish homes today is through the use of a small scroll known as the “Mesusah” or “Mezuzah.” The Reverend Dr. Edersheim, in his book, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, says “The Mesusah was a kind of phylactery for the house, serving a purpose kindred to that of the phylactery for the person, both being derived from a misunderstanding and misapplication of the Divine direction, taking in the letter what was meant for the spirit.”1 But even if this practice was derived from a misunderstanding and misapplication as Dr. Edersheim suggests, it was still used to teach children. It was a constant reminder of God's presence throughout the home and also of the parent’s duty to fulfill God's commandments to train their children. The Mezuzah was a small scroll that contained two Torah portions, the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) and the Vehaya (Deuteronomy 11:13-21). These were two of the most important scriptures for the Jews concerning God and the way He expected them to educate their children. These small scrolls were placed in protective cases and then hung from the door post of each room in the home except the bathroom of course, which would have been considered unclean. The Mezuzah was not only displayed in the literal obedience of God’s command which said: “And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house”, but it was displayed for the purpose of teaching every questioning child even before they could read. Each time a little one would pass through the doorway, the parent would have an opportunity to teach them about God.
Now for the “who”, in Jewish education, that would be the parents. They were the one’s who carried the primary responsibility for seeing that their children were properly educated. Although this was a joint effort, it was ultimately the responsibility of the father.2 He was to see that his children could read and understand the Holy Scriptures. The Bible says in Genesis 18:19 - “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.”
But even though the father was ultimately responsible, the mother was still very much involved in the educational process. From birth to about 5 years old, the mother was the primary care giver and the primary educator. A good picture of this can be found in 1st Samuel, with Hannah. As Samuel’s mother, she nurtured him and gave him his primary training until he was ready to attend to Eli the High priest and to his duties in the tabernacle. In his Explanatory notes, John Wesley points out that the child Samuel would have been “Weaned - Not only from the breast, but also from the mother's knee and care, and from childish food; 'till the child be something grown up, and fit to do some service in the tabernacle.”3 So the mother was the one that nurtured and fed the children, both physically and psychologically. She was also the one that started the child’s primary education, helping him establish sound communication skills. So both mother and father were heavily involved in the child training process, and the majority of this training was carried out in the home.
That brings us to the “how” of Jewish education. How was the process carried out? It was the famed Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, which noted: “from the earliest infancy”4 they were taught the Laws of God. This process of teaching started early for Jewish children, and it was centered in the home. Early Jewish parents would have never sent their children away for their primary education. It simply wasn’t done. Although there were some schools or companies of prophets mentioned in the Bible during the days of Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, and also possibly later in the New Testament with Paul in Acts, these were more like colleges or seminaries for the training of the “professional” clergy, or older students, and not children. The education of Jewish children was something that was done at home. The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 6:6-9 - “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” This was the basic formula for Jewish education! It started in the home with the mothers and fathers depending on the specific needs and abilities of the child, and it continued during the day as they went along their way, and concluded at night when everyone went to bed. Then it started all over again the very next morning. It was a continual cycle that did not end until the children left home to start a family of their own. Learning was simply part of the Jewish lifestyle.
These were just a few of the Jewish educational traditions that were founded in scripture. But at some point in Jewish history, things began to change. The Jews, like many other cultures, allowed outside influences, and even their own stubbornness, to change their way of doing things. They began to depart from a God centered way, and move to a man centered way. They began to develop new methods and new models for educating their children. There is a passage in the Mishnah where Rabbi Judah ben Tema gives a general outline of the normal educational process in the life of a Jewish boy, he says: “At five years old one is fit for the Scripture, at ten years for the Mishnah, at thirteen for the fulfilling of the commandments, at fifteen for the Talmud, at eighteen for the bride-chamber, at twenty for pursuing a calling, at thirty for authority, at forty for discernment, at fifty for counsel, at sixty for special strength, at ninety for bowed back, and at a hundred a man is as one that has already died and passed away and ceased from the world.”5
So where exactly did things begin to go wrong? At what point did they leave God’s plan and start to develop their own? Well, if there is one single point in biblical history where we can see a change in the way education was done, it would have to be during the Babylonian captivity. It was during this time when a transition was made from the home to a new establishment called the synagogue. Although the origin of the synagogue has been the subject of much debate, it most likely came into existence or at least into wide spread use during this time. Since the Jews had been relocated away from their temple, they had to come up with a new or alternate place of corporate worship. This is why the synagogue came into existence. The synagogue was “a congregation or assembly of Jews [that] met for the purpose of worship or the performance of religious rites.”6 It was here that many Jewish parents started to bring their children to listen and to learn from the Word of God through the teaching of the synagogue attendant. A surrogate or substitute teacher if you will that was used to help or supplement the education that Jewish children received at home. This was the case, for the most part, up until the Maccabeen or intertestamental era of Jewish history. It was during this period that Jewish fathers became so remiss in their duties of training their children, that the Rabbis of the day started to implement compulsory education laws similar to those of the heathen nations around them. Now whether these were actual remissions on the part of fathers, or simply perceived remissions on the part of pious rabbis, we may never know. But never the less, educational responsibility was taken from parents, and given to someone else. Many of these laws can be traced back to the Apocryphal book of Sirach also known as Ecclesiasticus. This book was said to have been written by one Rabbi Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira7 who encouraged the unlearned to come and learn from him. He said “Draw near unto me, ye unlearned, and dwell in the house of learning.”8 It was around 180 BC that these first Jewish “Houses of Learning” came into existence. It was under Jason the high priest, the second son of Simon II and brother of Onias III that the first gymnasium was built in Jerusalem.9 Jason had purchased the high-priesthood by bribing Antiochus Epiphanes; the Syrian King who had conquered the Jewish nation and favored the Hellenistic form of education that the gymnasium modeled. But this was only the beginning of the downfall of God centered education. It was less than a hundred years later that Rabbi Shimon ben Shetah introduced the first compulsory education law for all Jewish boys. Then ten, to fifteen years after that, Rabbi Joshua ben Gamala ordered that every town should have a school for the training of all boys starting at age six. These schools were usually attached to or organized through the local synagogue, and were run by a head teacher known as the hazzan; the attendant in charge of the scrolls. The schools were supported with tuition that was paid in tithes and offerings through the synagogue. It was at this point that the quality and quantity of education for the vast majority of Jewish children started to decline. Since most fathers could not afford more that an elementary education, the entire process stopped for most children at around age twelve. And since most parents had begun to rely solely on the “established” educational system, rather than teaching their children at home themselves, they too ended their educational process prematurely. When their children stopped learning, so did the parents. So in reality, the implementation of compulsory education laws had an opposite effect. It didn’t improve education, but caused an overall decline in learning for all those involved, students and teachers alike. But it didn’t stop there; since the vast majority of the first Christian converts were Jews it also carried over into the newly forming Christian community as well.
Next time, we’ll look at the early church and see how they improved upon or continued to declined in the area of educating their children.
1 Rev. Dr. Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life (Hodder & Stoughton, 1904), 106.
2 Exodus 12:26-27, Deuteronomy 4:9 & 6:7
3 John Wesley, John Wesley’s Explainatory Notes of the whole Bible on 1st Samuel 1:22.
4 Flavius Josephus, The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, The Learned and Authentic Jewish Historian And Celebrated Warrior. Translated by William, A.M. Whiston (The John C. Winston Company), 891
5 Mishnah, Aboth: Sayings of the Fathers, 5:21
6 Noah Webster, Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language (e-Sword, electronic edition, V 7.1.0, 2004).
7 The Apocrypha, King James Version (World Publishing), Ecclesiasticus 50:27
8 The Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus 51:23
9 The Apocrypha, 1st Maccabees 1:14, 2nd Maccabees 4:9
Now as for the “why” of Jewish education; it was primarily religious in nature. The primary text book was the Torah, or Old Testament scriptures, and the goal was for the child to gain an understanding of the laws and statutes of God, and then to learn what it meant to be one of God’s chosen people. They were taught these laws and statutes from a very early age. Even before they could read, Jewish children were exposed to the Holy Scriptures through many different instructional means. One such means that is still incorporated in many Jewish homes today is through the use of a small scroll known as the “Mesusah” or “Mezuzah.” The Reverend Dr. Edersheim, in his book, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, says “The Mesusah was a kind of phylactery for the house, serving a purpose kindred to that of the phylactery for the person, both being derived from a misunderstanding and misapplication of the Divine direction, taking in the letter what was meant for the spirit.”1 But even if this practice was derived from a misunderstanding and misapplication as Dr. Edersheim suggests, it was still used to teach children. It was a constant reminder of God's presence throughout the home and also of the parent’s duty to fulfill God's commandments to train their children. The Mezuzah was a small scroll that contained two Torah portions, the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) and the Vehaya (Deuteronomy 11:13-21). These were two of the most important scriptures for the Jews concerning God and the way He expected them to educate their children. These small scrolls were placed in protective cases and then hung from the door post of each room in the home except the bathroom of course, which would have been considered unclean. The Mezuzah was not only displayed in the literal obedience of God’s command which said: “And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house”, but it was displayed for the purpose of teaching every questioning child even before they could read. Each time a little one would pass through the doorway, the parent would have an opportunity to teach them about God.
Now for the “who”, in Jewish education, that would be the parents. They were the one’s who carried the primary responsibility for seeing that their children were properly educated. Although this was a joint effort, it was ultimately the responsibility of the father.2 He was to see that his children could read and understand the Holy Scriptures. The Bible says in Genesis 18:19 - “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.”
But even though the father was ultimately responsible, the mother was still very much involved in the educational process. From birth to about 5 years old, the mother was the primary care giver and the primary educator. A good picture of this can be found in 1st Samuel, with Hannah. As Samuel’s mother, she nurtured him and gave him his primary training until he was ready to attend to Eli the High priest and to his duties in the tabernacle. In his Explanatory notes, John Wesley points out that the child Samuel would have been “Weaned - Not only from the breast, but also from the mother's knee and care, and from childish food; 'till the child be something grown up, and fit to do some service in the tabernacle.”3 So the mother was the one that nurtured and fed the children, both physically and psychologically. She was also the one that started the child’s primary education, helping him establish sound communication skills. So both mother and father were heavily involved in the child training process, and the majority of this training was carried out in the home.
That brings us to the “how” of Jewish education. How was the process carried out? It was the famed Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, which noted: “from the earliest infancy”4 they were taught the Laws of God. This process of teaching started early for Jewish children, and it was centered in the home. Early Jewish parents would have never sent their children away for their primary education. It simply wasn’t done. Although there were some schools or companies of prophets mentioned in the Bible during the days of Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, and also possibly later in the New Testament with Paul in Acts, these were more like colleges or seminaries for the training of the “professional” clergy, or older students, and not children. The education of Jewish children was something that was done at home. The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 6:6-9 - “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” This was the basic formula for Jewish education! It started in the home with the mothers and fathers depending on the specific needs and abilities of the child, and it continued during the day as they went along their way, and concluded at night when everyone went to bed. Then it started all over again the very next morning. It was a continual cycle that did not end until the children left home to start a family of their own. Learning was simply part of the Jewish lifestyle.
These were just a few of the Jewish educational traditions that were founded in scripture. But at some point in Jewish history, things began to change. The Jews, like many other cultures, allowed outside influences, and even their own stubbornness, to change their way of doing things. They began to depart from a God centered way, and move to a man centered way. They began to develop new methods and new models for educating their children. There is a passage in the Mishnah where Rabbi Judah ben Tema gives a general outline of the normal educational process in the life of a Jewish boy, he says: “At five years old one is fit for the Scripture, at ten years for the Mishnah, at thirteen for the fulfilling of the commandments, at fifteen for the Talmud, at eighteen for the bride-chamber, at twenty for pursuing a calling, at thirty for authority, at forty for discernment, at fifty for counsel, at sixty for special strength, at ninety for bowed back, and at a hundred a man is as one that has already died and passed away and ceased from the world.”5
So where exactly did things begin to go wrong? At what point did they leave God’s plan and start to develop their own? Well, if there is one single point in biblical history where we can see a change in the way education was done, it would have to be during the Babylonian captivity. It was during this time when a transition was made from the home to a new establishment called the synagogue. Although the origin of the synagogue has been the subject of much debate, it most likely came into existence or at least into wide spread use during this time. Since the Jews had been relocated away from their temple, they had to come up with a new or alternate place of corporate worship. This is why the synagogue came into existence. The synagogue was “a congregation or assembly of Jews [that] met for the purpose of worship or the performance of religious rites.”6 It was here that many Jewish parents started to bring their children to listen and to learn from the Word of God through the teaching of the synagogue attendant. A surrogate or substitute teacher if you will that was used to help or supplement the education that Jewish children received at home. This was the case, for the most part, up until the Maccabeen or intertestamental era of Jewish history. It was during this period that Jewish fathers became so remiss in their duties of training their children, that the Rabbis of the day started to implement compulsory education laws similar to those of the heathen nations around them. Now whether these were actual remissions on the part of fathers, or simply perceived remissions on the part of pious rabbis, we may never know. But never the less, educational responsibility was taken from parents, and given to someone else. Many of these laws can be traced back to the Apocryphal book of Sirach also known as Ecclesiasticus. This book was said to have been written by one Rabbi Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira7 who encouraged the unlearned to come and learn from him. He said “Draw near unto me, ye unlearned, and dwell in the house of learning.”8 It was around 180 BC that these first Jewish “Houses of Learning” came into existence. It was under Jason the high priest, the second son of Simon II and brother of Onias III that the first gymnasium was built in Jerusalem.9 Jason had purchased the high-priesthood by bribing Antiochus Epiphanes; the Syrian King who had conquered the Jewish nation and favored the Hellenistic form of education that the gymnasium modeled. But this was only the beginning of the downfall of God centered education. It was less than a hundred years later that Rabbi Shimon ben Shetah introduced the first compulsory education law for all Jewish boys. Then ten, to fifteen years after that, Rabbi Joshua ben Gamala ordered that every town should have a school for the training of all boys starting at age six. These schools were usually attached to or organized through the local synagogue, and were run by a head teacher known as the hazzan; the attendant in charge of the scrolls. The schools were supported with tuition that was paid in tithes and offerings through the synagogue. It was at this point that the quality and quantity of education for the vast majority of Jewish children started to decline. Since most fathers could not afford more that an elementary education, the entire process stopped for most children at around age twelve. And since most parents had begun to rely solely on the “established” educational system, rather than teaching their children at home themselves, they too ended their educational process prematurely. When their children stopped learning, so did the parents. So in reality, the implementation of compulsory education laws had an opposite effect. It didn’t improve education, but caused an overall decline in learning for all those involved, students and teachers alike. But it didn’t stop there; since the vast majority of the first Christian converts were Jews it also carried over into the newly forming Christian community as well.
Next time, we’ll look at the early church and see how they improved upon or continued to declined in the area of educating their children.
1 Rev. Dr. Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life (Hodder & Stoughton, 1904), 106.
2 Exodus 12:26-27, Deuteronomy 4:9 & 6:7
3 John Wesley, John Wesley’s Explainatory Notes of the whole Bible on 1st Samuel 1:22.
4 Flavius Josephus, The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, The Learned and Authentic Jewish Historian And Celebrated Warrior. Translated by William, A.M. Whiston (The John C. Winston Company), 891
5 Mishnah, Aboth: Sayings of the Fathers, 5:21
6 Noah Webster, Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language (e-Sword, electronic edition, V 7.1.0, 2004).
7 The Apocrypha, King James Version (World Publishing), Ecclesiasticus 50:27
8 The Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus 51:23
9 The Apocrypha, 1st Maccabees 1:14, 2nd Maccabees 4:9
Monday, August 07, 2006
SBC Leader Alarmed? The solution is simple!
Here is a link to an article from Agape Press. It is an article about a statement made by Dr. Frank Page, the new SBC president, regarding disturbing news about children leaving the church.
"SBC Leader Alarmed Over Young Adults 'Dropping Out' of Churches" http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/8/72006e.asp
May I suggest that the answer to the problem is not - a "new" method to "reach" any particular demographic group - but a return to the Old Paths! A return to family worship in the home AND in the church, and a return to parent led HOME education!!! That's right family worship, that is families worshiping together in the home and in the church, AS A FAMILY - NOT SEPARATE, and parent lead HOME education are the keys to recapturing the hearts of our youth! NOT MORE PROGRAMS!
WARNING - The following statement is VERY sarcastic, please stop reading if you are easily offended!
I know taking the biblical approach may seem a little radical to most of our SBC pastors, and many in our denomination would tell me that it will never work, but then again, the narrow way has never been popular!
Grace & Peace!
Dave Scarbrough
"SBC Leader Alarmed Over Young Adults 'Dropping Out' of Churches" http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/8/72006e.asp
May I suggest that the answer to the problem is not - a "new" method to "reach" any particular demographic group - but a return to the Old Paths! A return to family worship in the home AND in the church, and a return to parent led HOME education!!! That's right family worship, that is families worshiping together in the home and in the church, AS A FAMILY - NOT SEPARATE, and parent lead HOME education are the keys to recapturing the hearts of our youth! NOT MORE PROGRAMS!
WARNING - The following statement is VERY sarcastic, please stop reading if you are easily offended!
I know taking the biblical approach may seem a little radical to most of our SBC pastors, and many in our denomination would tell me that it will never work, but then again, the narrow way has never been popular!
Grace & Peace!
Dave Scarbrough
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
EDUCATING CHILDREN - What are we talking about? - Part 2
Now that we have a better understanding of what is meant by “proper education”, who should we look to in order to see that it gets done? Is it the states responsibility, or the federal government? What about the church? Who should see that our children receive this proper education? Well, in Deuteronomy Chapter 4 verse 9, the Bible says “Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons;” The Scripture is clear; we as parents and grandparents must pass on what we have learned to our children and even to our grandchildren. We are the ones whom God gives the responsibility to; we must see that it is properly carried out.
But how do we do it? What is the method for implementing a proper education? Deuteronomy Chapter 6 verses 4-9 contains the basic outline for carrying out this education process, it says:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”
So according to the Bible, the process of education is something that is to be carried out at all times. Christian parents should be teaching their children early in the morning, in the middle of the day, and late at night. It is a process that is started when you get out of bed and doesn’t end until you lie down again at night. Then it starts all over again the next day and continues throughout the child’s life until he no longer lives in the home of the parent. Even after that, parents should be available to guide and direct if needed. They should also be willing to do the same for their grandchildren. Childhood education is a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week process. The only break, according to the Bible, is when they are asleep.
But to what end; why did God give Christian parents this task in the first place? A similar question was asked in the book of Malachi, in Malachi chapter 2 verses 14-15, the prophet says:
“Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.”
The answer that God gave was clear; the objective in bringing man and woman together and making them one was to produce godly offspring. In other words, God put man and woman together so that they could produce children that they could train to be godly. Offspring that would know God, know His ways, and would have a desire to serve Him. This is the original role of parents. Parents are not merely to superimpose their own ideas or opinions on to their children, but they are to transfer to their children the very thoughts and mind of God Himself as found in the Bible! This is the task that God has assigned to each and every parent. These children that He has entrusted us with are merely on loan; they are not ours to keep, they are not ours to do with as we desire; they are ours to train in the way the Lord requires; to teach them about God, to teach them His statutes and His judgments, to point them toward Christ, and this falls under the category of Christian stewardship.
So what is Christian Stewardship and how does that relate to the education of children? You may say “I thought that stewardship only pertained to how we spend our money!” Well it does, partially, but it also includes much more. While our financial responsibility is one that every Christian should take very seriously, there is much more to stewardship. As a matter of fact, in Proverbs chapter 22, the idea of avoiding debt is the subject that immediately follows that of training children. So while money management is an important part of stewardship, one that we must teach our children, the total idea of Christian stewardship covers how we manage all of the assets which God has allowed us to have for the short time that we live on the Earth. And there is no greater asset than the asset of a godly legacy that is passed on to our children through their proper education. A legacy that will live on for many generations to come, still producing fruit long after we have gone home to be with the Lord. An excellent picture of how God expects us to manage our assets, including our children can be found in the parable of the talents as seen in the book of Matthew chapter 25 verses 14-30. In the parable, there is a Land Owner, which represents God, and the Land Owner goes out of town, but leaves behind some of His possessions for His servants to manage. Those that did well with what they were given were rewarded, but those who did not, were severely punished. So we, as stewards of God, are allowed to manage God’s children for a short time, and God requires that we manage these children in the proper way; that means that we give them a proper Christian education.
So with a better understanding of these basic concepts, let us press forward with a look at education, specifically religious education, throughout history. And as we do, I’d like for us to consider where we got off course and then how to get back on track again.
Still More Later…
Grace & Peace!
Dave Scarbrough
But how do we do it? What is the method for implementing a proper education? Deuteronomy Chapter 6 verses 4-9 contains the basic outline for carrying out this education process, it says:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”
So according to the Bible, the process of education is something that is to be carried out at all times. Christian parents should be teaching their children early in the morning, in the middle of the day, and late at night. It is a process that is started when you get out of bed and doesn’t end until you lie down again at night. Then it starts all over again the next day and continues throughout the child’s life until he no longer lives in the home of the parent. Even after that, parents should be available to guide and direct if needed. They should also be willing to do the same for their grandchildren. Childhood education is a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week process. The only break, according to the Bible, is when they are asleep.
But to what end; why did God give Christian parents this task in the first place? A similar question was asked in the book of Malachi, in Malachi chapter 2 verses 14-15, the prophet says:
“Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.”
The answer that God gave was clear; the objective in bringing man and woman together and making them one was to produce godly offspring. In other words, God put man and woman together so that they could produce children that they could train to be godly. Offspring that would know God, know His ways, and would have a desire to serve Him. This is the original role of parents. Parents are not merely to superimpose their own ideas or opinions on to their children, but they are to transfer to their children the very thoughts and mind of God Himself as found in the Bible! This is the task that God has assigned to each and every parent. These children that He has entrusted us with are merely on loan; they are not ours to keep, they are not ours to do with as we desire; they are ours to train in the way the Lord requires; to teach them about God, to teach them His statutes and His judgments, to point them toward Christ, and this falls under the category of Christian stewardship.
So what is Christian Stewardship and how does that relate to the education of children? You may say “I thought that stewardship only pertained to how we spend our money!” Well it does, partially, but it also includes much more. While our financial responsibility is one that every Christian should take very seriously, there is much more to stewardship. As a matter of fact, in Proverbs chapter 22, the idea of avoiding debt is the subject that immediately follows that of training children. So while money management is an important part of stewardship, one that we must teach our children, the total idea of Christian stewardship covers how we manage all of the assets which God has allowed us to have for the short time that we live on the Earth. And there is no greater asset than the asset of a godly legacy that is passed on to our children through their proper education. A legacy that will live on for many generations to come, still producing fruit long after we have gone home to be with the Lord. An excellent picture of how God expects us to manage our assets, including our children can be found in the parable of the talents as seen in the book of Matthew chapter 25 verses 14-30. In the parable, there is a Land Owner, which represents God, and the Land Owner goes out of town, but leaves behind some of His possessions for His servants to manage. Those that did well with what they were given were rewarded, but those who did not, were severely punished. So we, as stewards of God, are allowed to manage God’s children for a short time, and God requires that we manage these children in the proper way; that means that we give them a proper Christian education.
So with a better understanding of these basic concepts, let us press forward with a look at education, specifically religious education, throughout history. And as we do, I’d like for us to consider where we got off course and then how to get back on track again.
Still More Later…
Grace & Peace!
Dave Scarbrough
Thursday, July 20, 2006
EDUCATING CHILDREN - What are we talking about? - Part 1
So why are we even having this discussion in the first place? Well, the primary reason is that the popular methodology of education in America today is not only ineffective, but it is also not scriptural. When entire generations of children are trained in a way that is contrary to scripture, it can only lead to problems, and this generation of Christians is not any different than any other; we are not isolated from the troubles associated with disobedience. In modern America, we are seeing problems that are affecting us in every aspect of our daily lives: family problems, health problems, morality problems, and many others. But these are just symptoms of a greater spiritual illness. But before we can understand this greater sickness, we must first have a clear understanding of all the related terms. So what exactly are we talking about?
Well, the first and primary term is education. What does it mean to be educated? The simplest modern definition of education seems to be a process where by knowledge of some subject is transferred from one individual to another. Although this definition may be sufficient in modern times, it is not one that is historically accurate or complete. Throughout history, the process of education has always been linked with the idea of discipline, chastisement, or punishment; and while it was once the case, it is no longer true today. For example, the Egyptian word for education comes from a root word which means “to chastise” or “to punish.” The Egyptian teacher’s motto was “A youngster’s ear is on his back; he only listens to the man who beats him,”1 likewise, the Hebrew word for education “musar” means “to chasten” or “to discipline.” In the New Testament, a common Greek word that was often used in relaying the thought of education is “paideia”. It too carries the idea of chastisement. So while a modern definition of education would only contain a reference to the passing of knowledge from one person to another, a more complete definition would also have to include the idea of discipline along with that passing of knowledge. But not just any knowledge, on the contrary, for real education to occur, a specific kind of knowledge must be passed on. In his book, “A Christian approach to Education”, H.W. Byrne said that “knowledge is defined as an acquaintance with, an understanding of, and a clear perception of truth.” He goes on to say that “the Biblical view of knowledge presupposes a source of all knowledge, for knowledge is dependant upon truth and truth is dependant on God.”2 So the knowledge that must be passed for any real education to occur is that knowledge that comes from God. God’s truth is the only real truth; anything else would not be education at all.
But the understanding of the substance and the process of education is only part of our goal. The real goal is to gain a complete understanding of “proper education”, and of the one who is responsible for carrying it out. Now by adding the adjective “proper” to the word education, it gives the impression that there is only one, right way to do it. One way that is better than all others. For the Christian parent, this is truly the case; there is only one way to educate our children. Like every other aspect of the Christian life, the Holy Bible is the sole source for instruction, and should be used as our guide for carrying out this mandated education process. So with this in mind, let us update our definition of proper education. Proper Christian Education is a process where by the knowledge of God, as found in the Bible, is transferred from parent to child through love and discipline as taught in Scripture. That is proper education.
More Later...
1 Charles F. Pfeiffer, Howard F. Vos, and John Rea, Wycliffe Bible Dictionary (Hendrickson Publishers, Inc, 2001), 494.
2 H.W. Byrne, Ed. D., A Christian Approach to Education (Mott Media, 1977), 63.
Well, the first and primary term is education. What does it mean to be educated? The simplest modern definition of education seems to be a process where by knowledge of some subject is transferred from one individual to another. Although this definition may be sufficient in modern times, it is not one that is historically accurate or complete. Throughout history, the process of education has always been linked with the idea of discipline, chastisement, or punishment; and while it was once the case, it is no longer true today. For example, the Egyptian word for education comes from a root word which means “to chastise” or “to punish.” The Egyptian teacher’s motto was “A youngster’s ear is on his back; he only listens to the man who beats him,”1 likewise, the Hebrew word for education “musar” means “to chasten” or “to discipline.” In the New Testament, a common Greek word that was often used in relaying the thought of education is “paideia”. It too carries the idea of chastisement. So while a modern definition of education would only contain a reference to the passing of knowledge from one person to another, a more complete definition would also have to include the idea of discipline along with that passing of knowledge. But not just any knowledge, on the contrary, for real education to occur, a specific kind of knowledge must be passed on. In his book, “A Christian approach to Education”, H.W. Byrne said that “knowledge is defined as an acquaintance with, an understanding of, and a clear perception of truth.” He goes on to say that “the Biblical view of knowledge presupposes a source of all knowledge, for knowledge is dependant upon truth and truth is dependant on God.”2 So the knowledge that must be passed for any real education to occur is that knowledge that comes from God. God’s truth is the only real truth; anything else would not be education at all.
But the understanding of the substance and the process of education is only part of our goal. The real goal is to gain a complete understanding of “proper education”, and of the one who is responsible for carrying it out. Now by adding the adjective “proper” to the word education, it gives the impression that there is only one, right way to do it. One way that is better than all others. For the Christian parent, this is truly the case; there is only one way to educate our children. Like every other aspect of the Christian life, the Holy Bible is the sole source for instruction, and should be used as our guide for carrying out this mandated education process. So with this in mind, let us update our definition of proper education. Proper Christian Education is a process where by the knowledge of God, as found in the Bible, is transferred from parent to child through love and discipline as taught in Scripture. That is proper education.
More Later...
1 Charles F. Pfeiffer, Howard F. Vos, and John Rea, Wycliffe Bible Dictionary (Hendrickson Publishers, Inc, 2001), 494.
2 H.W. Byrne, Ed. D., A Christian Approach to Education (Mott Media, 1977), 63.
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