The purpose of education is a complex issue. Christians have spent hundreds of years working through a biblical understanding of what the telos or end goal of education is. Some of the greatest minds of Christian history like Clement of Alexandria, Augustine of Hippo, and Thomas Aquinas wrote at length on the subject. Unfortunately, many Christians today have forgotten this long history of Christian thought and have allowed progressive thinkers or the American Dream to dictate to us the purpose of education. When pressed to consider the purpose of education, many educators, parents, and students often give one of two answers to the issue.
The first of these answers is: A good education leads to a good college; a good college leads to a good job; a good job makes good money. The end implication of this formulation is that more money means a better life. The second possible answer is that educating children will produce good citizens. Children must learn to function in society. They need basic life skills so that they can take a bus and order food at a restaurant. They need to know enough history and literature to be able to converse with others. They need to have enough wherewithal to make an informed decision in the ballot box. If a child completes his education with these skills of citizenry, his education was successful.
Surely I am not alone in wanting more for my own child’s education; and I feel that my own education provided me with much greater treasures than these two proposed outcomes. Certainly, thinking Christians cannot be content with the idea that the entire pursuit of the 12+ years of a human soul’s education is to serve either the economy or the state. How can we rethink, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened and our minds renewed by the Word of God, what these years of formal schooling should purpose to do in the lives of students? I will here suggest a broad and generous but truly Christian goal in the education of children: Children should be educated so that they may better glorify and enjoy God.
Aim of Education Briefly Defined
I see “glorify” and “enjoy” as interconnected but distinguishable. As a pair, they imply both an active and a receptive attitude; we glorify God merely through our existence of course, but we also bring Him glory when we do what He has commanded. We can enjoy God, as Creator of everything good, even in our work, but it is a particular gazing upon Him and His works that brings the deep joy here aimed at. The question then is how our manner of schooling can both encourage a child to do that which is glorifying to God and to love, or enjoy, what is good[1]—and there is none good but God. The accomplishment of these goals can be called an education in virtue.
You may observe immediately that this goal of education, so different than the two proposed above, does not immediately speak to content or subject matter. Often we are tempted to christianize education by adding or subtracting content. I propose that content is not the main issue in education. It is important, but it is certainly not preeminent. Adding a Bible course, or subtracting certain science or health subjects, will not truly aid any child to glorify and enjoy God better, excepting intervention from the Spirit of God through the means He uses—church, family, individual teachers and mentors. And praise God that He does use these means! But can we imagine a Christian idea of education that is actually a tool of the Spirit, rather than a hinderance or a neutrality? In accomplishing this, the first place to start is to examine the principles and method of our means of education. The content, I argue, then follows readily.
Principles
According to David Hicks, “Education at every level reflects our primary assumptions about the nature of man.”[2] Accordingly, educational philosopher Charlotte Mason founds her twenty principles of education upon this first, anthropological principle: Children are born persons. Unfortunately, modern education has abandoned principles in education—a normative approach—for a utilitarian, or operative, approach. Rather than asking, “What ought to be done?” modern education asks, “What can be done?”[3] This has occurred because our society is fundamentally divided about all foundational truths (yet we insist on prescribing one school system for children of every background, creed, and need!). Modern education cannot ask “ought” questions, because we all disagree about the definition of humanity: its nature, origins, and purpose.
But the confusion of the kingdom of this age has no power in the Church of Christ. The anthropology of the Christian tradition sits squarely on the shoulders of the God become Man: We have comprehensive, powerful answers to the questions about humanity. And these answers still apply outside of the church walls and on days besides Sunday. One large principle for education could be drawn from the Westminster Catechism: If the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, his education should propel him to that end. We must allow our beliefs about the world and humanity to directly affect our actual practices, or like Dorothy in Oz we will drift off to sleep in the poppies of modern educational method.
Method
Upon biblical principles we can construct a method that honors each student as an eternal soul yet also recognizes that each of these souls is accountable to the blinding purity of God’s standard for them. Herein lies the balance between being student-focused or standard-focused. It is in our method that our principles (acknowledged or not) are communicated. As Marshall McLuhan famously stated, “The medium is the message.”[4] The way that we approach, teach, and test content communicates something about how we view students—and thusly, how we view the human person.
Is man a computer? Then x input should lead to y output. (Give him a multiple-choice test!) Is man a biological accident? Then x input leads to any number of outputs—and the student bears no responsibility. (Open book test, they all pass!) We believe, of course, that a student consists of a body and spirit, governed by God’s natural and moral law, but in rebellion to each; created in God’s image but distorted by sin. The method of instruction, no matter the content, must serve always to reveal the lie of sin and present the truth and beauty of God’s purposes. The point of teaching becomes not merely to convey content but also to communicate truth to the heart of the student.[5]
Content
Stratford Caldecott says, “When the right kind of song penetrates the soul, the result is an education in virtue.”[6] That song is the “music of the spheres,” the glory of God bursting forth from every created thing. Here is where content comes into play: Every possible thing is worth learning, because it all fits into the magnificent quilt pattern that God is piecing together from every corner of the universe. There are no disparate pieces. History and biology are sisters; music and mathematics twins. No scrap is wasted. And the beautiful top-stitched pattern that’s holding it all together? Christ! The Logos! Word made flesh. When we examine the feast of facts, histories, myths, vocabularies, natural objects, and practical skills from which we have to choose in the light of Christ’s unifying presence, we discover a common “allegiance to a pattern of truth.”[7] The worries then of “have we taught enough?” are nullified, as bringing a student into the common truth of the world puts them in association with all other knowledge; as in the teachings of Charlotte Mason, a “science of relations.”[8]
Conclusion
To have a good job and to be a good citizen are admirable desires. They are good things, but they are not ultimate things. I would argue that they are consequences and blessings of an education in virtue aimed at glorifying and enjoying God. “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (Js. 4:14). Christian education must keep that truth ever before the eyes of students; only then can students be caught up in the Life that never vanishes, the Life of God, poured out for us, welcoming us in to enjoy Him for all eternity.
[1]Or, as David Hicks says, “to teach the young to know what is good, to serve it above self, to reproduce it, and to recognize that in knowledge lies this responsibility.” Norms and Nobility (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1999), 13.
[2]Ibid, 3.
[3]Ibid, 11.
[4]Marshall McLuhan, This Is Marshall Mcluhan: the Medium Is the Message (New York: NBC, 1967).
[5]What of assessment, then? Allowing each student to present what they know in their own words can most clearly reveal not only what facts they have learned, but how that learning has impacted their inner world and in what ways they have connected this new knowledge to the rest of reality. In a classroom setting, writing or speaking assignments would best accomplish this type of assessment; in a homeschool setting, there is more freedom to continually assess the student through both formal and informal means.
[6]Stratford Caldecott, Beauty in the Word: Rethinking the Foundations of Education (Tacoma, WA: Angelico Press, 2012), 58.
[7]Hicks, 4.
[8]See M. Owens, “Education is the Science of Relations,” Parents’ Review (1905): 61–64; accessible at https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.149.159/a75.0d0.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Education-is-the-Science-of-Relations.pdf; accessed 10/29/20; Internet.
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