Comments on: Education Series: What’s the Point of School?

By: Zähne Aufhellen

Zähne Aufhellen — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:00:14 +0000

I’m totally new to the blog world and I’m not yet sure what CMS suits me best? Some bloggers have warmly recommended me to try out Expression Engine. Do you think BlogEngine is better?

By: Angeline

Angeline — Wed, 18 May 2011 07:51:43 +0000

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By: Philip Mohr

Philip Mohr — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 22:38:49 +0000

@Fred Putnam.
In Mississippi, we call No Child Left Behind the “No Tree Left Standing” legislation, because of all the paperwork. But “No Teacher Left Thinking” has a nice ring to it.

By: Philip Mohr

Philip Mohr — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 22:37:13 +0000

I liked your article. Those are good questions, but I don’t think this nation is ready to ask them yet. Schools of education at the university level are revenue-generators. They are not interested in meaningful questions. They only research what will yield new products, trends, and salable “resources.” They are interested in measuring and packaging education, not redetermining it. In a word, the universities are completely incapable of helping the current state of education because they make too much money off of it.
Schools on the elementary and secondary level don’t have any say in what they do at this point. So you will not find anyone with a critical eye or an ability to respond well to your questions at this level either.
The politicians might give answers, but they don’t know how to ask the question. There is no good reason to question or change the Why at this point. “Oh, so you want to produce adults who can think as well? Fine, but school and tax dollars don’t need to be responsible for that.” (This is along the lines of what Benj posted.)
In short, I am not sure that universities, schools, or politicians are capable of responding to your question at all, and even less capable of looking critically at the answers that they might give. It’s clear that small communities and families can respond to the question, but homeschooling and charter-schools are more reactions to a problem than responses to a question. Preaching worldview might change the way school looks, but it sidesteps the question for everyone else.

It’s all really very difficult. And I am a very tired teacher unable to compose a full response.

By: Dan DiGregorio

Dan DiGregorio — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 07:08:46 +0000

In regard to our subject of the purpose of education, we must first ask ourselves the question, “Is it possible to discuss educational and pedagogical issues without first addressing the issue of epistemology and worldview?” The heart of our problem is this idea that knowledge and education can somehow exist in a moral or presuppositional vacuum. Americans must come to the realization that it is impossible for education to be nonreligious or “neutral,” excluding the basic questions about life and the meaning of the universe. Moreover, it must be acknowledged that is impossible for education to be nonreligious and morally neutral because it is impossible for man himself to be nonreligious and morally neutral.
Let us consider the thoughts of Dabney here. In his essay on the impossibility of secular education, Dabney writes: “The instructor has to teach history, cosmogony, psychology, ethics, the laws of nations. How can he do it without saying anything favorable or unfavorable about the beliefs of evangelical Christians, Catholics, Socinians, Deists, pantheists, materialists, or fetish worshippers, who all claim equal rights under American institutions? His teaching will indeed be “the play of Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet omitted.”"
On the question of origins, Dabney asked if a scientist could give the “…genesis of earth and man without indicating whether Moses or Huxley is his prophet?” His point is simply that key worldview assumptions must ALWAYS be made.
Having stated the impossibility of neutrality, we must finally ask ourselves, “From which worldview should we then teach?” I suppose the answer to that question would have to be decided by the academic institution itself provided that it has the option to do so.
Lastly, I would like to say that knowledge of the Creator God, as He infallibly reveals Himself in Scripture, is the necessary prerequisite for properly understanding reality and the universe. The Bible teaches that the “fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING of knowledge” (Prov. 1:7; cf. Job 28:28). We must first acknowledge the Creator if we are to understand His created order aright. Only in Christ can we find “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). Only the biblical worldview can answer the fundamental questions regarding ourselves, truth, reality, epistemology, ethics, justice, nature, beauty, meaning, and the history of the world in which we now find ourselves.

By: Dan DiGregorio

Dan DiGregorio — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 22:09:18 +0000

Katie,
Yes, equality is an unethical and unnatural goal for humanity. This helps to explain why Leftism and ethical consequentialism go hand in hand. The Leftists must always use the means of force (violence, taxation, etc.) in order to reach their (supposedly) ethical goal of equality. From the Christian perspective, then, both the means and the end are unethical.

By: Katie

Katie — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:21:53 +0000

Hi all:

1) It seems like one of the causes of the problem that Sam is pointing out might be the way our American government is set up. We Americans, for good reason, decided to have a limited government that wasn’t allowed to have its own goals and opinions about things like art and literature and value-judgments and interpersonal relationships, but these sorts of things are very important to the education of a whole human being. Maybe when politicians get up and talk about the economic usefulness of our schools, it’s because they’re the government, and we’d boo them off the stage if they started talking about the value of poetry and music for a child’s personal development.

How can we let our schools have goals that are different from the goals of our government? Does that necessarily have to mean that government and schools can’t have anything to do with each other?

2) @Dan: By your criticisms of Sam’s “egalitarianism,” do you mean that equality is not a good goal for humanity in general? If so, why not? Is it simply a complaint against striving toward equality for equality’s sake, or does it somehow reflect your view on the equal or unequal value of human life? (Your comment that this relates to a Christian worldview also intrigued me because it struck me as a rather non-traditional correlation. What are your thoughts behind that?)

3) All: In response to the question, “What is the point of school?” What do you think of this?: The point of school is to foster the general well-being of children and society by striving to give them the opportunity to realize the fullness of their own human experience.

By: Theresa Knoedler

Theresa Knoedler — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 01:21:49 +0000

The point of education should be the development of students’ minds and personalities which challenges their strengths and builds up their weaknesses. The whole point of gathering students into larger community groups with many teachers, rather than home-schooling, is to have an exchange of a broader range of ideas, perspectives and experiences which challenge the students’ thinking processes. Unfortunately, this rarely happens in regular public schools, where conformity and the status quo of power structures controls the agenda. Perhaps in charter schools or private schools, real education happens more often.

By: Dan DiGregorio

Dan DiGregorio — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 21:01:24 +0000

Sam, my apologies for the confusion. My intent was to show that this issue is a matter of worldview. My suggestion, again, is the privatization of education. People find this proposal outlandish mainly because they presuppose the egalitarian worldview. But inequality is not a problem in my worldview (i.e., the Christian worldview).
Again, I am with Mises: “There is, in fact, only one solution: the state, the government, the laws must not in any way concern themselves with schooling or education. Public funds must not be used for such purposes. The rearing and instruction of youth must be left entirely to parents and to private associations and institutions.” (Mises, Liberalism, 115).

By: Samuel Matlack

Samuel Matlack — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:52:54 +0000

@Dan: My presuppositions and worldview are not the focus of the discussion. The question I explored in response to your earlier comment was what would happen if the public school system were abolished. I suggest that such an exploration is a worthwhile (at least interesting) tangent for the conversation at large, even if it didn’t inform our decision about the existence of public schooling. But more importantly, since, and as long as, public school does exist, the question of what its purpose is or could be is on the table. If you suggest a better formulation of the question, I’d be glad to hear it.