As men and women of modernity we are accustomed to believe that every
problem can be solved via the application of the correct technique. Is
communication too slow? We’ll invent the telegraph, then the telephone, radio,
television, and then the internet. Then we’ll make the internet faster and put
it on phones and we’ll continually make them faster. . . . If you are reading
this on your smartphone you have more computing power in your hands than NASA
had when they landed a man on the moon—take that in for a second.
Because technology is always improving, and it is always improving (we don’t expect next year’s phones to be
slower or have less memory!) we think that technology, or the right technique,
can solve everything. Are you frustrated with your job? Here are five steps to
a better, more productive you. Are you unhappy? Take this pill. Do you have a
bad marriage? Attend this seminar or talk to this counselor.
This is not to say that modern business techniques, therapy, or medicine
are bad—they can all be good if used in the right way, at the right time, to
the right degree, and for the right reasons. I say this only to show, too
briefly, how we are prone to look for a better “how” when we face a problem
instead of reevaluating our “why.” We often become so focused on what will work
that we fail to question the wisdom and worthiness of our pursuits.
Recognizing this tendency is of the utmost importance when we consider
how we can best fix our schools.
By any measure American schools are doing poorly and are getting worse.
There are a number of proposed solutions for our malaise: more technology in
the classrooms; get students out of traditional classrooms and into virtual
classrooms, transform schools into places of secular activism; bring God and
prayer back into schools, get more kids on drugs to help with behavior; get
kids off drugs and outside, increase instructional time; have kids play more
and develop creativity on their own, strengthen and fund public schools; build
more charter schools, etc.
In my opinion, none of these proposed reforms will fundamentally improve
our schools. This is not to say that all proposed reforms are equally
valid—some are indeed wiser than others. The problem is that none of them ask
and deal with the fundamental question: what
is an education for? Because this question is difficult to answer, we focus
on what we are good at: technique. We don’t ask what purpose or function our
schools should serve, instead we try to tweak them to make them better. But
better at what?
Is the purpose of education job training? Or is the purpose of education
to prepare our young to be informed members of a representative democracy? The
way we answer this question will determine the type of reforms we should pursue.
Or what if, as I believe, the purpose of education is to cooperate with
God’s grace to form the whole person, to do what is in our power to help our
sons and daughters to become men and women of faith and virtue? In that case,
we need to know what faith and virtue are so that we can set up our schools to
effectively pursue these goods. But this very idea undermines the foundation of
secularism: if we say there is one faith, we are implying that all other
“faiths” are vain, false, and not worth pursuing; if there is true virtue, then
everything that contradicts it is wrong and sinful.
To truly reform our schools we need to determine their purpose and
reorient them toward this purpose. The difficulty with this is that our secular age refuses to believe that
there is any one, true, ultimate purpose. We therefore do not seek it and
do not orient our schools toward it. We try to make our schools better, but we
lack a clear end and goal. We are like a mechanic lost in the winding backroads
of the mountains. We can continually fix our vehicle, but we lack a map and
refuse to seek one out. We are constantly moving, but we lack clear direction.
This is why all our attempts at reform end in futility.
When our schools lack a clear purpose, our classes will lack a clear
purpose and our students, in turn, will lack a clear purpose. When our students
lack clear purpose they don’t learn! ‘Man can endure any “what” so long as he
has a “why.” ’ Education takes work and
discipline, but people are incapable of disciplining themselves if they don’t
see the purpose of their sacrifice. A clear purpose is precisely the thing
that secularism is incapable of providing.
Let me
explain. According to Aristotle everything has four causes:
1) Material (what a thing is made out
of)
2) Formal (the thing’s structure or
design)
3) Efficient (the cause or agent that
brings the thing about)
4) Final (the telos; the end or purpose for which the thing was designed)
As a
clarifying example, consider a table. The Material Cause of a table is wood,
the Formal Cause is the blueprint, the Efficient Cause is the builder, and the
Final Cause, or purpose, of a table is to have something to share a meal and
fellowship on and around.
Secularism, by definition, rejects
the transcendent and thereby rejects Final Causes. It can tell you what a thing does,
and even how to make that thing work better or faster, but it cannot tell you
what you ought to do with the thing. Knowing a thing’s purpose is essential to
learning how to use it the right way; without this, knowledge of the thing is
incomplete.
For example,
consider a hammer. I can look at it and determine its Material Cause (wood and
metal) and Formal Cause (it has a relatively skinny handle with a heavy, fatter
end). With a bit of research I can figure out its Efficient Cause (it was
likely made by some Chinese workers). But without referencing the transcendent,
without a knowledge or understanding found outside of our world, I cannot know
its Final Cause, its purpose. Is the purpose of my hammer to build something of
value for my neighbor or to hit my neighbor over the head so that I can take
his things? If my neighbor is a random and temporary collection of material,
the accidental byproduct of natural forces working on matter over eons, then
what moral duty do I owe him? Why shouldn’t I hit him and take what I want? But
if he is made in the image of God, and if God has instituted rules as to how
His creatures are to treat one another, then I may not hit him. Only in
understanding Final Causes can I have full knowledge of something as simple as
a hammer.
For a more
relevant example consider the human body. A secular person can teach about the
mechanics of human reproduction, but he or she cannot say under what
circumstances it should occur—i.e. before
marriage, outside of marriage, only in marriage, etc.
Or to give a
less obvious example, a secular education can instruct an engineer on how to
build a building, but it can give no guidance regarding what types of buildings
are worth building; a secular philosophy can help us effectively manage
employees and increase our business’s profitability, but it cannot tell us how
our profits ought to be spent.
Honestly
consider for a moment the value of an education that tells a student about
rocks and ferns, planets and stars, but tells a student nothing about the
purpose of his her body, provides no instruction on the difference between
worthwhile and worthless work, and is completely silent on how to be a good
steward of the resources that pass through the student’s hands. We may call
this amoral instruction an “education,” but despite having the appearance of
education, it lacks the reality. A full and true education must train the whole
of a person and prepare that person for the totality of life. As creatures made
in God’s image we are moral creatures that constantly seek meaning and purpose.
Any education that fails to recognize this cannot truly educate our children.
Educating
the whole person is one of the great advantages of Christian schools. Christian
schools not only instruct students on the practical, everything we do is
infused with a higher meaning. This meaning not only allows us to impart full
knowledge, the type that can impact the whole of a person, it also helps to
motivate students.
For example,
my students are currently reading Dante’s Comedia.
Let’s say one of the students asks me why we are reading it. If I believe,
along with Bill Gates and seemingly every politician in both of our major
parties, that the purpose of an education is to get a good job, how can I
answer the student? I can’t. At least not well. There are plenty of people with
good jobs that have never read Dante. Well, I could say that reading Dante
requires him or her to pay attention to detail and stick with a prolonged
narrative, which in turn will help him or her build the types of skills he or
she will need for a job . . . but building large Lego sets also requires close
attention to detail and requires kids to focus their attention on one task over
a long period of time. If all I want for my students are the “work-ready”
skills that Dante provides, there is no reason to read Dante—my students can
get those skills many other ways. This is why the “purpose of education is
employment” narrative doesn’t motivate students. They can obtain the skills we
say we are giving them in ways that that are more entertaining and require less
of them.
Then why
read Dante? How about something like this for answer: “Dante won’t help you get
a better job, but you are more than an economic machine. Producing and
consuming are indeed part of your life, but your purpose is far greater than
making money and spending it. You should read Dante because Dante produced one of
the most beautiful works of art in mankind’s history. Dante can show you the
nature of sin, the tensions inherent in the human condition, and the beauty of
God in ways so insightful and moving that you might never be the same after
reading his work. In fact, countless people have had their minds and affections
transformed by Dante; many have come to faith, repented of sin, or grown in
their faith while reading Dante. If you read Dante, I can’t guarantee that at
the end of your life you will die with more money in your bank account. But don’t
you know, deep down inside, that you are created for something far more
beautiful and sublime than that anyways?”
This appeal
doesn’t motivate every student; I can’t say that it would have motivated me
when I was 16 years old. But if we treat
our students as utilitarians that will only do something if there is a material
advantage for them, then they will become utilitarians that will only do
something if there is a material advantage for them! If we treat them as
young men and women made in the image of God, capable of nobility, capable of
knowing and loving God and their fellow man, capable of recognizing and
pursuing truth, goodness, and beauty, then some of them will become pillars of
faith and virtue, people of nobility, and people that love and serve God and
their neighbors. That is the purpose of education and anything that isn’t
seeking that, or something like it, is a mere spinning of tires, a vain chasing
after the wind.
Christian schools
are unique. Many of our schools will never have top of the line technology; many
don’t have varsity sports, drama club, or show choir; many have cramped or
shared facilities. We don’t have these things, but for all that we lack we have
something more: clear, Biblical purpose. I can tell any of my students why we
teach what we teach. I can do this because I see the big purpose and I
understand how all the little purposes connect with it. Granted, some of the
things we do are less essential than others, but we have a clear goal and we
communicate that to our students in the hope that they will be moved by more
than mere self-interest to seek the good, the true, and the beautiful, to
cooperate with God’s grace to become devoted spouses, wise parents, honest
workers, virtuous citizens, thrifty consumers, loving neighbors, and blessings
to their local churches.
