The Difficulty of Reforming Education in a Secular Age

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.