It's hard not to reflect on the meaning of life cycles and transitions when you are experiencing them, personally or through your parents or kids. So in the past couple of years I've been reflecting on why we have, and why we should have (if we have), kids, in the year or so since my second son's birth. Now, with my oldest off to pre-school, I can't help but reflect on the meaning of education.
In the last few months I've read a number of articles on education, and seen a number of others that I haven't read, and what it's all about. A former professor of mine is, rightly, an advocate for liberal arts education, so whenever I stroll onto Facebook I have a good chance to see another article. Just today, on my own, I saw and read this one: Student Debt is Transforming the American Family. That article is specifically about a book exploring the role and response to student debt that parents and students take on in search for the American dream, but it also hints that the students and others are questioning why anyone needs a higher education. Indeed, usually the arguments around education concern specifically higher education, or at least use higher education as a magnifying glass. Then the arguments usually proceed like this: to get a good job (credential), to be a well-rounded, thoughtful person (liberal arts), to be properly trained (STEM programs or technical), college is useless (price not worth the reward).
Generally I agree with the argument for a liberal arts higher education, but the cost is rather high, and even so the missing piece in much of the debate is what K-12 education--and pre-K, for that matter-- should look like. If the student debt debate leads to lower college attendance rates, then what we've spent decades arguing about will certainly trickle down into our high schools. Actually, that has already happened: technical schools for freshman to senior are no longer strange alternatives and some high schools, including my alma mater, have already placed a greater emphasis on STEM training. Some of that, perhaps, is an attempt to prepare students planning on attending STEM-based universities rather than preparing them for the job-market as STEM-trained, but the result is the same. Whether we've realized it or not, many schools are already adjusting and we need to reflect on whether they, and we, are adjusting appropriately.
Before I continue, I want to make clear that what I mean by STEM-training is not simply knowledge in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but advanced knowledge that could lead to an engineering occupation, for instance.
What I most think is missing from the our reflection is a theological and/or spiritual component. Who are we? And who are we meant to be? I'd love to answer those questions in full but at the moment I'll resign myself to pointing us to our creation stories, at least those in the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim tradition. In the second creation story, found in Genesis 2-3, God tells Adam and Eve not to partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. At the moment they do, paradise falls apart. Not for a second should we think that there is something inherently evil about knowledge. The story does not at all argue that we are not supposed to have knowledge. The meaning of the creation story is complex, but without question we should at least partly understand the story to mean that knowledge does not make us fully human as we were created to be. We can think, too, of the story of Job, at the end of which God comes out of the whirlwind and gives Job a pop quiz about creation and how all of creation works: "Tell me these things, if you have understanding. Surely you know!" Of course Job does not know. None of us do. So not only is knowledge not the goal of our created being but it simply can't be.
Instead, who we are and who we're meant to be must be understood in relation to the God who walks the Garden with us, and whose power and knowledge as found in creation must be left as a mystery. At some point, we must leave the accumulation of knowledge to God; or accept that no accumulation of knowledge can bring us to God. Faust knows all and loses his soul.
Who are we then? What is life about? And what should education be about if not the accumulation of knowledge? We are a people created to appreciate the mystery of beauty and the beauty of mystery, to share in the joy of divine life, and to work with our gifts toward restoring God's creation to its intended brilliance. If that is who we are as a people, then our education cannot be about preparing us to toil for a salary for the rest of our lives for no reason other than surviving. That isn't who we're meant to be. If we are to prepare our students for anything, it should be to appreciate the beauty and mystery of life and to find their vocation--what their spiritual selves are built for--for a life of meaningful social and personal work as far from pure toil as the sun is from the moon. Indeed, when God cursed Adam with toilsome work, it was in fact a curse. The opposite of toilsome work will bring us back to paradise, to heaven on earth, to the kingdom of God.
Education, then, aside from teaching the basics of mathematics, science, reading, history and the like, should focus on a prototypical liberal arts education from start to finish. Not just drawing but art history and trips to art museums; not just biology but plenty of time spent outside in the woods, watching the birds and animals; not just math but looking at sunflowers that bloom with a strange mathematical sequence, the Fibonacci sequence; not just the arbitrary study of poetry but the listening to it, the writing of poetry, the living of poetry; and et cetera. Planting flowers, service to the community, singing, exploring the universe physically and metaphysically, asking questions about the world and one another, meditation and soul-searching, team-building. These should be the hallmarks of education K-12. Many educators may say that these elements are already included, and usually that is true, but including these elements is different than highlighting them. Any personal and social meaning and well-being activity, lesson, or exploration should be highlighted from the start, to know how to be healthy personally and in community. Plus, I don't meant that we should apply knowledge. It's not all about application. The point is application to being.
We may say that such a radical change to our educational curriculum is impossible, too radical, and a detriment. The latter concern, that changing our educational program in the way I suggest would be a detriment, I hear and understand. There is no doubt that my vision for what education is for would result in less-educated students in the way we define the term "educated." On the national stage our concern is often that we are falling behind other countries in general and advanced knowledge. My plan would probably accelerate that process across the board. Fewer students would have a functional understanding of calculus, without question. But when I was a math student and a math tutor, the question I most heard was, "When am I ever going to use this?" Too often the truthful answer is, "never... unless you plan on studying or going into a field requiring mathematics." Usually my students would then grudgingly look at me as if to say, "I plan on studying theater, so..." Why teach our students advanced knowledge that they do not need? Why worry about overall educational attainment, as in knowledge, if eighty percent of it goes to waste? Let our kids focus on what will be used, on themselves, and ignore what won't be. If they want to study calculus, there is plenty of time for that and they can choose to do so, but we don't need to require students to take it simply because it is the next math class in the queue.
There are some pieces of knowledge that should be taught vigorously. Local history, to have an understanding of our neighbors and how not to repeat oppressive and unfortunate acts (in conjunction with how to be a good neighbor and how to build a good neighborhood), and an early introduction to languages, religion, and philosophy, to have an understanding of how many different ways there are to make sense of the world. That way, fitting into my program, kids would early on know there isn't only one way for them to explore personal and social meaning.
Besides, it is possible that my vision for education would actually increase advanced knowledge. If students are given a greater opportunity to explore themselves and their place in the community and world, then there is a chance that, in doing so, the student would indeed know their vocation at a much earlier age than eighteen. Then, rather than waiting for college to focus on a major, the student could focus on that area of study for years beforehand while still engaging mostly in personal and social development. Finding one's vocation means finding joy in work, rather than toil, and finding joy in work means that learning any necessary advanced knowledge will be easier. Changing our educational system towards vocational educational fulfillment rather than general educational fulfillment, which prepares students for any and all jobs, most of which will be toilsome, then allows for more meaningful and healthy work lives.
To address the concerns of the change being impossible or too radical, well, those are true. Not for a second do I believe anyone will read this and think we should seriously outline a strategic plan for instituting my educational program. Nor do I want anyone to. Another problem, too, is that shifting toward a vocational educational fulfillment system is not realistic when transitioned into the job market. When engaging the economy as it stands is necessary for our financial survival, and the economy as it stands is not geared for personal fulfillment, then our students would be in for a rude awakening given my educational vision.
What then am I writing this for? My hope is to convince parents to take a more active role in educating their children in ways they should be educated: to care for their soul, to explore the physical and metaphysical world, to read fascinating books, learn about one's neighbors, pray and meditate, et cetera. I don't necessarily mean that everyone should start homeschooling, though that is an option. I simply mean that we shouldn't leave all the educating to our schools because, again, what is more important? That our kids finish with a 4.0 GPA and go to the best college possible to receive an accredited degree for a high-paying job? Or that our kids grow up to love God, themselves, and all others in a meaningful, powerful way? If we could have both, then great, but if we have to choose, I think the latter is better.
Two stories to end this piece. When my oldest, Sebastian, was about ten months old, he had an activity cube with four 3-D shapes with their own holes in the side of the activity cube. He learned how to put the sphere in the right hole and I was quite proud. Then I realized he didn't learn much. He kept trying to push the other shapes into the sphere's hole and was frustrated when it didn't work. The shape is not what he learned. What he learned was only that shapes could fit into that hole. When I realized that, I turned to my wife and said, "I don't think he's very smart." My wife reminded me how unfair that statement was--Sebastian was only ten months old, after all. Then I realized that it was unfair for another reason: what do I care if he's a genius? In fact, as a parent, I'd rather he first learn from me how to love the people he shares this planet with than some shapes.
As a pastor, leading aging congregations, I often hear the lament of how and why children of active members don't also attend church. Those children went to Sunday School, they participated in worship, they were active in youth group, how did they end up deciding church isn't important? My insensitive but insightful response usually is to ask whether those children also saw their parents living a spiritual life. Did they worship privately as a family? Did they visibly thank God in good moments and pray for guidance in hard moments? Did they bring their kids along to mission and service projects? For the most part, parents keep their own faith isolated from children. What then happens is that the kids need to go to church to learn about God but are simultaneously learning that God has no import in one's own life, since they don't see in their parents. So then why would they go to church if it's only something interesting to have learned about?
Ultimately, as parents, we need to be the teachers of our kids. We need to teach our kids what is important and not leave it to schools or church or anything else. Professional educators, in my experience, are wonderfully caring, intelligent, and good at what they do. Unfortunately, though, professional educators are no substitute for instilling in our children what education is truly for. Part of the reason is that our educational system has been developed for the national good, or at least the national good has had a hand in crafting the system, rather than the personal good. Someone, then, needs to be worried about the personal good. I know we parents are worried about that for our kids, so let us take into our own hands, with the right vision, how to properly educate our kids. Education should be for the student, for his or her personal good, in relationship to God, creation, and all of God's creatures. Living a fulfilled life in and with God is what life is about, anyway. Let's make that happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment