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What is Education?

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This is the first essay I’ve posted since April 27. In the intervening two months, I’ve given all my literary energy to finishing my next book, The Christian University & The Academic Establishment. I expect it to be published sometime in August. I will have more to say about it then.

As always happens when you are reading and formulating your thoughts on one topic, other issues come into view that you must set aside for the moment. In writing the The Christian University & The Academic Establishment, I read much about the history and the current state of higher education in America, and this concentration forced me to ask other questions: What is education? What is learning? What part do schools play in learning? What does it mean to be an educated person? How does one gain a good education? And specifically, how does one gain a good education in Christianity? In the next few months, I hope to address these questions and more. This essay sets the table for that discussion.

Truly Educated People are Humble

We will never know everything. We must be satisfied with (1) learning what we need to know for living the life we want to live; and (2) doing the best we can to make sure that the knowledge we gain—partial though it is—cannot be completely falsified by future discoveries.

We don’t know what we don’t know. Remember the old saying “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”? Why is that? Because that little knowledge is surrounded by a lot of ignorance! But we can know that we don’t know. So, be humble and careful. Strive to distinguish between beliefs that are firmly grounded in evidence and thus are likely to withstand scrutiny and those that are supported solely by our desires, vanity, wishes, and feelings.

No individual knows everything that is known. Human knowledge is a communal possession. Unlike animals, human beings can learn from the thoughts, discoveries, and experiences of other people and pass that knowledge on to future generations so that the body of knowledge grows with the passage of time. Each new generation benefits from this heritage of wisdom, knowledge, and skills. The process of passing on this knowledge is called education.

Principles of Education

There is a difference between schooling and education. One can attend a school, college or university—even get a degree—without acquiring a good education. To gain an education, one must learn.

Learning is always something we do. We can sit at a desk while a teacher lectures, but learning involves assimilating new information into the body of knowledge and the patterns of understanding we already possess. It changes us.

The sum total of human knowledge can be refined and extended only by those who have mastered traditional knowledge. You need to learn what is already known. Even though this body of knowledge is incomplete and may contain errors, it is the best starting place for learning more. Only from this vantage point can an individual see unanswered questions and the limits of inherited theories, methods, and procedures.

A good education is one that enables us to live well in the society in which we dwell. As I said above, no one can know everything. It is the business of educators to create programs of study that provide students with the opportunity to gain a good education. Unsurprisingly, educators do not agree completely among themselves on what that program of study should be, and it is always changing as society changes. But in general, educators agree that it is a great advantage for a person to gain basic proficiency in language, history, natural science, economics, and political and social institutions.

How to Get a Good Education

How can you make sure that you get a good education? Whatever subject you want to study, place yourself under the tutelage of teachers who can direct you to the best of what is known and guide you through a maze of crackpot ideas, fancies, and conspiracies. As I emphasized above, there is a difference between going to a school and getting a good education. The most important thing about becoming an educated person is not where you learn but that you acquire the best knowledge available and become a discerning and critical student. However, for most people, the best place to begin this journey is in an educational institution—a high school, college or university. Why here? Because these institutions gather in one place teachers who have given many years to mastering their disciplines and are responsible to their professions. It is their duty to direct your attention to the best knowledge available—ideas and practices that have been critically examined by many thinkers and have proven themselves useful and reliable.

The Higher Education Mess

Almost every book I’ve read on the subject—whether coming from the right or the left or from inside or outside the university—complains that higher education in America is a mess. Universities are too expensive, too inefficient, sold out to the political left, or in danger from the political right. They encourage students to take on huge debt to earn useless degrees. They are run too much like corporations. Needed change proceeds at a glacial pace. Professors care more about their research than their students. Tenure and academic freedom shield incompetent faculty and serve as cover for anti-academic, political activism.

I agree. Education in America at all levels is a mess. Reforms are needed. Alternative paths to a good education are desirable. But my point in this essay is this: Whatever reforms in existing educational institutions we enact or new ways of securing an education we envision, at the core of all of them must lie the process of learning an accumulated body of knowledge and skills from those who already know them. And this is the answer to the question posed in the title: What is Education?

Some Questions for the American System of Education: Part Two—My Answers

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Today, I want to propose some answers to the questions I asked in my previous post. But I want to make it clear up front that it is not my purpose to propose simple (or complex) solutions to complicated and likely intractable social problems. My goal is to shed light on these social problems so that we as individuals, families, and churches can make the best decisions in areas over which we have some immediate control.

What’s the Purpose of Children’s Education?

1. Why are there more illiterate people today than before the government took over most children’s education?

I am recalling this from my reading in the history of education in America, but I remember that the literacy rate in Massachusetts in 1780, when all schooling was private, was about 90% . Clearly the Massachusetts Puritans valued universal literacy. I can only speculate about the deterioration.

I think the decline probably reflects an underlying social, moral, and spiritual breakdown in culture: (1) the breakdown of the traditional family—divorce, fatherlessness, and decline of church going; (2) the decline of the buying power of the average income and the accompanying increase of two-income middle class family; (3) the increase of an entitlement mentality and the decrease of the notion of sacrifice; the rise of “I-deserve-a-little-happiness” thinking; (4) the transformation from thinking of education as a privilege to be treasured to a right that can be taken for granted; (5) the rise of the permissive society, especially permissive parenting. Very few children are self-motivated. They need guidance and discipline; (6) The fatalism and lost of hope in some subcultures that getting an education is the way toward economic and cultural advancement.

2. Why does it take 12 years to educate a child?

I am certain that I could have learned everything I learned in 12 years in half the time. I wonder why such a waste of time? This 12-year calendar must be more about modern theories of child psychology and development than intellectual progress. Nowadays, kids don’t grow up until 30 years of age, at least the ones that go to college. What’s the problem?

If the entire 12 years were spent efficiently on academics, high school graduates would be prepared for professional and graduate schools right out of high school. They would not need to take remedial English and math courses or learn basic history in colleges. However instead of academics, schools seem to take on the general task of parenting children through the developmental stages of their lives. Not only so, schools take on the quasi-political role of socializing children into their vision of a diverse and pluralistic society viewed through the lens of the oppressor/oppressed and privilege/prejudice analysis. In obvious ways, those who benefit from expanding the scope of the public school system, promote such a whole of life philosophy.

3. Why is high school called “high” school?

High school was called “high” because it taught advanced subjects and skills beyond those learned in grammar school. The term, though not the modern institution, originated in the Middle Ages. In colonial times most college students were minors from 13 to 16 years of age. Their main preparation for college was learning math and language skills in schools or via private tutoring. Colonial and early American colleges prepared students to study for the professions in medicine, the ministry, and law. High schools in America were not originally designed for college preparation but to prepare students to transition to professions that required literacy and mathematical skills but not classical professional training.

Needless to say, modern high schools are no longer “advanced” and many students graduate with a high school diploma but not a “high” school education. Moreover, high schools differ dramatically in the quality of education they provide. Clearly, grade and degree inflation have eroded the value of high school and four-year college degrees.

Why has this happened? I think it has to do with the six problems I dealt with in question #1. When education becomes a right, it will be taken for granted. Schooling will replace education and diplomas will replace knowledge and skills.

4. Why do public schools teach to the average student when this practice results in intelligent and interested students not learning up to their potential and the less than average students getting overwhelmed?

Let’s face it. We are not all born equal in every respect. Each person has their own gifts, and there are different kinds of intelligence. But calculus, chemistry and logic are not for everyone. Some children can be amazing mechanics and plumbers. We need them and should celebrate their skills. But not everyone will make a good Wall Street analyst. So, let’s help each child find their gifts and make their particular contribution to the common good.

Perhaps we should rethink our naive view of the meaning of equality, democracy, and equal opportunity. We could begin to direct and track children at an early age—always leaving open each track to all in case we misjudge a child’s abilities and interests. Every child is precious, but it does not honor their value to press them all into the same shape.

5. Why do the sociopolitical aims of the public education system rank so high among its priorities?

Why are schools so political these days? And why does their politics lean so heavily to the left? I have lots of opinions on why this is the case. But first, we need to remember that the political public school classroom is not a recent development. The public school system has always been political, but explicitly so at least since around 1830 when Horace Mann succeeded in getting the State of Massachusetts to set up its public school system modeled on the German state system. Public schools were designed from the beginning to serve the purposes of the state. It may not seem like it, but measured by the culture of their day, the first public schools were progressive, and they are still that way today. Only what counts as progressive has changed.

Public schools were never primarily tailored for students’ and parents’ aspirations as individuals and families. Their function has always been to serve the socio-economic interests of the governmental and business classes. “Public” means publicly funded and administered and designed to serve the “common good” as defined by those in power. Again: nothing “public” is designed specifically for you, your kids, and your family. Once set up, however, the public system, like all institutions, takes on a life of its own and puts its survival and comfort above all things. Public school teachers, whatever noble motives many of them have as individuals, are trained in teacher education colleges, which are some of the most liberal/progressive places in left-leaning American academia.

5. Why don’t parents demand a better education for their children?

The lives today’s parents want to live is built around having their kids from years 5-18 occupied for 8 hours per day five days a week by schools. They seem to think they have no alternative. Parental abdication gives schools too much power over your flesh and blood. Schools become the defacto (and while they are on school grounds the legal) guardians and protectors of your children. But who guards the guardians? Who teaches them what is good and bad, right and wrong, normal and perverse while you are not in the room? Again, why don’t parents demand a better education for their children? Some do, but those who don’t avoid it because it’s easier not to do so.

Next Time: Who Needs A College Education and Why?

Some Questions for the American System of Education (Part One)?

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Today, I want to ask some questions about the way we educate our youth in the United States. In a follow up post, I will present my perspective on those issues. As you have opportunity, think about how you would answer these questions.

The Mind of an Educator

I come from a family of educators. My mother taught junior math for 30 years in the public school system. One of my brothers, my sister and my sister-in-law also taught in public schools. I admire them and others like them for their competence as teachers, their dedication to the public good, and their love for their students. I spent twelve years as a student in public schools and 13 ½ years in private universities. I am about to finish my 36th year teaching in a university. My opinions about education have been percolating from my junior high days. In view of the huge ferment that is roiling higher education these days I’d like to reflect on the context in which we must exercise our God-given responsibility as parents, learners, teachers, and citizens.

Questions: What’s the Purpose of Children’s Education?

1. Why are there more illiterate people today than before the government took over most children’s education?

2. Why does it take 12 years to educate a child?

3. Why is high school called “high” school?

4. Why do public schools teach to the average student when this practice results in intelligent and interested students not learning up to their potential and the less than average students getting overwhelmed?

5. Why do the sociopolitical aims of the public education system rank so high among its priorities?

5. Why don’t parents demand a better education for their children?

Questions: Who Needs A College Education and Why?

1. Do you think that 62% of high school graduates belong in college?

2. What is a college education for?

3. Why does a college education cost so much?

4. Why are there are 1.4 million college teachers in America?

Coming Soon: Part Two

How the American Education System Became Anti-Family, Anti-Capitalist, Anti-White, Anti-Western, Anti-Christian, and Hopelessly Utopian: A Review of America’s Cultural Revolution (Part Three B)

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This essay continues my review of Part III of Christopher F. Rufo: America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything (Broadside Books, 2023).  My previous essay introduced the problem with which Rufo deals in this section. We will now consider the career and influence of the Brazilian educational theorist Paulo Freire (1921-1997).*

Paulo Freire: Master of Subversion

In 1969 the Brazilian political exile Paulo Freire spend six months at Harvard University, during which time he translated his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed from Portuguese into English. According to Rufo, the book has sold over a million copies and is the third most cited book in social science literature. Pedagogy of the Oppressed presupposes the Marxist analysis of society, which divides the world into the masses of oppressed and the minority of oppressors. A truly just and free society cannot be realized within the capitalist system. The oppressors’ success relies on a series of myths (private property, individual rights, hard work and merit-based rewards) that justifies their superior status and enables them to maintain their dominance. Freire’s innovation, however, lies not in the area of Marxist theory but in developing a way to use the educational system to further the revolution. Freirean educational philosophy has come to be called “critical pedagogy.”

In contrast to what most people think is the purpose of education, that is, to teach young people the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the dominant culture, Critical Pedagogy aims to debunk the myths that justify capitalist society and awaken the oppressed to their oppressed status and oppressors to their oppressor status. Instead of the basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics, the emphasis falls on social criticism and activism in service of “liberation.” Like many Marxist theorists, Freire justifies using violence in service of the socialist revolution. He explains:

Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognize others as persons—not by those who are oppressed, exploited, and unrecognized…Consciously or unconsciously, the act of rebellion by the oppressed…can initiate love. Whereas the violence of the oppressors prevents the oppressed from being fully human, the [violent] response of the latter to this violence is grounded in the desire to pursue the right to be human (Pedagogy, Chapter 7; quoted in Rufo, p. 150).

“We Must Punish Them:” Marxism Conquers the American Classroom

In this chapter, Rufo describes how Freire’s American disciples led by Henry Giroux disseminated Freire’s ideas. First, Giroux initiated a series of publications that introduced Freire’s ideas to American educational theorists. Giroux did not attempt to hide his Marxist leanings: “The neo-Marxist position, it seems to us, provides the most insightful and comprehensive model for a more progressive approach for understanding the nature of schooling and developing an emancipatory program for social education” (Teachers as Intellectuals, 1988; quoted by Rufo, p. 162). The next step, according to Giroux, was to secure tenured positions for 100 likeminded professors in American universities. Over the next 40 years, these educational theorists published thousands of articles and books exploring ways to use critical pedagogy in schools and colleges to further the cause of the socialist revolution. As an example of the influence of critical pedagogy, Rufo details ways in which the State of California has incorporated it into its public educational program. In its Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, California declares that school children shall learn to “challenge racist, bigoted, discriminatory, imperialist/colonial beliefs…[and critique] white supremacy, racism, and other forms of power and oppression.” Schools need to teach students to join in “social movements that struggle for social justice…build new possibilities for a post-racist, post-systemic racism society” (Quoted in Rufo, p. 164).

Engineers of the Human Soul

In this chapter, Rufo documents the now familiar transition from social analysis focusing on economic class to that focused on race. In America, Freire’s American disciples recognized, the Marxist oppressor/oppressed paradigm could be more effectively applied to the White/Black or People of Color distinction than to the owner/worker distinction. Speaking of the second generation of Freire’s disciples, Rufo says, “Their primary pedagogical strategy was to pathologize white identity, which was deemed inherently oppressive, and radicalize black identity, which was deemed inherently oppressed” (p. 173). According to Barbara Applebaum and other critical pedagogists, whites must become conscious, confess and repent of their white supremacy and white privilege. Whiteness is a disease that masks itself in appeals to rationality, the rule of law, capitalism, liberalism, secularism, merit, hard work and other myths. Whites need therapy and a program of reeducation. They need to commit “race suicide” and abolish the “white race.” Black children, on the other hand, need to be taught how to see through the myths and systems of whiteness.

The Child Soldiers of Portland

In this chapter, Rufo pursues the irony that Portland, Oregon one of the whitest cities in America, is also the “headquarters of race radicalism in the United States” (p. 189). “The city’s loose network of Marxist, anarchist, and anti-fascist groups have turned the street riot into an art form” (p. 196). According to Rufo, the young rioters educated in the Portland school system are simply putting into practice the vision of society they were taught.

*See also my January 15, 2023 review of James Linsey’s book The Marxification of Education, which focuses on Freire.

Next Time: We will look at work and influence of Derrick Bell and the origins of Critical Race Theory.

Is Your Church a “Teaching” or an “Experiencing” Church? (Part 2)

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The most effective natural ways of stirring people’s emotions directly are stories, images and music. (We could also add other sensuous experiences, such as smells and movements of the body like dancing. Some religions even use drugs to induce the experience.) A story paints a mental picture that doesn’t need explaining. Hearing a good story affects the emotions directly, and different stories move us in different ways. Images can also move us directly and almost instantaneously. Images can excite humor, horror, sadness, wonder and other feelings. But music is the primary way “experience churches” do this today. Perhaps more than any other means used in churches music can bypass the mind and will and affect the emotions directly. I don’t know how it works, but we all know it does.

By music I mean a system of sounds of different qualities, frequencies, durations and order that can be represented by musical notation exclusive of words. Music without words is often called “absolute” music. Music can be joined to words to make a song or it can be played without words. When music and words are combined each affects the other. Words are cognitive, directed to the understanding, so in a song words can guide the emotions stirred by the music toward a particular end, good or ill, secular or religious.

However, if in the “performance” of the song the words are overpowered by the music, the words lose their cognitive and directive power and simply become another aspect of the music; that is, they convey no more conceptual content than la, la, la. On paper or spoken in a common voice, a well-phrased series of words directs the mind to think in a certain way about something, but in a song designed and performed primarily to create a certain feeling in the participants these words can no longer do this. When this happens, a song (music and words) functionally becomes absolute music, music without words.

There is something very appealing about absolute music. Stirring or tender music without words moves our emotions but leaves our minds free to attach those emotions to whatever object or activity we wish. But words exercise a directive force that we may resent or resist. A musical composition that evokes in me memories of my beloved father may remind you of your dog or someone else of a recent romantic moment. Absolute music makes fewer demands of its listeners and allows each member of a large audience to enjoy a private experience. The unity we feel with the audience—which is undeniable—is not created by believing or thinking or willing the same thing but by feeling in general and endures only as long as the performance endures. We enjoy absolute music’s power to get us in touch with our emotions “on demand” in a way that allows us freedom to channel those emotions in any direction we choose.

Here is my concern with experience-oriented churches: if we employ means—stories, images but especially music—to move people’s emotions directly, it is very tempting, even intuitive and natural, to allow the music to dominate the words. This can be done by making the music louder or more elaborate than the words. Or it can be done by limiting the range of ideas expressed in the words. If every song the church sings expresses the greatness of God simply by saying over and over again “God is great,” it won’t take very long for us to forget who and what God is and what it means to praise God.

Unless we continually explain who God and repeat the full story of God’s work in Christ we will begin to hear “la, la, la” instead of “praise God, praise God, praise God.” Hence “experience churches” may unintentionally neglect the church’s mission to direct its members’ emotions and actions to the right ends and their minds to full truth. Such churches run the risk of making emotional experiences ends in themselves, unrelated to the truth of faith or an authentic vision of the Christian life. Unless the church teaches the whole range of the faith even in its music (music and words), each person will be left to substitute their own content—their own version of God, Christ, Spirit, moral life—into the experience of religious emotion. Such an approach to church life may also undermine genuine community. Authentic Christian community is created and held together by the “one Spirit…one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God…” (Eph 4:4); and these principles of unity must be taught. The church cannot be held in unity by a common feeling of transcendence or awe or celebration alone. It also requires common belief, commitment and practice.

Is your church a “teaching” or an “experiencing” church? Think about it. I hope your church will resist the current trend toward making experience the prime goal of its assemblies. Instead, I hope it will renew its teaching mission and trust the power of the Word and the working of the Holy Spirit to move people to faith, love, hope and good works…and, yes, to vibrant experience of the power and presence of the Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.

Is Your Church a “Teaching” or an “Experiencing” Church? (Part 1)

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Does the Christian church gather to be taught and reminded of its faith or to experience the presence and power of God? Perhaps most Christians would reject the dichotomy posed in this question. And I agree that we don’t have to choose one or the other. Most churches combine the two in some way. Nevertheless, I think it worthwhile to consider the alternatives just to clarify the concepts. Out of this exercise may arise deeper insight into the relationship between the two goals and the best means of keeping them in proper balance.

I might as well place my cards on the table. I admit that there are churches that are so focused on teaching (or doctrine) that they are cold, rigid, intolerant of deviation and exclusive of emotions other than jealousy for doctrinal conformity and righteous indignation against error and sin. I know these churches exist. But I don’t see the majority of contemporary believers rushing to adopt this extreme model. I see the dominant movement in the opposite direction, away from the “teaching church” to the “experiencing church” model. What concerns me is that I don’t see this movement headed toward a proper balance between the two but to a near exclusive focus on experience.

Here is my view of the appropriate relationship between teaching and experience: In working toward a balance between these two factors, the church should give priority to teaching and reminding itself of its faith; that is, its main goal should be to speak, live and enact the Word of faith. It should also expect the Word and the Holy Spirit to work together to drive the message home to the heart so that hearers of the message believe, feel and act consistently with the truth of faith. Christianly understood, religious experience should arise from hearing the Word and the work of the Spirit. But this means that Christian religious experience, as vital and necessary as it is, is secondary to teaching and the accompanying action of the Spirit.

Here is what I see happening among churches today: when experience becomes the primary goal of a church it becomes possible to think of religious experience as relatively independent of the knowledge of faith and the work of the Holy Spirit. The gathering of the church will be designed to evoke experience, and the means of evoking experience will include elements other than the truth of faith and the working of Spirit. Simply put, “experience churches” choose means that can provoke the desired feelings directly, completely bypassing, or spending very little time addressing, the mind and will. In effect, this model of church replaces the mysterious and free working of the Spirit and the inherent power of the Word with natural methods of moving the emotions. Continued in Part 2.

Note: I posted part 2 of this essay simultaneously with part 1. It’s ready to read.