Last night I went to a banquet for a Christian school (actually, two schools that have recently merged). It got me thinking again: What do I think about Christian education?
Pro: It keeps children nurtured in the faith as they learn about the world around them, helping prevent the practical Deism that Christian Smith sees in today's churched youth.
Con: It starts shaping the minds of children, from a very early age, with the idea that the way to be a faithful Christian is to withdraw from the world and huddle with believers. It also fosters incompetence in dealing with folks outside the Christian ghetto.
There might also be pro's and con's based on a particular child's personality, emotional and mental maturity, etc.
What do you guys think? Christian ed? Pro or Con? And after childhood, what about Christian college?
11 comments:
hey, i think an important question to this issue is what role should the parents be playing in their children's education? is it not the parents responsibility to teach their children?
i think it is and i think we've become extremely dependent on the school systems to do that instead of us... public school excuses us from having to take part in our kid's lives in ways that were previously necessary...
do we think schools should be shaping what our children believe? or should we be teaching our children at home? "nurturing in faith" should come from us, not schools
also, where is the line between nurturing your children vs. exposing your children to the real world and letting them be involved in helping restore that world with the Gospel?
Well, I don't think it's necessarily the parents job to be doing the teaching. Distribution of labor around the community is a viable part of what our lives as beings in community is about.
It is, however, the parents' responsibility to teach their children the great things God has done in faithful care of God's people. But again, there are issues of giftedness in the body--why not let Sunday school teachers help?
We should be nurturing, telling, and modeling. I guess the question is the extent to which we partner with other folks in accomplishing those tasks.
Eh, I think you have somewhat of a false dilemma. Sure, your 'con' applies to a number of Christian schools, but not all. There are a number of classical Christian schools which articulate the same vision of the Christian life that you do on your own blog. We are able to disciple and shepherd students (partnering with their parents) towards that end. It is usually my students who want to huddle with their Christian peers and remain within the ghetto (not their teachers/parents). When I was one of a handful of Christians in a large public high school, we huddled. Those who didn't were tempted and ultimately came to reject the Christ and faith (for various reasons). A middle ground didn't exist. In the varsity locker room, I learned to deal with guys sharing about their sexual exploits and abuses with drugs & alcohol. I never judged, but was never invited. High school is becoming ever more difficult socially and is a pressure cooker for students who are just beginning to form their own identity. Even non-Christian parents complain of the negative atmosphere and prevalence of drugs, sex, and alcohol.
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Perhaps more of a pro for private schools in general is that, as a teacher, I have more freedom in the classroom. From textbooks to testing, shepherding students, etc... I have it far better than my peers in the public school. Public schools tend to be extremely bureaucratic with decisions being made by state-level politicians who are thinking about re-election.
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Most important in my mind is a school's pedagogy or educational philosophy. Is the school focusing on the important things (reading, writing, thinking, observation, etc.) and using the 'subjects' to develop the skills? or do the subjects become an end in and of themselves?
To continue on what this Mike character wrote, I think it's important for the "end" of living in all of society to always be in view so as we do plan on sending our children to Christian schools (of the classical variety) at some point while they are still in our influence, I'd love for them to go forth into secular academia. For a few that might be in high school, for most, I think it will be college. I might support a child going to a Christian college given their motives and the situation was good, but I can't see ever mandating that.
I want them to have a clear understanding of worldview and presuppositional apologetics and a well-grounded faith developed in a nurturing environment, so that they don't see it all as us vs. them and try to tackle the Ehrmans of their day with Josh McDowell books and strawmen arguments. I want them to have maturity, basically.
I think the fact that we can even ask these questions demonstrates that we are most likely all white, middle-class, and fairly well-educated ourselves. For many people, it's not even an option to send their child to a private Christian school. I have to wonder whether there is a larger context in which we should be examining this issue.
jason, GREAT point! these schools are creating an even bigger class difference and we are separating ourselves from areas where our money and resources could be most beneficial
down with white flight!
First on the holy huddle issue:
I do think the Christian schools promote the a "holy huddle," while often not actually even being the holy part. There's still a lot of sex, drugs, and alcohol, perhaps not as blatant or prevalent as in public schools, but it's not as if the majority of the people I know the graduated from the schools I went to truly actively follow Jesus. I would say a fair number do, but a fair number also don't.
But in a lot of ways, I feel the holy huddle isn't a Christian school problem or a non-Christian school problem. It's just an evangelical problem. I think it would be possible to encourage more missional living from a Christian school, but that's also something we need churches and parents need to model better. We're making following Jesus look a lot more lazy and boring than it is, in my opinion. I think a minority high schoolers coming from Christian homes, whatever kind of school they went to, would be able to clearly articulate what the Good News actually is, beyond a fire-insurance version. Christianity, to them, doesn't look nearly as powerful, radical, or GOOD as it actually is.
Now the main part of what I wanted to say (this is long, so bear with me):
I went to a very conservative (~fundamentalist) Baptist school for 5th-8th grade and a Wesleyan school for 10th grade. (And the rest of my time I was in public, secular private, and home schools... and I actually went to a Catholic school K-1st, but I don't remember tons about its influence on my spirituality, since I was 5...)
In my experience, the pro of a Christian school was that I went into college a lot more familiar with the Bible than a lot of my peers. I also have benefited from having a broader view of Christianity, especially evangelicalism. I feel like I'm familiar with it's nuances, not just the general concept, and that's been helpful as I've thought about how we do ministry on campus, relating to other's experiences (either their church backgrounds or their often-negative experiences with the church), etc.
The two biggest cons for me of going to a Christian school were actually
*having to try to unlearn a lot of legalism and negative ways of thinking
*the fact that few Christian schools are really as academically serious as other private schools.
For example, the largest Christian school in the Greensboro-High Point-Winston area (which was considered the major rival of the private school I graduated from; it was the Wesleyan one which was definitely less conservative that the first) consistently was less challenging academically, less professional organizationally, and really not in the business of truly teaching students how to think Christianly. (It was more about superficial Christianese proficiency.) There was also no room for dissent—there was an idea of what we already knew was the “right answer” that prevented us from truly exploring ideas.
A classic example was bio class. The school bragged about having a unit on evolution, something they said it was important for us to understand even though young earth creationism was the only thing real Christians could really believe. That unit ended up being absolutely no class notes or testing covering evolution. Instead we had a short paper (4 pages?) to write for which the prompt was essentially “List some defenses for evolution and why they are wrong.” We could use almost anything as a source, and mine included a good deal of bull from the Internet even semi-academic citations. All I had to say was, “Something about the amount of dust on the moon shows that the earth is young,” and that was good enough. I left knowing nothing more about evolution than before, and I still had no idea why some Christians really think one way or another on evolution. And the worst part is, the uber-superficial treatment of such a complex, specialized debate encouraged students not only to give little thought to their beliefs on how the earth came to be but set an example of poor scholarship that will follow them into their dealings with other important questions, as well.
The honors classes there were at least as easy as the regular classes at the secular private school, and a minority of students went to more selective colleges rather than at least a third at the other. I totally don't think this was a coincidence-- the churches and schools I've gone to have really shown Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind to be a fairly accurate representation of evangelicalism outside of special pockets (ex: I would say Christians in the Triangle tend to be more intellectual, as are many Christians in InterVarsity).
Regarding Jason's point: the two schools whose gathering I attended are both city school with a significant majority Af Am student population. They raise money to sponsor the students. Part of the vision is for bringing x-n ed to the city children of Philadelphia; to students who otherwise wouldn't get on an academically excellent, college preparatory track.
We are part of a team attempting to start a classical Christian school in the city with that sort of a vision, but having been a part of such a school in the past as a teacher, I will say that it's a hard work, and if there are thriving schools in that vein to choose from, the parents of Philadelphia are very blessed.
does creating alternative schools really help the overall problem? if the school systems need real reform . . . is it merely putting a bandage on the wound to provide private christian education (not inherently bad) for what I'm sure is a small portion of the city's minority population?
what are our churches doing to reach these communities of need besides sponsoring a few minority students (education is only a piece of equation . . . albeit a very important one)?
all that to say i'm still not sure i buy into private christian education as a viable method of social and/or spiritual change.
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