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The Philosophy of Christian Education
With Some Observations Germane to the Teaching of High School English
(Part 3 of 5)
Part III: The Nature of the Learning Process
The secular mind assumes that learning takes place in a neutral environment, but the Christian educator knows that this position is absurd. The transmission of knowledge can only take place if all the parties involved first know God. We know God, then we can know everything else; in fact, all learning should be chiefly aimed at bringing "a student into a right relationship with God based on His Word" (Kienel et al 114; 184). Learning starts with godly parents training their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and it is incumbent upon parents to teach even their youngest children to love learning (Kienel et al 190-91). If children live in a home full of books where parents and older siblings regularly talk about people's accomplishments in history, literature, and science, those young people will develop an interest in learning that is later transferred to their school work.
One of the most fundamental responsibilities for parents and teachers is the job of teaching children to learn for themselves. An essay by Dorothy Sayers addresses this issue. Although Sayers was regretting the failure of learning in post-World War II British schools, her challenge is even more applicable to our country's schoolrooms today: "Is it not the great defect of our education that although we often succeed in teaching our pupils subjects, we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think? They learn everything except the art of learning. . . .We let our young men and women go out unarmed in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word" (149, 152). Sayers concludes, "The sole end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain" (164). This advice should surely be the sine qua non of every teacher's methodology. We should teach students to think. In order to accomplish this daunting goal, the teacher constantly strives to inculcate in students a desire to learn, which includes a willingness to accept responsibility for learning so that young people reflect, question, acknowledge ignorance, and aggressively pursue knowledge. When both teacher and student recall that all men are made in the image of God and that Christians are redeemed by Christ's sacrifice, nothing but our noblest efforts are permissible. The teacher should remind the flagging student, "Whatsover you do, do all to the glory of God."
John Bolt has some useful insights about contemporary threats to learning. He notes that evangelism is a problem among Christian schools that emphasize discipleship rather than academics (110). Ronald Nash contends that the elevation of spirituality above academics is one of the greatest weaknesses in the Christian school movement. Nash faults curricula that are undemanding. We need "young people who have been exposed to the best of Western culture and who are able to interact thoughtfully and reflectively with the literature, history, philosophy, and science of that culture" (138). Many Christians, however, assume that vibrant Christianity and rigorous scholarship are incompatible. Rosalie Slater states the case thus: "In order to restore our civil and religious liberties, we must begin to restore the quality and capacity of the American Christian character. This begins in the Christian school and home as we restore an educational methodology which requires much greater scholarship and productivity on the part of both teachers and students" (62). Schools must educate, and to educate successfully, we must insist upon rigorous academics.
Children have different learning styles; some learn best by seeing, others by listening, still others by physical action of some sort. In order for maximum learning to take place, all these learning styles should be addressed. Illustrations and other visualizations accommodate visual learners, lecture and discussion facilitate auditory learners, and movement or touch takes into account the kinesthetic learners. The literature teacher, for instance, can use the masterpieces of world artists to enhance his teaching. Time lines, posters, charts, and stimulating quotations from "the best that is known and thought in the world," to use Matthew Arnold's phrase, are thought-provoking decorations for his classroom walls. Excellent videos and audio cassettes of Shakespeare's plays are readily available, and classical music can provide background for an oral reading of poetry. Certainly, students' enjoyment of literary classics is greatly increased by a dramatic reading of a poem or short story. In all these ways, teachers are able to facilitate learning and to make it enjoyable.
Notes
Bolt, John. The Christian Story and the Christian School. Grand Rapids, MI: Chritian Schools International, 1993.
Kienel, Paul A., Ollie Gibbbs and Sharon R. Berry. Philosophy of Christian School Education. Colorado Springs, CO: Association of Christian Schools International, 1995.
Nash, Ronald H. The Closing of the American Heart: What's Really Wrong with America's Schools. Dallas, TX: Probe Books, 1990.
Sayers, Dorothy. "The Lost Tools of Learning." Rpt. in Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning: An Approach to Distinctively Christian Education. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991. 145-64.
Slater, Rosalie J. Teaching and Learning America's Christian History. San Francisco, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1980.
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