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The Philosophy of Christian Education
With Some Observations Germane to the Teaching of High School English
(Part 4 of 5)
Part IV: The Role of the Teacher
The world categorizes the teacher as a facilitator who fosters tolerance, self-esteem, and harmonious relationships. This approach is readily born out by Allan Bloom's analysis of learning on America's college campuses. Bloom identifies the preeminent virtue esteemed by students today as the virtue of openness, and the only enemy of rational thought is the bigot who opposes this "progressive and forward-looking" virtue (27). The Christian teacher must be conversant with such relativistic thinking in order to recognize and refute false thinking in his students and in school textbooks.
Above every other consideration, the teacher should remind himself of his goal to train students to think like Christ, to live for Christ, and to conquer the world with Christ's infallible Word. With this motivation, the teacher will demand excellence of himself and his students. He will train his students to learn the material in order "to glorify God and build a Christian culture," which the Christian knows to be the goal of all learning. Every lesson will have a Christ-centered perspective. In the English classroom, language will be taught, in Noah Webster's words, as "the immediate gift of God," the Bible will be upheld as the paradigm for literature, and literary works will be interpreted via the corrective lens of Scripture. Ideally, the teacher should use materials that endorse the Christian principles, but since such materials are often unavailable, he will carefully review both Christian and secular anthologies in order to select the noblest creations conceived by the mind of man. The works of Christians will be elevated above the writing of pagans, and when secular literature is studied, its ungodly orientation will be noted. It is a sad state of affairs to recall that since Bunyan and Defoe, the English novel has been steadily secularized for the past 300 years (Eliot 100). In America, Enlightenment rationalism has steered our nation away from its Puritan foundation so successfully that T.S. Eliot and Flannery O'Connor are the only modern Christian literary giants among all the other pagan voices. Thus it is incumbent upon the literature teacher to use God's Word as the standard for all reading and discussion.
The English teacher should constantly strive to inculcate in his students a love for reading. The wisdom of C.S. Lewis is invaluable; in one chapter of his Experiment in Criticism entitled "The Few and the Many," Lewis cogently identifies the attitudes of readers and non-readers. The teacher who takes the time to review this article with his students will greatly encourage those students to spend time reading good books. An important task for the literature teacher is to train students to recognize the difference between great writing and mediocre writing. In another work, Lewis suggests that samples from both categories be placed side by side in order to distinguish the genuine from the flashy article, and he calls men who debunk objective value judgments about literature "men without chests" or "trousered apes" (Abolition of Man 36-37). On another occasion, Lewis exhorts people to read the classics rather than modern fiction. He firmly believes that "the only palliative [for the mistakes of our age] is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books" (God in the Dock 202). With aid of the much-maligned Required Reading List, the teacher can ensure that his classes are nourished on a steady diet of the classics. In this way, he can also protect students from books that are blatantly immoral. Students need to be reminded of Eliot's admonition that, in spite of our best efforts to counter negative influences, what we read permanently affects who we are; in fact, "It is the literature which we read with the least effort that can have the easiest and most insidious influence upon us" (101, 103). The conscientious teacher applies the standards of Philippians 4:8 to the books he assigns and exhorts his students to apply the biblical model to everything they read.
The teacher should also introduce students to Christian scholarship; the critical insights of C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot and the work of contemporary scholars such as Gene Veith, Leland Ryken, Douglas Wilson, Peter Leithart, and others provide a richness of Christian thought that is invaluable to the literature student. As much as possible, the teacher should require that his students read and summarize the insights of Christian scholars whenever possible.
The English teacher must ensure that his students write well. High school students should know and apply the rules of English prose; they should respond in writing to everything they read; they should become familiar with the latest research techniques and read scholarly articles in order to write well argued, accurately documented term papers; they should give frequent oral reports so that they become poised, articulate speakers; they should develop an excellent vocabulary. In sum, it is incumbent upon the teacher to create a curriculum that steadily improves his students' communication skills.
One of the teacher's most valuable teaching tools is variety. A good teacher varies his methodology in order to address the different learning styles in his classroom. As one scholar has observed, the teacher's paradigm is the Jesus. Our Savior taught with concrete examples, He facilitated learning by moving from the known to the unknown, and He used cogent questions that stimulate critical thinking. The skillful teacher is also creative; he makes connections for students from life applications; he uses experiential learning; and he provides a relaxed but challenging climate in which to learn (Kienel et al 222-28).
A good teacher needs to be a good disciplinarian. It has been pointed out that the secular mind does not acknowledge sin but disciplines only when a student infringes on the rights of others. The Christian teacher is to use godly discipline "that molds, shapes, corrects, and inspires appropriate behavior" (Phil E. Quinn. Qtd. in Gibbs and Haddock 2). The teacher should maintain a disciplined environment that fosters mutual respect between teacher and class. In order to accomplish that task, he is to disciple, or shepherd, the hearts and minds of his students with praise and encouragement for appropriate behavior as well as consistent, impartial, loving admonishment for inappropriate behavior. The wise teacher takes preventative measures that avoid negative behavior: he plans well and is prepared to teach, he involves the whole class in the learning process, he is aware of students' actions and attitudes, he deals with problems before they develop. The teacher also follows through with disciplinary procedures; he maintains a disciplined posture; he expects obedience to a few clear, well-articulated classroom procedures; and he enlists parents' support in the discipline process. The teacher is a self-disciplined individual whose goal is to train his students to become self-disciplined (All of these ideas are discussed in Gibbs and Haddock, Classroom Discipline).
The teacher must maintain regular communication with parents via email, telephone calls, notes, and conferences. One gains invaluable insights about young people during conversations with parents, and it is incumbent upon the teacher to keep the parent informed about the child's successes as well as failures because God holds the parent rather than the teacher ultimately responsible for the child's progress.
The teacher should be a student himself. Whenever possible, he should take classes, write professional articles, attend seminars, read widely in his field in order to improve his knowledge of and love for his subject. If the teacher is constantly learning, he is better able to relate positively to students, to maintain reasonable expectations, and to anticipate problems before assigning materials to the class. A good teacher is a life-long student.
The good teacher shoulders a formidable responsibility. Milton understood this burden: "I believe that this is not a bow for every man to shoot that counts himself a teacher, but will require sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave Ulysses" (394). However, for those whom God has called to teach it is a vocation with rich rewards. How blessed is he who makes a permanent impact upon the mind and character of a child.
Notes
Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
Eliot, T.S. "Religion and Literature." Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. 97-106.
Gibbs, Ollie E. and Jerry L. Haddock. Classroom Discipline: A Management Guide for Christian School Teachers. Colorado Springs, CO: Association of Christian Schools International, 1995.
Kienel, Paul A., Ollie E. Gibbs and Sharon R. Berry. Philosophy of Christian School Education. Colarado Spring, CO: Association of Christian Schools International, 1995.
Lewis, C. S. The Abolition of Man or Reflections on Education with Special Reference to The Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of School. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.
---. An Experiment in Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992.
---. God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970.
Milton, John. "Of Education," Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry. Alexander M. Witherspoon and Frank J. Warnke, Eds. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.
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