|
Click here to purchase this book!
|
The Philosophy of Christian Education
With Some Observations Germane to the Teaching of High School English
(Part 5 of 5)
Part 5: The Role of the Parent
God's Word places the ultimate responsibility for the education of children upon parents. The state has no right to educate; when it does so, it usurps the authority God has given to parents and to teachers acting in loco parentis. Christian children belong to God. He gives them in trust to parents to rear in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The locus classicus regarding children's education is Deuteronomy 6:1-2; 6-9. This passage should be engraved on the heart of every Christian: "Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it. That you might fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments, which I command you, you, and your son, and your son's son, all the days of your life; and that your days may be prolonged. . . .And these words that I command you this day shall be in your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the posts of your house and on your gates." The conclusion for Christians is inescapable: parents have no choice in the matter. They are to ensure that Christian teachers teach their children in an environment that challenges the child to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ in thought, word, and deed.
Martin Luther did not overstate the case when he declared, "I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount." The teacher is to keep parents apprised of their child's academic, emotional, social, and spiritual progress. But it is unquestionably the parents' responsibility to be informed about every issue concerning their child and to ensure that the teachers to whom they entrust that child are daily shepherding his heart. Together, parents and educators are to train up a child in the way he should go, so that when he is old, he will not depart from it.
|
