July 18, 2011

What is Education Anyway?

Friday I talked about the cheating scandal in the Atlanta public schools, and suggested Christians have a terrific opportunity to make a difference in education.  Why?  Not because Christians will never cheat. shouldn’t but we will. Christians can make a difference because our view of humanity gives us a better foundation for education.

No Child Left Behind attempts to reign in failing schools and systems. The motivation is right, but just regurgitating on a test doesn’t make you educated. It treats students like empty brains and incentivizes teachers to teach for a test and not for life.

Neal Postman once wrote that modern education fails not because it doesn’t teach facts and figures, but because it offers no vision of a coherent, connected life. We aren’t just knowers, we’re dreamers, and lovers and our knowledge needs to be tempered and shaped by virtue and character, and accountability to God and man. That’s a vision we can offer the culture.

Further Reading

Investigation Finds Widespread' Cheating in Atlanta Schools
Kayla Webley | Time | July 6, 2011

Technopoly
Neil Postman | Vintage Books USA, 1993

Lost Tools of Learning
Dorothy Sayers | Oxford, 1947

• Posted at 12:25 pm by John Stonestreet
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