ARTICLE TOOLS

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Recently, public conversation surrounding Christianity and the education system has focused on concrete policy issues: Should public schools teach Intelligent Design? Does the "under God" phrase really violate the Constitution? Or is this just another effort by those who did away with prayer in schools? And don't forget the debate over using vouchers to attend religious institutions.

Each of these issues provokes valuable discussion about the role of religion in public life. And the passionate rhetoric on both sides often pushes evangelical parents to take sides. In fact, parents most commonly weigh in by deciding: public or private?

The issue is complicated by the related questions of private Christian or homeschool, traditional or classical curricula. For many families, the choice between public schools and their alternatives is complex and deeply personal. Parents evaluate academic strengths and weaknesses, as well as the values promoted in the classroom. They consider extracurricular opportunities and the atmosphere where their children will learn social norms.

Each of these concerns demands consideration. Taken together, they point to a deeper question historically addressed by the Christian community: What is the purpose of education?

In her tome to classical education, The Lost Tools of Learning, Dorothy Sayers contends that, "If we are to produce a society of educated people, fitted to preserve their intellectual freedom amid the complex pressures of our modern society, we must turn back the wheel of progress some 400 or 500 years, to the point at which education began to lose sight of its true object, towards the end of the Middle Ages."

But what is the true object? As she explores the methods employed in the Middle Ages, Sayers concludes that education's primary goal is to teach people how to think. "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."

Building on the belief that children ought to be taught "the art of learning," a growing number of Christian schools are turning to the classical model. According to the Association of Classical and Christian Schools (ACCS), the Trivium model (grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric) ought to equip children with the skills necessary for critical thinking, learning disciplinary vocabularies, and articulating belief systems.

For the ACCS, acknowledging their Christian heritage includes a "Great Books" program. In what purports to be postmodern society, the "Great Books" model has often come under fire. But the ACCS holds firmly to its importance.

Derived in part from Augustine's belief that "students of Scripture must have knowledge of the natural world, of mathematics, and of music," this model extends the object of education beyond Sayers's initial goal. ACCS educators expect that well-educated children "can adequately provide the Christian antithesis to the humanistic arguments of our heritage that are still being advocated by our godless culture today."

The classical Christian model has found a close ally in homeschooling. Though the homeschool movement was initially perceived as a simple reaction to the secularism of the public school system, many parents have found that educating their children independently allows them to explore a broad range of educational objectives.

Many homeschooling families also acknowledge the important socializing function of education. Homeschooling, they claim, provides an emphasis on personal discipline and gives students the opportunity to interact with people outside their peer group.

Clearly, the classical and homeschool models don't have the last word on why Christians educate. In fact, the emphasis on socialization shares roots with mainstream educational practices in public schools today. The contemporary education system got its start in the early 17th century when Comenius, a young Czech Pietist, rebelled against the medieval system, which he viewed not as academically liberating, but as oppressively strict, coercive, and hopelessly abstract—especially for younger students.

Comenius not only divided elementary schools into grade levels, he broadened the scope of what children studied. He believed that schools should address all possible realms of knowledge, including morals and piety. He sought to move beyond his own war-torn religious background, and trusted that education had the power to bring together "people of diverse backgrounds in a common understanding." The true object of education then was not a particular subject, belief system, or even the development of any technical or professional skills. Rather, education set out to "complement the gospel by fostering international restoration, unity, and peace."

Generations later, with little regard for educational theory, D.L. Moody picked up a similar refrain. But Moody pushed the purpose of education beyond fostering humanitarian values and preserving cultural traditions. His institutions "spurned the classical education in Greek and Latin…. They set out to turn out efficient workers in the shortest possible time, teaching them only what they needed to know in order to become effective and consecrated workers." Within a few short years, Moody made evangelism a force to be reckoned with. In fact, the conflict between traditional knowledge systems and practical necessities is still one of the hotly debated issues in Christian higher education today.

Never a scholar himself, Moody believed in providing opportunities for the underprivileged. He designed his institutions not only to draw—and convert—the unchurched, but also to produce men and women who, though armed with academic knowledge, were first and foremost evangelists.

Most contemporary evangelicals don't send their children to public schools for the sole purpose of evangelizing their peers. Still, the rhetoric of Christian witness is one of the key issues in the public vs. private school debate.

Many of those advocating for Christian involvement with government schools say withdrawing from the public schools isolates Christians and removes a positive moral presence from the mainstream. For others, it's a higher stakes issue of fulfilling a Christian responsibility to society: engaging its neediest members while advocating for justice, equity, and excellence. A closer look reveals that these two groups ultimately share similar goals.

So the question remains: What is the purpose of education? Educational excellence? Apologetics? Social responsibility? Faithful engagement with the material world? Perhaps in the end, the answer is all of the above. By asking the question and making the best choice for each individual child, we give children the opportunity to fulfill the highest purpose of education: to explore God's world and all that is in it. By knowing it, they will honor him more fully.

Melody Pugh is a Chicago-based freelance writer and graduate student in the humanities.