# Reforming Education



## CatechumenPatrick (Mar 10, 2010)

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of education. We’ve had discussions here on PB about homeschooling, classical education, college education, and so on, that are very helpful. I’d like to think about education now, though, more broadly, and I’m hoping many of you will offer your insights.

I probably don’t need to convince anyone here of this, but the state of education in the U.S. (not to mention other nations like the U.K.) is nothing less than horrifying—and that was true without the added effects of the economy. I can’t provide the citation, but I’ve heard it quipped many times that, among post-industrialized nations, the U.S. ranks near the bottom in standardized test scores, while, when asked how they compared to students from other nations, U.S. kids were most likely to think they ranked at the top. At worst, that tells us (what we probably already know) that kids in the U.S. are increasingly unintelligent and overconfident. More troubling than test scores (whatever they’re worth) is the findings of recent studies like the Kaiser Family Foundation study on media use trends in 8-18 year olds, online here: http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf. Media use in this age range went from an average of 8:33 a day in 2004 to 10:45 a day in 2009 (that includes overlapping use—the actual hours are something like 7:38). So, on average, kids 8-18 spend 4:29 a day watching TV while only 38 minutes reading. 

Combine this with the recent plummet of higher-education's funding and quality. Even without the recession, we all know higher-education in the U.S. has glaring holes. A few years ago I was an English tutor and TA at an average 4-year university. Though it was rather rare, I saw students graduate who were illiterate. More commonly, I saw students graduate who could not write in complete sentences, who would struggle to read young adult fiction, let alone Dickens, the Constitution, or the Bible. But now the most recent trends (that many of us no doubt saw coming for a long time) are to fund only those programs that have quantifiable social and economic benefits. The humanities—if they are to continue to exist—must justify their usefulness on pragmatic grounds. Already the humanities are dying. Almost a dozen senior, tenured humanities faculty at Kings College, London were recently fired. Professors in a number of university systems are being required to re-apply for their jobs. In most systems there is a freeze on funding for the humanities. At some, like publically funded universities in Pennsylvania , departments with less than 35 students majoring in the subject (which would include most of the humanities) have to prove their usefulness, and if they can’t, they will not be able to award any majors. Ironically, no doubt, at many of these schools the administrative budget is outrageous compared to the usually already meager humanities budgets. But there are also many cases, like the U-Cali. systems, where the money is simply not there. (All of this and more can be found at Home - The Chronicle of Higher Education.) 

Most of this concerns the “secular” world but it’s not like Christians in the U.S. are any better educated, or Christian colleges any better institutions—although they do often support the humanities more than state colleges. The fact the books like The Shack and movements like the Emergent church and pop-Christianity are as popular as they are shows, again, what we already know—that most Christian groups are anti-intellectual and (by choice!) pitifully uneducated, especially in areas relevant to understanding the Bible. 

This is a big problem for our churches, and that’s perhaps my main worry. Uneducated people cannot understand the Word and it preached. People who know only what their TVs tell them lack the categories for doing anything in this world except spending money and being pleasured—let alone understanding the full-fledged Christian worldview. People who are not taught to think critically, who are not given ample facts about history, science, literature, and the many (even false) ways other people have tried to understand the world, are the most susceptible to propaganda and exploitation, both of which are extra barriers to understanding the gospel. 

I’ve probably told you nothing new. What I’d like to hear, though, is your thoughts on how we as both Christians and, in some cases, teachers (at whatever level, including homeschoolers of course) can do to stop these trends towards anti-intellectualism and pro-unintelligence. On one hand, 1) what ideally would be best? Ideally, how should education from infancy to college be organized and implemented for your family and for the U.S.? But let’s not just think about ideals. 2) What can we (qua-Reformed) do, practically speaking? What can and must we do in our own families and churches, and as teachers the elementary, high school, and college level (I will, for one, be a TA at a state university, in the humanities, so any advice there would be helpful!) to make sure our generation and the upcoming do not continue its plummet into complete stupidity? I appreciate your thoughts.


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## christianyouth (Mar 10, 2010)

Change the emphasis of early education from acquiring specialized knowledge to developing thinking skills, especially reading skills

Individualize the student's curriculum so that they can constantly be challenged instead of feeling that the subject matter is 'easy'.

After changing the emphasis on developing thinking skills in the early years there should be a lot more free-time available for each student, so the students should be able to have time to explore different subjects. 


The other insight that I got from an Indian student attending UofM this last summer was that execessive emphasis on 'homework' and written work actually inhibits the education process. In India they only take one test a year, I guess. This allows them a lot more time to explore and absorb the material, whereas in our current educational system, tests are set up to make sure you are learning the material. So instead of having ample time to explore some new concept and then consider how it relates to another concept, coherentist epistemology and assurance in the Christian life or whatever, you spend a lot of time doing work that might not be very productive for the gifted student. I think that the emphasis on 'home work' is for the unmotivated student. Harold Bloom doesn't have to answer 'question for reflection' after reading an excerpt from a Shakespeare play in order to appreciate and explore the material, but typical publicly educated student A might.

Here is a good talk by Malcolm Gladwell that also has some relevance to this. About mid-way through the talk he begins talking about genius and IQ, about Chinese students vs American students and what lessons we can learn from Asian students, and about the effect of summer vacation on retention of material.

[video=youtube;QHxf68nb_-o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHxf68nb_-o[/video]


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## Eoghan (Mar 10, 2010)

Here in Scotland we are about to see massive reforms (CHANGES) in education. What always strikes me is that there is an underlying presumption in favour of change. This latest one is (as I understand it) to put the emphasis on learning by doing, on process skills rather than conceptual understanding.

The problem with this is that to learn by doing takes time. With a finite time there has to be a reduction in content to accommodate a change in the learning style. Unfortunately this reduces what is actually taught and the ability to "join in the debate" which seems to be a constant echo.

No, we stand on the shoulders of giants such as Newton, Einstein etc... We learn as much as we can of what they discovered and this is how knowledge is transferred.

In a different context I was interested to note someone say that the Federal Vision leaders were by and large new to the Reformed faith. They came in fresh and rather than take stock of what others have learned seem to have started from scratch in some ways.

Spiritually we stand on the shoulders of others and educationally we stand on the shoulders of others. I am maybe not explaining what I have been thinking clearly but perhaps some will catch the thread of what I am trying to say.


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## christianyouth (Mar 10, 2010)

Patrick, as has been noted in other threads, education doesn't promise the same benefits as it once did. In colonial NE, in order to attain to a position of prominence in church or state, you had to have a certain set of knowledge and a certain level of intellectual development. But it today's society, you can make very good money and attain high status positions without being truly educated. So given that education no longer serves as the gateway to distinction and economic stability, why receive education? How can you motivate a typical US public school student to be educated?

I mean, knowing Latin will not necessarily make you program any more efficiently or increase your management skills, so why learn Latin?

So in what way does motivation effect the performance of students, and is there anyway to increase their motivation? How would you try to do that?

Thanks,
-Andy

(in my post I'm not associating education with a college degree, since as you noted, there are people who graduate with the college degrees and are not educated)


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## CatechumenPatrick (Mar 11, 2010)

Hey Andrew, Thanks for your comments.
I agree that education should be more focused on building critical thinking skills. Unfortunately, training the ability to think, read, and write critically in a child or an adult is far more time consuming and demanding a task than doing what most public schools do (and even some home school groups from what I've seen), which usually amounts to A) giving the students a problem-set with the needed tools to solve it, B) testing the student's ability to employ the given tools on the problem-set on an exam or assignment, and C) moving on. This ensures the student will be able to handle exactly or closely similar problems on, say, a standardized test, but it fails to involve real, thoughtful capacities. Or, students are given all the unrelated, unorganized facts they can handle, with no way to understand or apply them beyond a highly regulated exam. Teaching critical thinking and a systematic understanding of any given discipline take time and effort that most teachers and homeschooling parents either are not able or not willing to put in. Plus, a Christian education cannot be divorced from sanctification--hence why I cited the trends in media use that seem to show an increasing lack of discipline and self-control in 8-18 year-olds. 

You also ask, 


> So given that education no longer serves as the gateway to distinction and economic stability, why receive education? How can you motivate a typical US public school student to be educated?
> I mean, knowing Latin will not necessarily make you program any more efficiently or increase your management skills, so why learn Latin?
> So in what way does motivation effect the performance of students, and is there anyway to increase their motivation? How would you try to do that



The reason why education is necessary--a liberal education, and not merely job skills--is a big question with lots of good answers, but one of them is probably not because it leads to economic prosperity. One reason is found in the fact that democratic societies require a moderately educated public for stability, another is that Christianity requires moderately educated laity to understand the Bible, sermons, and confessions. Another might be that a liberal education gives people the ability to dissent, make fully-informed decisions, and direct their lives as autonomously as they can (as opposed to being taught only how to program C++ and knowing/doing only that in one's life--that doesn't lead to many thoughtful individuals). But your question about what motivates such an education--in students, techers, and society--is right on target. It seems that the motivation for a liberal eduction is bound up with one's worldview. Reformed Christianity promotes and motivates such an education, as does most forms of Catholic theology. Does naturalism? Perhaps some manifestations, but our culture isn't predominately naturalist. I think it is predominately pragmatist, and will be naturalist or new age or christian depending on what suits the individual at any given time. In a pragmatist secularism, I don't think the humanities have much utility. They don't promote general happiness. They don't "get things done," like the applied sciences do. Hence, if I were to make a modest prediction, I would say in 15 years it is at least likely that the only humanities departments in colleges that remain will be in either historic Protestant and Catholic schools, or in the top research universities that have sufficient funds and few external constraints. And I can't imagine public schools fairing much better.


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## cih1355 (Mar 11, 2010)

I think teachers should give their students more essay/short answer exams even in fields of study such as computer science or engineering. Having students take essay exams is a good way to get them to work on their writing skills. There is no opportunity to demonstrate one's writing skills when taking multiple choice exams.

Students should be given assignments that require the use of critical thinking skills. It is not enough to give them assignments that merely requires them to regurgitate what the instructor said.


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## christianyouth (Mar 14, 2010)

Hmmm.... I really don't know, hopefully some other poster will come to this thread once it gets bumped and interact with what you've said because I don't know much about the academic world or about how the differing world views could influence education. The way education is done is pretty bad. That's about all I know, lol. 

Good points though! It's interesting to look at the root causes like that. I subbed to the thread so if you ever find anything good on this subject or further develop your thoughts on this I'll get an email to come view it.

Curt, multiple choice is really bad eh? I wonder what brilliant educator thought to substitute essay questions with multiple-choice. There has to be something intentional there, like setting up the system so that most students won't become educated. Why else would educators use multiple choice, do you know?

brb picking C because I haven't picked it in awhile


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## au5t1n (Mar 14, 2010)

I picked up an interesting book recently called _Why Johnny Can't Preach_ by T. David Gordon, which discusses, among other things, the inability of many people to understand verbal communication, be it spoken or written, because of their saturation in visual media.


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## kvanlaan (Mar 14, 2010)

> I’ve probably told you nothing new. What I’d like to hear, though, is your thoughts on how we as both Christians and, in some cases, teachers (at whatever level, including homeschoolers of course) can do to stop these trends towards anti-intellectualism and pro-unintelligence. On one hand, 1) what ideally would be best? Ideally, how should education from infancy to college be organized and implemented for your family and for the U.S.? But let’s not just think about ideals. 2) What can we (qua-Reformed) do, practically speaking? What can and must we do in our own families and churches, and as teachers the elementary, high school, and college level (I will, for one, be a TA at a state university, in the humanities, so any advice there would be helpful!) to make sure our generation and the upcoming do not continue its plummet into complete stupidity? I appreciate your thoughts.



First of all, I think cutting out TV is a HUGE step in the right direction. If nothing else, removing the big, passive time-waster from your life will free up time to pursue perhaps more noble pursuits. Four-plus hours a day vegetating in front of the TV is a great way to rot a child's nearly unused brain, not to mention the absolute rubbish that it pipes into said gray matter. Schools would do well to incorporate more of scripture into their curriculum (we use the Heidelberg Cat. as copy-work, a double benefit for the children), and, for Pete's sake, to go back to teaching children penmanship (yes, ditch the laptops for taking notes - write them out instead!) Oddly, it seems (if I read my own advice correctly) that somewhat backward Luddite behaviour can help to regain intellectual growth in our schools. Go figure.


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## py3ak (Mar 15, 2010)

Warfield remarks that in his day people thought the idea of "reading without tears" was remarkable; in other words, it was expected that education would be painful, arduous and disagreeable, but that it was worth it. When you compare the current state of education with the past, that becomes very obvious. George Orwell admits that beating works - you can beat some Latin into the heads of most children, and you can flog them into Greek or mathematics; but those who were educated in that way don't seem to have generally felt, for all its effectiveness, that beating was the best way to pursue education. I'm not recommending it myself - just pointing out that it's quite possible that if you to return to a higher level of education, you may also have to opt for a fiercer discipline.


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## Philip (Mar 15, 2010)

If the university is to survive, it needs to get beyond the "skills-only" mentality that you have described. If it does not, it will find itself swept away by the flood of cheaper training and information available through the internet. There are three possible solutions:

1. The Oxbridge model, which centers on faculty-run institutions with one-on-one tutorial systems. The advantage is mentorship and personal interaction with the teacher.

2. The great books model, which centers on a core curriculum which all students take in the classics of literature, philosophy, mathematics, language, and science. The goal is to read old books and through interacting with them, to develop reasoning and communication skills.

3. The small liberal arts college, which combines the focus of the Oxbridge model with the core curriculum of the great books school. This is the most flexible model and would be the easiest for our current system to adapt to.


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