Inconsistent Presuppositions

I admit that I am slightly off when it comes to my view of reality. I have this curse; you know the one... I expect people to say what they mean and mean what they say and have it all come together at the end. I am disappointed more often than not, and many times I am most disappointed in myself. That kind of bizarre thinking brought me to the point of a life change years ago... Christ broke into my life and changed me.

He used this whole idea of consistent presuppositions to open my eyes to His world before me. He made it concise and clear... that He is the only worldview that can be lived out consistently. It is only the Christian worldview that comes together at the end to form a nice neat bow.

You see... the world really is a matrix of sorts. As you and I view the world, we do so through a lens composed of presuppositions. Everyone has them, and they dictate what you believe and support. We believe in one thing and can not fathom how someone could believe the opposite of what we believe with as much passion... presuppositions. Where this matrix idea comes into the equation is where we met this idea of inconsistency.

Inconsistency is usually not a positive thing. If your inconsistent at work, no matter what you do, you will not be doing it long. Inconsistency, defined, is this idea of containing or possessing incompatible elements. If your worldview is inconsistent it is because it contains incompatible elements. When it contains incompatible elements it will not stand alone, that is unless it is secured through a matrix of sorts. We live in a matrix of belief. The media keeps us secure in our inconsistencies by repeating, as much as possible, the truth they want us to believe. We are all so connected that it is quite easy to accomplish this task. Because of this matrix of belief, we have become conditioned to believe what ever we hear the most, regardless of whether it connects to any other truth we have heard in the past. The matrix, if you will, is built on the truth being rooted in those who have the power to repeat at the highest level, with the greatest quantity and the loudest volume.

What all of this has produced is a people who live quite comfortably within inconsistent presuppositions that do not connect and are not even related. Christians are just as guilty as everyone else. We do not live consistent lives either. As I read the gospels, I see Jesus living a life based upon what He believes. His presuppositions all connect and flow out of this idea that He is God. He refuses to let situations and circumstances dictate His actions. Instead, he lets His beliefs/worldview/presuppositions dictate His actions, and they are always consistent, regardless of the situation.

As we watch our country go through some tough times, we watch, first hand, the consequences of inconsistent presuppositions. A government that seeks to remove every moral and godly reference from its public will not get much help when it asks its public to exhibit Christian virtues. The government desires its people to serve and sacrifice for the greater good, yet the greater good was removed from the social fabric of this country long ago. The current fabric is one composed of self, pleasure, entertainment... the individual good. We have been weaving this fabric for years, and it is fairly strong. I am not confident that slamming on the brakes of the current mindset and asking the individual good to sacrifice for the greater good will offer any help. Time will tell!

What is the answer? I know of only one sure answer to all of these questions... Jesus Christ. He was my answer; maybe He is yours! Blessings!

The King's Chair

The picture in this post is off King Edward's chair. It is found in Westminster Abbey. The King's chair or throne, if you will, was reserved for only one... the king. As I was reading through my devotion this morning, I came upon an interesting quote about the church. The quote was,

"If we, as the “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9), would step back into our place, and observe Jesus seated at the Father’s right hand, our church would be transformed into his Church."

As I reflect back on my walk with Jesus, I can see that there are times when I am sitting in a seat reserved for one... my Lord. Those are the times when I need Him in His seat the most yet, my pride rationalizes to the point of justifying my place in that seat.

Whether it be my throne or the church's throne, there is only one king and one throne reserved for that king... Jesus Christ. I wake each morning with a desire to rid myself of the sin that weighs me down and gets in my way, and truth be told, my first movement is not a stride forward. No, it is, instead, a move upward as I push myself to stand up from the throne and move aside so its rightful owner can sit.

My problem... our problem is that we want to be in control; we want to be king. We are sitting in a seat reserved for someone else. When we realize that our best movement is to stand up and move aside, then, and only then, will we make individual progress and collective progress against the sin that holds us prisoner. It is sin that prevents us from being what God created us to be... loving examples of Him. Sitting in the wrong chair puts us in the wrong seat and out of action. Once we get comfortable in that chair it will be hard to get up and back into action. May your first movement be up and not down. Blessings!

More Chesterton

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people."

G.K. Chesterton

Education and Change

How does education, as a whole, handle change? Change does take place, and it does exercise influence, but maybe, not as you might think.

Change, defined by Webster's is always defined in terms of something occupying time and space. For our purposes today, we will look to the area of philosophy and view change through that lens.

Common definitions of change in the field of philosophy include the idea that change in something implies the passage of time. Aristotle argued that change is different than time because time passes at one consistent rate; change does not. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

"The obvious move to make when confronted with the fact that things change, is to say with Kant (1781) that they change in relation to time, which avoids the inconsistency. But then another problem emerges. In what sense can one thing persist through change? Identity across time and space is the mark of universals, but we also account particulars such as billiard balls and persons as having self-identity across time."

Now, let's take this concept of change, which is still up for debate as to how to measure it, and factor it in to education, and go forward. We know change exists, but we do not know how to measure it; do we ignore it? How do those in education factor change into the equation? We know students change. We know teachers change. School buildings change and books get old and change. Should change be part of the conversation in regards to the education process?

Education is an abstract idea, if you will, filled with concrete parts hoping to obtain an end product defined by more abstraction. There are universals in education... tests, quizzes, books, teachers and students, but some of these things define the process and some do not. And, each tangible part to this process has change factored into it in some way. We have depreciation costs for our buildings, book fees for our books, tuition for our schools and salaries for our teachers, but where is change addressed for the process of education as a whole?

Over the years, many have contributed to this process in positive and negative ways, but have those who contribute ever consider the power of change on the process? I believe when considering education issues this idea of change must be part of the process because it does weigh influence over the process. Change is a powerful affectation... too powerful to not consider.

The chart in this post identifies certain steps to behavioral change. Whether you agree with them or not matters little to the actual issue of change in regards to you. There is still a tangible element to the process of behavioral change - you- and, therefore, a way to measure change in this process, albeit not perfectly. You are the one that can identify whether the steps worked or did not work. Education does not have this advantage as the process itself has been open to discussion and debate since the beginning of time.

Like some of my past posts, I tend to create more questions than answers. I have no answer to our dilemma of measuring change inside the educational process, but I am making a suggestion that may warrant more discussion. Change must be considered in the educational conversations because it does exist and does weigh influence on the process. If we do not consider it we do a disservice to our children and the educational process as a whole. Stay tune for more thoughts on this subject as I do further reading. Blessings!

College Football or Professional College Football?

With "The" Ohio State debacle fresh in every one's mind, the rather large elephant in the room must be addressed now. Is it time to pay college athletes, especially football players?

I have always been a huge advocate of this idea of student-athlete because I feel athletics is a great classroom, and, if addressed properly, will contribute to the collective development of the student-athlete. But, and this is a rather large "but," today's student-athletes are being used like mules to rake in millions of dollars. Today, college coaches make millions of dollars a year, universities make millions of dollars from bowl games and conference TV deals and student-athletes still play by the same NCAA rule book from many years ago. This hardly seems fair.

Now, I am not absconding the student-athletes from blame; on the contrary, they must accept their responsibility as well. They do get a free education, room and board, books and all the food they can eat, but again, they are still merely kids, large kids, but kids, just the same. We tend to forget that those who play on Saturdays are 18, 19, 20 and sometimes even 21. Does the school and the NCAA not have a responsibility here to these kids? Is this not like putting a piece of meat on a hungry dog's nose and asking that dog not to eat the meat while you sit in front of the dog and eat meat? Again, we provide them the best equipment, the best dorms, the best food and countless other "legal" perks while flying them all over the country to play games televised to millions of people; we ask them to practice long hours and perform at high levels, and if they do not we fire the coaching staff that has become their segregate family. And, on top of all this, we get upset if their grades are average or failing.

Can we really call these players student-athletes during football season? Maybe a better name for them in season would be independent study athletes because that is what most do during the season. The university hires tutors who go to class and take notes and then tutor the players one-on-one when time allows. What is the solution? I do not know and am not pretending to know. But, I do know this: the room is too small for this ever-growing elephant! Blessings!

Views of Education

There are many views of education these days. What is education? What is educational reform? Where do we start with the reform? Christian, private and public all look long and hard at education with the same lens and question: how do we improve it?

Warren Smith writes,

"True education reform takes place once the classroom door closes. A recent report by the National Council on Teacher Quality (“Human Capital in Seattle Public Schools”) reinforces this point. The most effective education reform begins and ends in the classroom. Nothing we do at the state level can replace the value of a superior teacher."

If that is true, and I believe it is part of the answer, then the teacher becomes a very important part of the puzzle regarding education. Mr. Smith steps into this puddle and asks hard questions like what makes a great teacher. He writes,

"The best teachers value their students as individuals. Danyell Laughlin, an English teacher in Silverdale, works tirelessly to show students that each one “of them is valuable and has valuable things to share.” Every child is a priority, and because that child is valued, that child values learning.

Our best teachers foster a respect for self and others, a love for learning, and a child’s capacity to dream and achieve those dreams.

The best teachers also believe that each and every child can learn. Their belief in their students is contagious.

The best teachers succeed with all students. They are open and approachable, able to relate to all as individuals and still lead the gathering of those individuals as a purpose-driven class. The superior educator has wall-to-wall impact; children lucky enough to find seats in their classes need not worry about being left behind. That overused term is more than just policy fluff here; it is a daily practice. These teachers are catalysts incarnate, capable of sparking learning in all students."

What he is referencing here is that our best teachers have... Christian values. You will not find the word "Christian" in his article, but you will find those traits all over his ideas about what makes a great teacher. He goes on to write about the idea of mentoring and how all teachers must be mentors; sound familiar?

As the world struggles to find plausible solutions to our educational issues, those sincere in their pursuit will stumble onto truth at times. And, that truth will always be rooted in Christ. The rest of his article is worth reading. Blessings to all!

Educational Equality

Well, summer is finally here, and I, for one, am gratefully. It has given me a chance to think a bit on the future of education, and this notion of equality. Is it really possible to provide everyone a high quality education?

Let's first start with the idea of equality; what do we mean by educational equality? Do we mean equal opportunity, equality of outcome, equality of condition, equality before the law... all of which are social concepts. Or, do we mean logical equality, as in math? For our purposes here, I will simplify our discussion by assuming that we are speaking in terms of equal opportunity. I make this assumption because I believe looking at educational equality through this lens is really what we should do. I am sure you are wondering what I mean. Let me explain.

The vast majority of education provided to the majority of students in this country is education designed in accordance with education of the past. Education has always been about indoctrination; early in our history its purpose was indoctrinating the many into citizens of this country. It was a process rooted in content, repetition and memorization, and its purpose was clear... citizenship. A process rooted in content produces students who learn the content and reproduce the content. While this is good, it is not going beyond the surface. Memorization is only the beginning of thinking that is abstract. Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning, which is found in his Cognitive Domain, identifies memorization and comprehension as the first step in a five step process of thought and decision making. Once memorization and comprehension are mastered students are to move to higher levels of thought like analysis, synthesis, application and discovery. A process that is still rooted in content produces students who are, in essence, the same. and educational equality is achieved, as all students will know the same content. In my opinion, that is not equality; instead, that is standardization.

Educational equality needs to be equal opportunity. We should be providing students with the skill sets that will put them in position to learn anything, which provides them all equal opportunity to a bright future. But, be warned, even if we do provide an education that readies students for a bright future, there will never be equality. Even if all students take advantage of this equal opportunity, will all students reach the same place... the highest level? Statistically, no, that is impossible. To borrow a wonderful line from the Pixar classic, The Incredibles, "if everyone becomes great then no one really is great." The reality is this: the only way to make everyone equal is to lower the standards and make everyone... average. An educational process rooted in content will do that, but one rooted in skills and excellence that is qualitative will provide each student with the opportunity to soar.

Isn't that what we should be doing? We can not provide every student with the education they need unless every student is motivated to get that type of education. Education, especially high school education, requires as much from the student as from the teacher. A teacher can not make a student want a great education. There will be a personal responsibility on the part of the student that is an important part of the process, and that aspect is usually instilled in church and home.

Educational equality, in my opinion, should be educational equal opportunity. Every student should be given the opportunity to learn how to think, discern, think critically and in higher categories and work hard in order to position themselves to reach their dreams. Have a great summer!