Education: It is a commitment!

I am reading a book entitled, Between Memory and Vision: The Case for Faith-Based Schooling by Steven C. Vryhof for my time as a Van Lunen Fellow this summer. It is excellent; here are some of my thoughts produced by it.


David Purpel, in his book, The Moral and Spiritual Crisis in Education, writes about the nature of education and makes the following profound statement:

"Education requires not only knowledge and skills, but also a commitment to a vision of who we are and what we should be." This statement must be understood by every Christian currently contemplating education choices for their children.

Consider this: John Westerhoff, in an address to Christian Reformed Ministries Institute, stated that "by the time children are twelve years of age, they have spent more hours in school than they have spent with their families and religious communities combined. Indeed, it would take seventy-five years of attending church and church school regularly to equal the school's influence in the first twelve years of life." I will add that those twelve years are important in the total development of the child as their worldview becomes concrete around the years of twelve and thirteen.

What happens if those twelve years of school are filled with non-Christian or anti-Christian sentiment? Will it matter?

If the nature of education is as David Purpel writes, a commitment to a vision of who we are, and what we are to be, then, we Christians, must be careful when considering educational institutions that do not share our worldviews, values and belief systems. Often, when considering educational choices, we tend to look at all the pragmatic elements of a school and never go very deep in the spiritual and philosophical areas.

We, in America, tend to think that bells and whistles equate to academic excellence when, in fact, there is no direct correlation; they are to different things. If they both happen to be excellent, it is the result of two different applications of the vision of excellence. I believe we are to be excellent in all things, but we are never to sacrifice academic and spiritual excellence for all the bells and whistles, no matter their luster nor their shine.

As you contemplate the educational choices for your children, please consider the information above and the books mentioned. Blessings!