ENEMIES OF PERMANENT THINGS:
EDUCATION IN A POST MODERN CULTURE
(A Brief Historiography of Changing Views of Education)
Education, Culture, Consensus and Worldview Construction: every cultural group has either a conscious or unconscious world view. Areas of study crucial to the conscious awareness of our own presuppositions are:
1. What is a world view?
2. World view construction: tradition and experience
3. Knowing and thinking
4. Understanding (meaning or relevance)
5. Structuring conversion
6. Uses of solitude
7. Christian education and world view construction
8. Purposes of Christian education: Character before career (See my essay on Cross-Cultural Communication of Christ for an analysis of Hesselgrave’s 'Communication Model'; also Leon McKenzie, Adult Education and Worldview Construction (Melbourne, FL: Krieger pub. Co., 1991; James Sire, The Universe Next Door (Inter-Varsity Press, 1989); and Sire's Loving God With Our Whole Mind (IVP, 1990).
For our more limited purpose we will sketch major Educational Paradigms from the Biblical presuppositions to Post-Modern theories of education. We will note some of the Biblical-Covenant-Promise foundations for education, then we will proceed through:
1. Classical Greek view of education
2. Classical Roman view of education
3. Christian discipleship and character
4. Christian attitudes to pagan culture and learning
5. Classical liberal arts
6. Origins and development of the Christian university
7. Scientific revolutions and 19th/20th century theories of education: from Rousseau's Smile' and Dewey's Progressive Education to the Post-Modern Educational crisis of the 1990's (see esp. Bloom, Hirsch, and Nash and compare with Piaget, Kohlberg, and Spook)
8. The Great Challenge to Christian Education: Modern society has achieved unprecedented rates of formal literacy, but at the same time it has produced new forms of illiteracy.
Crucial Questions:
1. What is the relationship of education to cultural stability?
2. What is the relationship of family order and cultural order?
3. What is the chief function of education in various cultures?
4. What is the chief goal of education?
5. What is the fundamental role of knowledge in society? Wisdom? Truth?
6. How are worldviews, knowledge and cultural consensus interfaced?
7. Historically, how was Greek Paideia related to Christian education and eventually Christian University study?
8. What were some of the chief consequences of the Scientific Revolutions on education?
9. How does Rousseau's theory of education, as presented in Emile', relate to the 19th century demise of personal responsibility'?
10. How did the victory of the Darwinian Method relate to radical changes in theory of education?
11. What impact did Dewey's theory of Progressive Education have on classical Judaeo-Christian concept of education?
12. How does the 'Two-Cultures Debate' (Science/Humanities in education) show up in Post-Modern theories of education?
13. How does educational theory effect the Baby Boomers and their values?
14. How does media's impact become visible in educational test scores?
15. How does 'visibility culture' effect 'audibility' view of education as transmission of classical ideas? (see my critique of Communication Theories; see esp. Evangelicals and Media (Zondervan, 1990); and Dancing in The Dark. (Eerdmans, 1991).
16. How does the globalization of Christianity compel the Church to come into constant contact with our resurgent pagan world and its cultural dynamics?
17. What are some of the differences between early Christian education of the child and education built on Spook's (child rearing) humanistic-naturalistic assumptions?
18. What are some of the challenges to Christian Education from Post-Modern Pluralism?
19. What are the criteria to balance the emphasis on Skill and Content?
20. How has our American Civil Religion helped to privatize the Christian Faith? (First Amendment, Supreme Court Decisions, Emphasis on feeling, balance between Heart and Head, Charismatic Movement, New Age, Eastern Religions, etc.)?
I. Education Among The Jews: (Deut.- place of family in education/keeping the covenant)
No nation has ever set the child in the midst more deliberately than the Jews did. It would not be wrong to say that to the Jew, the child was the most important person in the community. The Jew was sure that of all people the child was dearest to God. Children were God's gifts (see A Rabbinic Anthology (selected by Montefiore and Lowe) was composed of Rabbinic quotations on children; Sayings of The Fathers; and the article, "Education" in Jewish Encyclopedia. Philo declares: "Since Jews esteem their laws as divine revelation, and are instructed in the knowledge of them from the earliest youth. ..." (Leg. ad. Caium 31). Later in Jewish history Josephus writes: "Our ground is good, and we work it to the utmost, but our chief ambition is for the education of our children" (Against Apion I. 12). From the time of Moses the school children read Exodus 20.2-26, the passage which tells of God's revelation of the Law to Moses (also read Lev 1.1; Ezek 3.1-3; read also C. Potok's novels, centering on Rabbinic students and education).
No Sacred/Secular Polarization: In our pluralistic/secularistic world, we must never forget that Jewish education was entirely religious education. There was no textbook except The Scriptures; all primary education was preparation for reading the Law; and all higher education was the reading and study of it. "In the whole range of pre-exilic literature there is no trace of any provision by public authority for either elementary or higher education" (Kennedy in Dictionary of The Bible I, p. 646). So then the Home is the center of the education of the child. "The home must be the nursery of all Jewish virtue. ... In no other religion has the duty of the parents to instruct their children been more stressed than in Judaism," writes Isidore Epstein (The Jewish Way of Life, esp. 196-7, 199). "Of secular education there is scarcely a trace. All the ordinances dealing with education deal with it in its larger aspects as a preparation for the moral and religious life, as a means of developing character" (Morris Joseph in Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics V, p. 194). In Jewish history, "The home was the only school, and parents the only teachers" (Box, Ency of Bible II, p 1190; Proverbs concerning parents of a well-trained child - 10.1; 17.25 23.24) A father had duty to teach his son a trade, as the Talmud declares; "Whoever does not teach his son a trade, teaches him to steal" (Talmud, Erubin 29a; Proverbs 1.8; 4.1-4; 6.20; 13.1; Dt. 4.9-10; 6.7; 6.20-5; 11.19; 32.7,46; Ps 78.4).
Two fundamental things must be remembered about Jewish education: (2) Jewish education was almost exclusively religious education; (2) At all periods of Jewish history, the center is the Home, and the responsibility of teaching the child is something that the parent cannot evade, if he is to satisfy the Law of God. In pre-exilic times there was no such thing as a public education among the Jews (cf. Agricultural context for images used in education - Gen 3.23; Jer 5.24; 14.22; Isa 28.24-9; Amos 4.7; Deut 11.13-17; Lev 4.9; 6.20; 25-23; Ex 13.8; the great national feast - Passover, Pentecost, and the Festival of Tabernacles were crucial times for education of both historical and agricultural significance - Ex 23.14-17; Lev 23.10-12; 16.7,40. See regulations regarding lulab and the citron in Sukkah 3.1-9). The people were not "the people of the book." Few indeed possessed the book and instruction was oral (see my Communication Theories: From Oral. to Visual - library) After the great exile, it wa. -certainly in the-Synagogue that .this-teaching was mainly carried out (From Home to Synagogue - in the Time of Jesus; NT - didaskein, to teach - Matt 4.23; Mk'1.21; Lk 4.15; see my Domain study of Teaching and Preaching vocabulary on the MT and the "communication" section of Nida's, Domain Lexicon).
In the pattern of development between the OT and MT, two bodies of men instruct Israel (1) Scribes and (2) Sages (Prov 7; Eccl 1.14, 16,18,20). Pre-school children were constantly made aware of God through the Mezuzah which contained Dt 67.4-9 and 11.13-21. Wisdom embraces much of what we call culture (egs. Prov 6.6-11; 22.9,25;24.27;21.17; 31.10-31; The Wisdom of Solomon 7.15-22; Ecclesiasticus 38.2-5; 38.24-34;Ben Sirach, Ecclesiasticus 7.23-24; 30.1-13.
New Testament Background: There are two great names connected with Jewish elementary education: (1) Simon ben Shetach (78-69 BC) (2) Joshua ben Gamala (High Priest about 63-65 AD; Paul, Acts 22.3) (cf. Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life in The Days of Christ, p. 134). There is an addendum to the fifth book of The Sayings of The Fathers, which set out the ages of man: "At five years old. Scripture; at ten years, Mishnah; at 13, the Commandments; at 15, the Talmud; at 18, Marriage; at 20, the pursuits of business; at 30, Strength; at 40, Discernment; at 50, Counsel; at 60, Age; at 70, Gray Old Age; at 80, Power; at 90, Decrepitude; at 100, as though he were dead and gone and had ceased from the world" (Sayings of The Fathers, p. 97).
There was only one textbook and that was scriptures and the name of the school was Beth-Ha-Sepher—The House of The Book. Two further issues must be born in mind: (1) education was based entirely on oral teaching (crucial for critique of certain presuppositions of Form Criticism and Redaction Criticism), and therefore it was conducted entirely by repetition (it is possible to repeat without reflecting). (2) Education was to a large extent memorizing (cf. inspiration of Scriptures and long verbatums in the text of NT). This instruction method had one curious effect. The Jews, as did all peoples of the East, read aloud (cf. only after Augustine's influence did the Western Church begin to read silently, see Harnack, Reading The Bible in The Early Church; Reading aloud can break power of distractions in Tour media age. Philip heard the Ethiopian eunuch reading Isaiah in Acts 8.30. The Sayings of The Fathers lists 48 things which are necessary for learning the Torah and the list begins:
"By learning, by a listening ear, by ordered speech" (Sayings 6.6). Repetitio mater studiorum (repetition is the mother of studies) might have been the motto of Jewish education. Basic passages: The Shema, Dt 6.4; Hebrew imperative ‘to hear.’ The Halle 1, Ps 113-118; The Story of Creation, Gen 1-5; The Essence of Levitical Law, Lev 1-8; see all of Neumer's recent studies.
Jewish education has left its mark on western education. The aims of Jewish method is to educate the child in order to fit him to be a servant of God; it is education of children for God (cf. note conflict with naturalistic-humanistic education's chief aim to educate for career rather than character).
II. Aristotle's Theory of Education vs. Classical Homer/Hesiod
The obliteration of the individual in the service of The State (cf. Aristotle, Politics. 8.1,3; Nicomachean Ethics 10.9,13; H. I. Marrou, History of Education in Antiquity, esp. pp. l5ff. The Greeks are to be praised for their great attention to the training of their children and conducted the instruction in a public system.) Classical Greek education, as it developed between Homer and Aristotle, stains from a change in military technique (Marrou, p. 15f). In the Homeric era, the unit of warfare had always been the great individual hero. The presence or the absence of an Achillea meant the difference between victory or defeat. Gradually 'war' was carried on, not by individuals, but masses of infantry made up of hoplitas. Battles were fought by a solid mass of ordinary men. The ordinary citizen became important (Plutarch, Lycurgus 24.1; Herodotus 7. 234; Aristotle, Politics 2.6.12). By employing a custom called the krupteia, the secret service, Spartan education could become education for murder (Plato, Laws,' 673B'; 'Tsocrates, Panathenaicus 27-1B-(18T-). This culture was radically conservative. Its aim was to keep things as they were. Up to 550 B.C. Sparta developed and progressed. After this period of development, Spartan leadership was to maintain the Status Quo. Education in such a cultural context could only at best maintain established tradition.
New knowledge was not to 'change' anything (Marrou, p. 18). Sparta was the one place where the Sophists, the wandering Greek educators, never ventured (see Jaeger's Paideia and Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Form, esp. Vol I, Introduction, which traces the relationship between empiricism, relativism, skepticism, and cultural crisis. The same issues obtain in American Education in the 1990's).
A second crucial ingredient of Spartan conservatism was its hatred of strangers (cf. NT emphasis on hospitality; see esp. K. J. Freeman, Schools of Hellas). Sparta erected a cultural iron curtain so things might remain as they were. Aristotle perceived clearly that Sparta was organized for war. He writes, "In Sparta and Crete both the system of education and the mass of the laws are framed in the main with a view to war." (Aristotle, Politics 7.2.5; Marrou, p. 19, Wilkins, National Education in Greece, p. 9). One crucial difference between Jewish and Spartan education was that every older Spartan citizen was actively engaged in the training of the young. When the boys reached the age of 12, training was intensified. It was under the direction of the Paidonomos; but it was actually carried out by the Eirens. The Eirens were the best of the boys. They were in charge of the exercises (Plutarch, Lycurgus, 17.2,3). The Spartans were notoriously uneducated. The basic Greek system of education had three sections: (2) Reading and writing; (2) Music, the 6th/7th centuries; Sparta had been the musical capital of Greece; (Plutarch, Mus. 1134B; Marrous, p. 17); (3) Gymnastics (Marrou, p. 16). These three elements composed the technical Spartan education (cf. for emphasis on brutality in Spartan education, see Plato, Laws, 633B; K. J. Freeman, Schools of Hellas). It made the state a real family; it taught devotion to that family; it produced physical fitness; it inculcated discipline, obedience, courage; it made it all but impossible for the sins of gluttony, of avarice and of luxury to flourish. But the system was a failure. What then were its fundamental mistakes? (1) It7 was an education which was based on war. (2) Because it was based on war, it was ultimately a brutalizing education. (3) It was a radically conservative "iron curtain" education. (4) Spartan education and civilization were based on slavery. Never was there such a clear differentiation between the privileged few and the unprivileged many. "In Sparta," said Plutarch, "the freeman is more of a freeman than anywhere else in the world, and the slave more of a slave." (Plutarch, Lycurgus, 218.5) (5) Spartan education failed, because it made the fundamental error of working on the assumption that man is the exclusive property of the state, and that therefore he has neither any individual rights of his own-, or in the last analysis, any duty to God. Spartan education failed because it was founded on an impossible doctrine of man (see my Idolatrous Absolutes; and Imago Dei: Man After Humanistic Psychology and Sociobiology).
III. Education Among The Athenians: God, Man and the State in Greek Culture
Which system of education produces the best, or at least, a better man? "Education, said Heraolitus, "is a second sun to its possessors." This is probably the first recorded mention of education attributed to a Greek philosopher. Antiphon writes "the first thing, I believe, for mankind is education." (Freeman, God, Man and State - Greek Concepts, p. 180). For the Athenian, education was never technical education. was never education in the sense of teaching a young person to make a living. "To do anything to extract money was vulgar and ungentlemanly." (Freeman, Schools of Hellas, p. 43; P. Monroe, Source Book of the History of Education from Greek and Roman Period (NY, 1913). The Greek ideal was unlimited leisure, in which unlimited culture could b-acquired. (Note the radical contrast from the mid-19th century forward. The Two Cultures Debate is central to this continuing issue. When Sir Arthur Pickard-Cambridge, was Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University, he applied to the town council for a subvention toward the augmentation of the classical library. One of the counselors who he approached replied: "If you can explain to me how a boy is helped by learning Latin and Greek, I am prepared to support you." "Well," said Pickard-Cambridge, "I can't say that learning Latin and Greek will help a boy to earn five shillings a week more, but am sure that it ought to make him a better man." "My idea of a better man;," was the reply, "is a man who earns five shillings a week more." (H. I. Bell, The Crisis of Our Time and Other Essays, pp. 68,69; new edition of Great Books in a world dominated by timid set of The Carnegie Commission which denies the very concept of Classical Literature as elitist. Hirsch, Cultural Literacy, debates at Ivy League Schools and Stanford over normativeness in literature and thought. Here lies the crisis in education during the 1990's - Pluralistic relativism is no more foundation for education now than then.)
That counselor's view was the exact and precise opposite of the Greek ideal of education. (Issues remain central to Christian education and leadership preparation for 1990's/21st Century). The whole conception of education as something which enables a man to develop crafts and skills and abilities which will enable him to pay his way and to make a living is also quite foreign to the thought of Plato. "No resident citizen shall be numbered among those who engage in technical crafts." (Laws, 846D). An upbringing which aims only at money making or physical strength, or even some mental accomplishment devoid of reason and justice, it would term vulgar and illiberal and utterly unworthy of the name 'education'" (Plato, Laws, 643E, 644A; Aristotle, Politic 8.2f; 8.3f; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria I. 12.17). The ultimate aim of Athenian education was to produce Athenians, who loved beauty and who loved Athens, and who were prepared to serve Athens in peace and in war. The tension between the Man of valor and the Man of wisdom persists in Greek educational history from The Illiad and The Odyssey to Plato's Laws and Aristotle's Politics; Nichomachean, Ethics, 4.2.20).