More on the great myth!

A few weeks ago I wrote about the lack of neutrality within the UK education system that omits God at every point within the curriculum. Neutrality in the great questions of life, it seems to me, is impossible. What we believe about the big questions of life inevitably shapes what we think, how we behave, and what we attach most importance to in life.

Education is essentially about preparing young people to take their place in the world; since we cannot teach them everything, what we do teach these young people inevitably requires that we select certain things as being important enough to be placed within the curriculum and other things that we deem less important. Every education system in the history of humankind has done this. It is out belief system that helps us determine what is most important from what is less important.

The biggest difference between contemporary western education and almost every other educational system in the past is the lack of honestly of our contemporary systems in claiming to be religiously neutral. Previous education systems acknowledged that this was actually a nonsense – it is simply not possible to devise an educational system apart from a belief system. Next week I hope to spend a little time exploring what belief systems underpin western education.

The myth of neutrality in educational curriculum

There has been much discussion of late about the UK government’s plans to introduce a sort of English Baccalaureate with particular concern being raised by many Christians over the exclusion of Religious Education from the list of EB subjects. Now let me say, immediately that I am a supporter of Premier Radio’s REACT campaign to encourage the government to think again on this matter and add RE as one of the options in the list of humanities subjects within the new Baccalaureate. However, I am profoundly troubled by the naïvety and lack of understanding displayed by so many Christians in this debate. For so many, the assumption seems to be that if we get RE added to the options in the English Baccalaureate, then our children will be alright – that our county and voluntary schools will be good places to send children.

Now, a book could be written de-bunking that perspective, but there is one thing that I do want to raise this week. There is a big lie that has been embraced by Christians in the area of education over the last 150 years; namely that secular schools are essentially neutral places when it comes to instructing children about the big questions of life. For so many Christians, who actively support this REACT campaign, the view is that it is OK to leave God out of every other area of our schools – history, geography, science, English and so on, as long as he gets a mention in RE. Indeed , their view would be that this is only just in a multi-faith society. This single act, however, consigns God to the periphery, indicating to children that he is either non-existent or so unimportant that he hardly gets a mention in the important things of life. My problem with this is very simple – this is not neutrality towards the great questions of life, this is practical atheism, this is suggesting to children that the sensible way to approach life is to leave god out; further it teaches children that those people who do take matters of faith seriously are marginal and that faith is nothing more than a personal choice having little or no bearing upon the public world where we all live. As the west becomes increasingly post-Christian in its perspectives Christians really do need to look closely at these issues afresh – the world has moved on and so too have our schools.

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero

Last week I mentioned that I would return to the phrase ‘carpe diem; and spend a little more time reflecting upon it. The phrase is actually part of a longer phrase – ‘Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero’, which actually means ‘Seize the Day, putting as little trust as possible in the future.’ Now Horace was an Epicurean, a follower of a Greek chap called Epicurus who believed that everything that exists is made up of atoms and that gods, if they exist at all take no part in the lives of people. For Horace, therefore, present pleasure was all that existed because the future was uncertain and could be a cause of fear; the Epicureans were big on trying to enter a state of mind which removed all fear. It was these same Epicureans that Paul bumped into in Athens. (Acts 17:16-34) When speaking in Athens, Paul went straight to the heart of the difference between Christianity and Epicureanism when he said, God ‘… is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.’

Our modern age is not very different from that of 2,000 years ago. Whilst there are very few ‘signed-up card-carrying’ Epicureans around today, many people live their lives embracing Epicurean beliefs about life – there is only the here and now, and if God is there at all, he is unknowable and disinterested.

The biggest question that we each have to face is how we respond to Paul’s statement – God ‘… is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.’ Do we embrace the teachings of Epicurus and say that atoms are all that exists – ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’ or do we accept what Paul told the Athenians and then attempt to understand what this means for us in our lives. It is possible, after all, to ‘seize the day’ and waste a life.

Ruth Slack – a life well-lived!

Last Friday, along with a number of colleagues from NorthStarUK, I attended a service of thanksgiving for a wonderful Christian woman called Ruth Slack who passed away two weeks ago. Ruth was 63 and, with her husband Roger, pioneered an innovative Christian school in Stockport as well being prime movers in establishing Home Service, the Christian support organisation for home educators in the UK. At our last biennial Home Service conference in September 2010, Ruth appeared to be well but through the Autumn she became increasingly ill until in January she was diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas. Ruth passed away on the 7th February.

The reason I am sharing this with you is twofold; firstly, Ruth was a giant of faith who lived a life extending God’s Kingdom into education, and in particular home education; she saw this as a fundamental part of her calling to be a Christian. She helped a huge number of Christians, particularly those in the early days of their home education adventure, when they often felt most vulnerable. The second reason I raise this is to return to my Latin phrases of Week 23. You may recall that I wrote of two phrases but only mentioned one – tempus fugit. The second phrase is ‘carpe diem’, which is most often translated as ‘seize the day’. The Roman poet Horace first used the phrase and I intend to return to look at this next week. However, for today I simply want to use it in the context of Ruth’s life. Ruth, as much as anybody I know, ‘seized the day’; she was determined to ‘redeem the time’ and use her life to extend the Lord’s Kingdom primary not through teaching but by example and living a life that was saturated in grace – seizing the day does not always mean being always vigorous and busy – sometimes it can simply mean being who God calls you to be and demonstrating His grace to a needy world.

What schools can learn from John Holt

I am a great fan of the American educationalist John Holt. I am very aware that this does not necessarily endear me to some Christians who struggle with what they perceive to be his radical child-centred educational agenda. Whatever one might think of Holt’s philosophy of learning (and I feel that we have much to learn from it) his assessment of schooling is compelling. Holt argued in his seminal first book ‘How Children Fail’ that the academic failure of children was often not despite the best efforts of schools but actually because of them!  He maintained that structurally, schools are not good places for children to learn in. Writing in the 1960′s and early 1970s’s these were profoundly radical ideas, which in some respects led to the progressive movement in British primary schools during the mid to late 1970s.

Though progressive education with its open plan classrooms and mixed age classes is often ridiculed nowadays, at its best there was much that was wonderfully innovative and creative about it – I can still recall my first teaching practice in an open plan upper junior classroom in Cowbridge in Mid Glamorgan. These were pre-National Curriculum days and children had fun while teachers had freedom to create lessons that were stimulating and focus on the interests of children.

I do not wish to appear nostalgic and there were many failures and disasters in classrooms where teachers simply did not have the vitality, creativity or sheer teaching skills to work in this way with 30 or more children.

Nevertheless we as home educators can learn much from the progressive approach to education. The rigidity of modern western schooling, that has replaced it,  is most certainly not the model that we should aspire to mimic in our homes! And the fact that most of us are only working with two or three children actually means that we have the time to spend being innovative. The challenge for all of us is to be brave enough to be different. Maybe you can add one of John Holt’s books to your Christmas present list and allow Holt to stimulate your thinking!

Another good idea to come out of Rochdale!

Last week I was invited to speak at a meeting in Rochdale in Lancashire. A group of folks are busy setting up an excited new venture known as Gateway Christian Education, aimed at supporting Christian home educators within the region. It is a radical proposal involving a sort of flexi-schooling model where parents an opt into particular activities during the week, ranging from all-age worship in a Monday morning to one-on-one tutorial support in particular IGCSEs on a Tuesday or Thursday.It is an exciting project and one that I was delighted to endorse; I have been a long-time advocate of Christians radically considering the school as an institution and coming up with an institutional alternative that does not resemble conventional schools. Although I am a strong supporter of home-based learning, I know that this is not for everybody; however, monolithic schools that promote a secular worldview and values are not the alternative either.

In recent years, many Christians have become involved in establishing Christian schools, that to all intents and purposes institutionally resemble ordinary schools – children are expected to attend for five days a week, they are segregated according to age, classes are managed by a single adult who makes virtually all of the learning decisions for that group of children. For those of us committed to looking for a Biblical educational model, this seems like a mimicking of the way that everybody else does it! What excites me about the Rochdale project is that these folks have started with a blank piece of paper and asked the most radical question of all – in educational terms; “if we were starting afresh, what would a Biblical educational organisation aimed at educating children and young people look like?”

Now, I do not think that the answer that the folks in Rochdale have come up with is the only one possible; the Lord who has provided us with such a richly varied creation would not permit that. However, I do believe that conventional schools with their rigidity and lack of parental involvement would not be the first choice model. The challenge for all of us involved in Christian education is to explore what a Biblical model of education would look like and be bold enough to move forward into something very different even when that ‘something’ appears quite scary!  If you want to know more about Gateway Christian Education please feel free to visit their web site by clicking here.

By the way – if you want to know what the first good idea to come out of Rochdale was, click here!

Faith Schools’ Fillip?

The following, written by Ross Evans NorthStarUK’s Senior Tutor, originally appeared Evangelical Times. It is a powerful reminder of the opportunities that currently exist within the UK:

Following the General Election, Michael Gove, the coalition Education Secretary quickly set out his priorities for schools.
He confirmed plans for “free” schools and more academies. “I believe, nothing is more important to the fairness of our society and the future prosperity of our country than getting education right.” The coalition government shares an ongoing concern with the previous government that too many children leave primary school every year without meeting basic standards in English or maths and too few 16 year olds get five decent GCSEs.  “So improving literacy, raising pupil’s attainment, extending parental choice, freeing teachers from bureaucracy, improving discipline and closing the widening gap between the richest and the poorest should be our shared goal” These are all reasonable aspirations although begging the question as to the values underpinning the aspirations.
Media attention was overwhelmingly directed towards the ‘ free’ schools and soon there was much debate, discussion and print. Assuming that enough of these schools will take off, how significant will they be in the bigger picture – only time will answer that question. In the meantime, what are these ‘free’ schools?
It is envisaged that these schools will be set up by a wide range of proposers, including charities, universities, businesses, educational groups, teachers and groups of parents. The claim is that in response to parental demand, they will improve choice, and drive up standards for all young people, regardless of background. Free Schools will provide an inclusive education to young people of all abilities, from all backgrounds, and will be clearly accountable for the outcomes they deliver.
What does this mean for Christian groups, existing Christian schools, parents, churches or other groups, who may be interested in this new opportunity?
Is this the opportunity that we have thought about and prayed for many times, that the principle of justice would allow Christian schools to be funded on equal terms with state schools. That at last, Christian parents who would like their children educated out of a Christian perspective would get the opportunity without having to pay twice – through the tax system and through fees. But will they want to? What are the possible advantages and disadvantages?
In the UK, with our roots deep in state schooling, the notion of Free schools, (the terminology itself is not helpful) is a problem. Maybe these new types of schools will in time, open up discussion of the more significant issue behind the notion of choice – to whom do our children belong?  The debate at this early stage has been heated, but after all the argument about buying privilege and whether it will or won’t improve standards, and the likely implications for the LEA management of education, I have heard absolutely nothing on this important question.
The biblical perspective is one of children as a gift to parents who are responsible for the nurture of their children. At some stage before they are five more and more parents voluntarily hand their children over to carers and then from five years of age to teachers. We entrust our children to these adults for many hours a week. How many of us know what values are being shared, or being modelled by the carers and teachers. In most cases in secular Britain, the values being shared are far from Christian. Let’s be clear, education is not neutral. All decisions, important or seemingly unimportant are arrived at out of the values of the Government, an Exam Board, or individual teachers. This is why the debate is so heated about Free schools. Do you believe that the State will run education best, or do you believe that parents should have much more of a say? But why do you believe what you do?
So an opportunity now exists for groups of Christian parents, or for Christian organisations to consider setting up a school. As for the opportunity for existing Christian schools to ‘opt in’ the situation is less clear and needs to be resolved. If managing bodies of existing Christian schools decide to go down this route and new Christian bodies take the opportunity, we need to be aware that the opportunity only exists as a result of a change of government and of ideology. It could be reversed in the future. What would that mean for Christian schooling? We can’t answer that question now. We can only say that at this time the opportunity is there.

Jeremy Clarkson, home education and living in an imperfect world

There cannot be many people in the UK who have not heard of Jeremy Clarkson, the lead presenter in the popular BBC programme, Top Gear. Clarkson has acquired something of a reputation for having strong opinions, especially relating to the impact of what he sees as overly intrusive government in ordinary people’s lives. In addition to his TV appearances he also writes a column in The Times. He often writes with a very direct and some would say offensive style. However, often, his manner of writing hides some very perceptive comments.

In this week’s article, he writes about the UK government’s latest proposal to make it compulsory that all dog owners must have third party insurance so that they (the owners that is and not the dogs!) are able to pay damages when their little pouch attacks somebody. As a long time dog owner I think that the plan is barmy but of course what the government is trying to do is respond to dog attacks and the growing use of large and vicious dogs as status symbols and protection by young men in disadvantaged areas of our cities.

Clarkson also mentions home education in his article, pointing out that it is madness to try to legislate on the back of extreme cases of wickedness such as the death of Khyra Ishaq, whose mother removed her from school claiming she was home educating her. The government’s response to this was the Badman Report and proposed new legislation making it possible for local authority staff to interview children without their parents being present – because abused children are unlikely to say anything whilst the abuser is present!

Clarkson closes his article in a typically direct and crude manner but what he says is that this world is not perfect – bad things happen to very decent ordinary people; and it is nonsense to generate legislation that affects and controls ordinary people’s lives in order to try to stop all of the bad things happening.

What Clarkson is saying, of course, is very much in keeping with the worldview presented in the Bible – we live in an imperfect and fallen world where things are not as they should be, that all human beings behave stupidly and wrongly at times and sometimes that can seriously hurt others. Christians, however, would argue that the answer cannot be found in the hands of government, legislation will never change human nature. Only the gospel can affect people deep within their beings and give us all what Jesus called ‘new birth’. This is God’s ‘good news’ for a world where bad things happen.

Home Page News 1 March 2010

Fundamental to any education system is a system of beliefs – each country’s education system says much about what, as a collective, that country believes to be important in life. Increasingly over the last twenty years, the English ( and Welsh) education system has been characterised by a commitment to national economic development and state control. In this regard, Tony’s Blair’s New Labour and Margaret Thatcher’s New Conservatism had much in common – it was the Conservatives, after all who introduced the national ( or perhaps it is more accurate to called it a ‘nationalised’) curriculum back in 1988. Before the 1997 General Election Tony Blair described education as his government’s best economic policy; which was his justification for spending billions on educational improvements, which appear to have achieved little by way of improving educational standards or indeed society as a whole. Government control over education is tighter now that it has ever been and our children are increasingly being seen as belonging to the state. This is essentially why the Badman fiasco of the last year has occurred, elective home education is the last area of education in this country that the government does not control – no nationalised curriculum, no control over how much learning should occur, no control over the standards of parents, and no control over whether the state allows particular parents to educate their children (although in reality the legislation is already in place to ensure that parents do educate their children in an appropriate manner). In this context, it is little wonder that Graham Badman and the DCSF do not want to look at research that demonstrates the home education works, and by and large, works better than their schools! They are simply determined to bring home educators under the control of the state machinery that manages the rest of the children in this country!

For those of us who are Christians, we need to recognise that we are engaged in a conflict that, in an increasingly secularised society, can only get more challenging. Education is about raising the next generation – the difference between what Christians and the secularised state regard as success in this respect is a gaping chasm, which can only become wider in the coming years. At some point, Christians in Britain need to ask the question – ‘Can a secularised education system raise the next generation of our children – equipped and prepared to live for the Kingdom?’