Richard Ames wrote an article for Tomorrow's World Magazine, March 2022 edition, entitled, “Education or Indoctrination?” in which he asks a thought provoking question,
“How can you be sure that you and your children are being prepared for the future and are learning true and enduring values?”
Here are some great quotes from the article that made me pause, think and reflect on our journey of starting a private, K-9th, Christian Classical academy here in Sarasota, FL and the mounting challenges we are facing.
Western education is not what it used to be.
Our desire to formulate a school using a classical curriculum is in direct response to this statement. Western education has become far to progressive and liberal.
Students are taught that there are no absolutes and that there is no ultimate authority beyond the self. Instead of learning God’s eternal law, they are learning humanism and materialism.
When we mix and confuse our kids with ever moving versions of truths based upon an individual's whims we erode the fabric of society and blur the lines of reality.
Many universities, .. had become havens of nihilism and anti-God sentiment.
Nihilism is the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless. How we can seen the suicide rates of our kids sharply rise within the last decade, no small part to the houses of education rejecting and coming against the standards of God.
While increasing numbers of parents question the values taught in their children’s schools, we should first ask whether “value-free” education is even possible?
All education is taught from a worldview. The question is what worldview do we want our kids to be taught from and which values we want them to emulate?
Christians understand that no social or educational system without God will truly succeed.
Amen. We are seeing it played out in today’s educational system and at a rate of face decay too.
Education based solely on material and physical knowledge is woefully inadequate. When an educational system rejects the existence of God and of spirit, it rejects ultimate reality.
Our children are more than moist robots capable of collecting and regurgitating information like a Google search. We must educate our children holistically.
True education, as scripture presents it, goes far beyond knowledge production; it must teach the spiritual values that give all other pursuits their ultimate meaning.
At SEALS Christian Academy we teach our children Biblical morality. Sure we will teach academics but we also need to teach the spiritual values that give context to what is being taught. Morality can't be divorces from education.
God wants to develop holy and righteous character in His people, and He wants His people to grow in the kind of godly knowledge that will lead them to yield to His Holy Spirit and do good (cf. Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4)
We need more holy and righteous men and women in our culture, not less, and that starts when they are younger.
Science can, to some extent, describe the “what” and “how” of natural laws - yet it cannot explain the “why” of our existence. Such truth can only be explained by the Creator.
Science can only take humanity to the steps of God, not through the door.
True education must be based on the truth of God. All other foundations are ultimately worthless.
This reminds me of the parable Jesus gave about building our lives upon the rock of Christ and not shifting sand. True education leads us to God, who is the definition of truth.
Once you begin to apply the spiritual laws of God as taught in the Bible and magnified by Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, you can have greater understanding and true knowledge.
Because it has rejected true education, our modern world does not know the way to true peace.
Peace is hard to find in Am
erica and it doesn’t take us long to become anxious should we focus our attention upon the evil. Scripture reminds us to seek peace, to pursue it.
A revolution in education will soon come to the whole world, but you can have the same in your own life by making your study of the Bible the foundation of all your other studies.