Education: Skills or Character?

In The Emperor's Club, there is a fascinating exchange between the revered teacher, Mr. Hundert, and a United States senator, whose son is one of Mr. Hundert's students. The arrogant senator tells Mr. Hundert that his work as teacher is to teach his son skills, and emphatically not to shape his son's character. "I will do that," he ends emphatically. And it was transparent that the son had learned his miserable character from his father.

As a public school teacher, I can say emphatically that this is the message of contemporary education. The curriculum is skills-based, not character-based. Sadly, it fails at both.

Philosophy of education is not something that most people think about on a daily basis (except those whose profession it is to do so), and yet it profoundly affects us as individuals and as a society. Those of us who have preschool aged children have a unique opportunity to develop and implement a philosophy of education for our children that not only forms the framework of what we do at home, but how our children understand what they receive when they enter school.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons that classical Christian education appeals so much to me. The classical ideal embraces the suggestion I have made that education is more primarily about the formation of a person's character, and that the cultivation of particular necessary skills serve this end. If I was to embrace simply the vision of classical education, I would deny the gospel, because the classical model purports to cultivate truly noble character apart from new birth in Christ. That is what draws me to Christian classical education; it has as its foundation the gospel - that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge - and makes its aim to shape the character of its students.

Here, under the influence of Lesslie Newbigin, is where I depart from the mainstream of Christian education, or even Christian classical education. If indeed the gospel is public truth, and not just true for Christians, then it follows that the business of classical Christian schools is not just to admit students who profess faith in Christ, but to admit all students who are willing to participate in the course of study. For those who embrace this philosophy of education and send their children to public schools, the import is no less great. The Gospel is not a private story that we tell our children at home; it is the story that informs how we receive all instruction, and as Lesslie Newbigin says:

The story the church is commissioned to tell, if it is true, is bound to call into question any plausibility structure which is founded on other assumptions. (Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian p236)

This is how putting one's children in public school (or private non-Christian schools) sets us about the business of happy proclamation.