Response reading to something I read this one time in one of my classes.

I am reading RECOVERING THE LOST TOOLS OF LEARNING by Douglas Wilson. In many ways this book as in exposition, a tried and demonstrated response to Dorothy Sayer’s Essay, “The Lost Tools of Learning”.

“Kicking a kid out of school because of behavior problems is akin to kicking someone out of a hospital because they are sick” [my paraphrase](p 130)

Perhaps understood, but the small phrase should be broken down to show that what is really happening is that there is a misunderstanding about what a school is for. (Remember to always ask, “yes, but what is it for?”

In this case – school is for teaching and educating. A hospital is certainly for the sick. 

In this analogy, education is being looked at as the cure to bad behavior. The thought is that if a person just learns, they will fix their disposition toward life and become more disciplined, etc. Their lives will improve because of this. But this is untrue. The thief that goes to a good and proper classical  school, without repentance in heart, only comes out an extraordinary thief, having learned to use tools of deduction and planning to his advantage. If anything, the school is an amplification tool. Amplifying the ability to learn and act on that knowledge; giving tools to accomplish it. 

The school is not a hospital. And it can’t be. Many more students will suffer because the educational system believes that merely giving someone more knowledge will solve the problems. The place to fix a sick student is in the home, with the love and care and attention (true attention) of mom and dad. And you need both. But this is another problem which needs to be fixed. The fast answer here is that many need to repent and embrace the way of The Lord which is true and better than any other way. And to speak as harshly as possible, wives should submit to their husbands, and husbands should live sacrificially for their families. 

That may seem like an odd place to go, but the family suffers most because people don’t understand what a family is for. Generally speaking, modernism as a philosophy has ruined the family. Modernism is unable to sustain a family. And a family that truly wants that deep fellowship and goodness of a household will keep on having sad results in the unity department. Why? Because modernism wants efficiency. 

Efficiency says that dad has to go work in a factory somewhere. Efficiency says that you are not an expert, send your kids away to someone else to learn. Efficiency is having one section of a production line in one part of the city and then the complimentary process in another. Efficiency is saying that the child cannot sit in church and so must be placed in a kids ministry where their sense will be bombarded to “keep their attention”. Efficiency is the men having their own bible study, and the woman having their own thing, and the youth having their own thing and thus… separated. Never together. 

Recently it’s been called “siloed” ministry, but this fails in explaining why – it’s inefficient to do it a different way. Christians, or believers have somehow become some sort of product that could be manufactured. The argument may come that churches are not doing that and how dare I make such a fallacious statement, but effectively, in practice, what churches are doing is perpetuating the modernistic version of efficiency. 

Because I am simply sharing what I understand to be the problem as I read through certain books, and this mostly meant as a study tool for myself to think through a problem, i’ll offer only brief solutions. 

1. Education is discipleship. If you send your kid to an institution that hates God, they are going to learn how to hate God. Additionally, If you send them away and never spend any time pouring into them yourself you are going to wake up wondering why your progeny doesn’t find your opinions or advice all that interesting or important. Sending your kid to a “good school” is good, but pouring into your own kid is still incredibly necessary. 
2. But if we homeschool we can’t afford to live. Yes, you won’t be able to afford it. But if you’re a Christian, the first thing you should look at is your obligation to the Lord. He has given you children to bring up in the care and admonition of the Lord. Your primary objective is to love and TEACH your children the ways of the Lord. No home, or life style is worth losing your children for. This is a hard sacrifice – but it is the choice our world (especially in california and other bigger urban areas) it has left us with.
   1. It gets mighty tempting to ignore your kids so that you can have “homes”, and shiny new objects. 
3. Love your kid. Every day, sit with them, tell them you love them, discipline them, teach them something, learn something together. This particular thing is available to every parent Christian or pagan. But only the Christian can offer it up as an act of obedience, honorable and acceptable to the Lord. A living sacrifice.