Levi and Mike Discuss Education

In a previous post we looked at cultural blind spots and chronological snobbery. One cultural blindspot Christians often have is in the area of education. Imagine for a moment, a first-century Jew, a recent convert to Christianity was suddenly and miraculously transported into the 21st century West. Trapped in our time, unable to get back he finds a Christian home to stay in. He would no doubt be impressed by our technology, the abundance and variety of food we enjoy and our ability to travel easily and relatively cheaply. I imagine he’d marvel at the ready access we have to the apostles’ words. He might be disappointed by our zeal. There would also no doubt be many cultural differences that might make understanding difficult.

But I put it to you, that he would be absolutely shocked by our take on education.

Imagine no longer. How I managed to record the following conversation, and by what method Levi, our first century Christian Jew managed to be transported to Auckland New Zealand in the year 2020 must remain a secret.  The key thing is I have the conversation. He’s chatting with his host Mike, father of a 21st century Western Christian family. Can I apologise for Levi in advance? He did not grow up in our pluralistic tolerant age. Consider that your trigger-warning.

Levi: Brother, why do your children leave the house every day and stay at school for so long?

Mike: Well, they’re going to school. It’s important. They need a good education.

Levi: What do you mean by that?

Mike: Well, our world is a complex place. To get a good job, they are going to need to understand it properly.

Levi: Well yes, I entirely agree that children need to understand God’s world. But my question is: why do you send your children to pagans to educate? Your daughter informed me yesterday, that her teacher claimed that Darwin’s theory of evolution means there is no God, and your son said his teacher was explaining the importance of accepting people’s choice of gender. I had to question him to find out what that meant!

Mike: Yes, I have to admit, we are not happy about that, but children have to go to school. It’s compulsory.

Levi: That’s incredible. I didn’t imagine that in the future people would be so fettered by the ruling authorities that they could no longer make decisions about discipling their children.

Mike: Well, there are different types of schools. There are Christian schools – but they cost money, and you can try to get an exemption to homeschool, but that would mean Mandy would have to stay at home to teach the children, and she loves her career.

Levi: But didn’t the apostle Paul say in his epistle to the Ephesians, that fathers, that’s you Mike, are to  not provoke your children to anger, but to instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Mike: How is that relevant Levi? I read the Bible to my children after dinner. I pray for them. I take them to church with me and they have a good Sunday school programme there.

Levi: Well do you think a 10 minute chat once a day and an hour on Sundays in Kids Church fulfils your obligations?

Mike: I guess I could do more. But school’s really just about learning Maths and English you know. How to write and stuff like that.

Levi: But don’t you believe what Paul says of Christ in his epistle to the Colossians? He says, “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Mike: How is that relevant? I don’t understand. What do you mean?

Levi: Well Paul is reflecting on how the Son is the creator of all things and they were created for him, and they hold together in him. What do you mean by saying “They’re just learning Maths and English …how to write and stuff like that?” Are these things part of the created order that exist for the Son? Are they separate to it? And if not, why are you letting pagans who supress the truth about God train your young and impressionable children to do these things in a setting where the trainers deny the Lordship of Christ and his relevance to the universe he brought into being?

Mike: Hold on a minute. Yes I believe what Colossians says. But what’s the harm in getting unbelievers to teach my children how to do Maths, write a sentence…you know, that sort of thing. Isn’t that just part of the common grace that God gives to people?

Levi: Let’s grant you that point for the moment. Although I think you’ll find that what people believe necessarily taints everything. But do you really think that’s all your children learn? What about all of the incidental learning that goes on in the classroom every day? The teacher’s attitude to life, their understanding of the purpose of all learning, their approach to the issues of the day. Do you think that all of this is not going to come out in a classroom? Why, your daughter said yesterday at the dinner table that Ms Halcombe had told the class that her entire job could be summed up as enabling the students to be who they want to be?! You’d think she was the very serpent in the garden himself with words like that!

Photo by Daria Shevtsova

Mike: But Levi, Christ called us to be in the world. We can’t abandon the world. This way our children get to understand the world’s perspective on life, and we can show them how it is wrong. They can also be salt and light, just as Jesus wanted us to be.

Levi: Mike! Let me share you the wisdom that comes from history. We Jews have a sorry history that can teach you a lot. Do you know the story of the Judges? Do you know what led to that terrible period in our history?

Mike: Well, surely you can’t be arguing that it was because your people sent their children to non-Jewish schools?

Levi: No of course not. The story begins in Joshua. As our people crossed into the Promised Land, we set up a stone monument with stones taken from the middle of the River Jordan, which God made dry. The monument was to be a teaching tool. When our children asked what the stones meant, we were to tell them the story of God’s faithfulness in our history. Well of course, the memory of what happened lasted for a generation, but as the book of Judges says, after Joshua’s generation died out, a new generation grew up who neither knew the Lord or what he had done for Israel.

Mike: Yeah. I understand that it’s important that we pass on what God has done to our children. But I’m doing that. School’s a separate issue.

Levi: No it isn’t. Training up young minds is the single most important role you have as a parent. In the Law, we were taught the following. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Clearly the training of a child is not a five minute a day role. It’s a process that encompasses all your life with them, day and night.

Mike: Oh, but that’s the Old Testament. That applies to Israel. We are New Covenant believers.

Levi: Do you think that being under the New Covenant places a lesser requirement of love and concern for the spiritual wellbeing of our children than it did for the children of believers in the Old Covenant? You know Jesus warned people against leading his little ones astray. He said those responsible for this would be better off having a millstone attached to their necks and being tossed into the sea. Do you think this suggests that we New Covenant believers should be less concerned about the training of our covenant children now? Do you think Jesus’ requirement to let the little children come to him is compatible with sending them away from him to be trained by those who hate him and are walking away from him?

Mike: Well like I say, I keep an eye on what they are learning, and Jesus calls us to be salt and light. My children can be salt and light!

Levi: But Mike…if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? Look at your children. They dress like unbelieving children. They talk like them. They watch the same television shows, and their role models are the same…what do you call it…’social media celebrities’. Are they salt? As far as I read Scripture, I nowhere see a command for parents to outsource the training of their children to unbelievers in the hope that those unbelievers will be brought to faith. We send missionaries to the cannibals, but we don’t serve them up our children. Besides, when your church sends missionaries to overseas countries, they have to train substantially to be prepared to bring the gospel to this context. How much more children?! Shouldn’t we spend their impressionable years developing in them a Christ-centred approach to the world around them in preparation for a life of being salt and light?

Mike: But Levi, look at the results. Hannah’s friend is now going to youth group!

Levi: Would this still be a victory if Hannah ended up going to hell? Surely you can imagine a world where you are obedient to the commands of Scripture concerning both how you disciple your children, and how you reach out to unbelievers? Surely disobedience in one realm can’t be justified pragmatically by seeming success in another?

Mike: Well I don’t think I’m being disobedient. Besides, like I said, we can’t afford a Christian education. We’d prefer it, but it’s just not doable.

Levi: What do you mean? Is obedience to Christ in this matter impossible? What do you mean you can’t afford it? I know travel is not incredibly expensive, but wouldn’t you be able to cut back on overseas travel? Couldn’t you live in a smaller house? Can’t you figure out a way of making it work?

Mike: Well I suppose we could make it work if we really cut back. But Mandy wouldn’t want to move to another part of town. This is a nice area – it’s close to the city. Our friends are nearby. Plus our house is a great size for us. It’s good for entertaining. We can have Bible study here.

Levi: So it’s not actually about the cost? It’s more about the priority you place on it. You’d rather be comfortably well off than obedient to Christ? Maybe avoiding poverty for the sake of Christ has become an idol for you?

Mike: Well, I’m not sure I’d put it that way. You are pretty blunt you know.

Levi: Well I’ll be blunter still. Paul was pretty blunt too you know. Maybe you live in an age where caring about truth isn’t as important as avoiding offending people. Why doesn’t Mandy disciple your children at home? Surely much of her income is spent on having Matthew at the inappropriately named ‘Best Start Day Care’ each day. Didn’t the apostle Paul say in his epistle to Titus that he was to train the young women to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Mike: Oh, don’t go there. We’ve come a long way since your day. Women are just as important as men, and we no longer believe they should just stay at home looking after the household. We’ve emancipated women.

Levi: May I remind you that in my day, the apostle Paul wrote that male and female were one in Christ. that does not mean we are all the same part of the body. We all have different roles to play. And I object to your use of the word just. What do you mean just stay at home looking after the household. How is training your children and preparing them for a life of service to Christ “just”. What is it she does anyway? Isn’t she a paralegal? Emancipated woman? What nonsense! You’ve exchanged submission to her cherished husband who loves her deeply and service of the ones she loves more than any others in the world for submission to a man she hardly knows and service of people she neither knows nor cares for.

Mike: I don’t see it that way.

Levi: Perhaps it’s inconvenient for you to see it this way. Perhaps you see the sacrifice another way might require, and you’re not willing to count the cost.

Mike: I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. You have your opinion which is good for you, and I have mine, which works for our family.

Seven Myths About Education – Part 3

In an earlier post, we looked at the second myth (teacher-led instruction is passive) Daisy Christodoulou debunks in her book Seven Myths About Education. Today we move on to myth three.

Myth 3: The 21st Century Fundamentally Changes Everything

You’ve probably heard this myth yourself. According to this myth, back in our parents day, we stuffed knowledge into the heads of students. Now, however, this will just render our children irrelevant. Now we need to focus on the acquisition of transferable skills so our children can adapt quickly to the inevitable changes that our modern world will bring into their lives.

Some even go so far as to say that those taught under the old model of knowledge will be doomed to ever-diminishing manual jobs, while skills educated children will ‘whizz around the country problem solving.’

Trends which express this myth

There are some trends in education that spring from this myth. One of these is for a curriculum to be based around skills instead of subjects. An example is the Opening Minds curriculum which is centred around five essential skills rather than subjects. The skills are: citizenship, learning, managing information, relating to people and managing situations. All good skill to be sure. Skills that we certainly want our children to learn.

Another example is the New Zealand curriculum, which although it has subject areas, is fairly sparse in terms of knowledge requirements, focusing instead on skills. In addition, the curriculum emphasises five key competencies: thinking, using language, symbols, and texts, managing self, relating to others and participating and contributing.

Are these skills unique to the 21st century?

The problem with all of this is not that these skills are not important, but that these are skills humans have always needed to be successful. There is nothing uniquely 21st century about them at all! Creativity and problem solving are indeed 21st century skills. But they are not uniquely 21st-century skills. The world has always favoured those who were creative and able to solve problems. Did our forebears require these skills? Of course they did, just as much, if not more so than us.

But the real issue is the way we now propose our children gain these skills. The whole movement pushing the teaching of ’21st century skills’ has become a codeword for removing knowledge from our curricula. But this is perverse, as Christodoulou points out.

…removing knowledge from the curriculum will ensure that pupils do not develop twenty-first century skills.

Implications

Skills are not gained in a vacuum. Knowledge based curricula give our children what they need to develop the skills we all recognise are essential.

Secondly, we should be sceptical of those who argue that we need to toss out old ideas and knowledge. The reverse is true. The newer the idea, the more likely it is to become obsolete! Christodoulou points out that if something has proved itself useful over thousands of years, it is a good bet that it will be useful for the next 100 years. But something that has only been valuable for 5 years? In that case, we cannot be so certain. Therefore the newer an idea, the more sceptical we should be about teaching it in our schools. The older ideas have stood the test of time.

I’ve seen this in my lifetime. In my high school years, we did some learning in ICT. I learned to use programmes that no longer exist.

Why Statists Fear Homeschooling

Recently we looked at Elizabeth Bartholet’s attack on homeschooling. There have been many excellent articles critiquing her thinking. One such, written by Kevin D Williamson appeared in the National Review. Williamson notes the reason many like Bartholet fear homeschooling and want it banned. School is an essential part of state monitoring.

Homeschooling inhibits the ability of the state to conduct surveillance on some families. “There is no way of knowing how many homeschooled children experience a childhood comparable to Tara’s,” she [Bartholet] writes. “But we do know that the homeschooling regime permits children to be raised this way.”

In addition, Williamson further highlights why Statists love public schooling, and fear homeschooling: public schooling is actually for the benefit of the State.

The economic argument is straightforward and points back to Prussia, the spiritual homeland of progressivism. From Frederick the Great and Johann Julius Hecker through the Progressive Era to today, schools have been treated as factories that produce what the state needs: able administrators and bureaucrats in the context of the emerging Bismarckian welfare regimes and, later, workers in the industrial economies. Schools organized this way do not exist to serve children or families: They exist to serve the state, and children are not the customers — they are the product.

Williamson argues that what is being fought over here is whether children are the property of the state, whether education exists for the student or the state, and whether there is any private realm.

Homeschooling is based on a radical proposition that is utterly incompatible with Professor Bartholet’s politics. Homeschoolers insist that their children are not the property of the state, to be farmed and dispatched in accordance with the state’s needs; the homeschooling ethos insists that the purpose of education is to serve the needs and interests of students rather than those of the state or of business; it insists that there exists a sphere of life that is private and not subject to state surveillance, and that this sphere covers family life and child-rearing unless and until there is some immediate pressing reason for intervention. 

So what is the debate really about?

The debate about homeschooling is not really about educational outcomes — there are good and bad homeschooling practices, good and bad public schools, good and bad private schools, etc. — but about who serves whom and on what terms. Do American families serve the state or does the state serve them? Do we live our lives and raise our children at the sufferance of the state, or is the state an instrument of our convenience?

Are homeschoolers handicapped?

In a previous post, we mentioned Elizabeth Bartholet’s recent call for a ban on homeschooling. One of her arguments was that homeschooling academically handicapped children.

In a chapter from Hold on to your kids by Dr Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté, the authors mentioned in passing that home-schoolers are favoured applicants of some big-name universities. They go on to quote Jon Reider, former admissions official at Stanford University in California that they are desirable because “homeschoolers bring certain skills – motivation, curiosity, the capacity to be responsible for their education – that high schools don’t induce very well.”

This was twenty years ago, but interesting nonetheless. In my experience of homeschoolers, these words ring true. And I am a high school teacher.

Seven Myths About Education – Part 2

In an earlier post we looked at Daisy Christodoulou’s book Seven Myths About Education. The first myth we looked at was Facts Prevent Understanding. Here we learned that facts are foundational to the acquisition of skill and critical thinking processes.

Myth 2: Teacher Led Instruction Is Passive

Essentially, this myth argues that direct teaching is ineffective because the student becomes a passive vessel. Instead, we need to allow children to direct their own learning. They need to learn independently to become independent learners.

Once again some big names in the past have been associated with this myth. Rousseau felt that formal teaching of reading (of the alphabet and sounds) was inappropriate and that a stimulating environment would enable children to discover reading for themselves. John Dewey felt that a child’s inclinations should determine the education process, and he is echoed in those who speak of student agency and child-centred pedagogy. Freire, a Brazilian educationalist, was opposed to drill and memorisation and spoke of co-construction of knowledge through discussion and dialogue, where the teacher was not a figure of authority but a student as well.

So what do we know about learning? Evidence does not support the idea that teacher-directed education is passive and unhelpful. Firstly we know that there are some things that are not learned naturally. Nobody learns their alphabet naturally. Nobody learns our number system naturally. Nobody learns about gravity from their own contemplation and study. The breakthroughs in civilization were breakthroughs because they were concepts that for thousands of years were not learned naturally or independently. Why would we expect each child to have to relearn these unnatural developments when it took thousands of years to get to them in the first place? We need teachers to pass on this knowledge, and we do this effectively through teacher instruction.

The second piece of evidence that Christodoulou refers to is the human working memory. Apparently the limitations of our working memory explain why humans took so long to discover some of the laws of nature. In learning, our working memories can only hold so much information and are prone to overload when there is minimal guidance.

The final piece of evidence against this myth is the evidence we have in favour of the effectiveness of direct teacher instruction. Christodoulou cites John Hattie in his Visible Learning which highlights direct teaching as the third most powerful teacher factor. She cites a major American study which showed the direct instruction method outperformed other methods in terms of academic performance and the self esteem of the students.

Once again, it’s funny how educational experts need convincing of what most laypeople instinctively understand: an expert teacher who can keep students spellbound and motivated is what our children need.

Ban Homeschooling?

I recently became aware of a call by Harvard University law professor Elizabeth Bartholet for a presumptive ban on homeschooling.

Her concerns are outlined in a recent article in Harvard Magazine:

Elizabeth Batholet

Firstly, there are no academic checks or requirements for parents who homeschool. The implication is that children who homeschool will be shortchanged academically. Secondly, Bartholet worries about the isolation homeschooling causes, and in consequence of this, the potential for parental abuse. A third concern for Bartholet is that many homeschool families are conservative Christians who are seeking to remove their children from mainstream culture. Apparently these evil conservative Christians are ideologues who question science and promote female subservience and white supremacy! So in this third objection to homeschooling she implicitly outlines what she sees is the purpose of compulsory government education. For her, one part of state education is that it helps children to become productive members of society, but the other aspect of education is exposing children “to community values, social values, democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints”.

The article concludes with Bartholet reassuring us that she thinks parents should still have“very significant rights to raise their children with the beliefs and religious convictions that the parents hold”, and adds that children attending a school for 6-7 hours a day does not unduly limit parents’ influence on a child’s views and ideas.

Does Homeschooling Hinder Children Academically?

Let’s critique the argument and begin with her point about the shortchanging of children academically. Unfortunately for Bartholet, if we are arguing a case against homeschooling on purely academic terms, the evidence supports the homeschooling side of the argument. Studies show that children who have been homeschooled tend to perform better than students in public schools. In one review of the literature on the subject, Brian Ray concluded that homeschooling children on average are “at the 65th to 80th percentile on standardized academic achievement tests in the United States and Canada, compared to the public school average of the 50th percentile.” As a teacher, who has a wife who homeschools our children, my own anecdotal experience has been that there is a certain academic benefit to the practice. My ten-year-old daughter recently picked up and enjoyed Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and read Animal Farm by George Orwell. I say this not to boast, but just to point out that she is in no way being hindered by her homeschooling education. In fact, she is most likely being given the time and opportunity to do things she certainly wouldn’t be doing if she were in a regular classroom, even at a decent school!

I by no means mean to denigrate teachers or independent schools. They certainly hold a valuable place in society. Homeschooling is not for everyone, all I am seeking to do is suggest that children are definitely not academically disadvantaged by homeschooling.

I certainly would agree with Bartholet that in some rare cases there are parents homeschooling their children who are not equipped to do so. However, given that we also have teachers who are not particularly well-equipped to educate our children, I don’t see this as a knock-down argument.

Does Homeschooling Children Leave them More Open To Abuse?

Illustration by Robert Neubecker

Let me begin by addressing the isolation that Bartholet suggests is dangerous. The article in Harvard Magazine includes a telling illustration. A girl is imprisoned in a house of books, one of which is the Bible. Meanwhile, the poor wee thing is looking out at all the public school children who are having a fabulous time. Unfortunately for Bartholet, the picture she, and this illustration paint is highly inaccurate. In actual fact, while children attending schools are in classrooms learning from 9 to 3, homeschooling children are meeting up with friends, going on outdoor field trips and having a whale of a time! Ironically, the illustration could be equally used to show the benefits of homeschooling. Because the teacher to student ratio is so good, and behavioural issues are not so much of a problem, most homeschooling families tend to get their academic work done by lunchtime, leaving plenty of time to catch-up with friends for extracurricular activities.

But let’s return to the substance of her second criticism. She is concerned with parental abuse of children. Once again, Bartholet’s argument here is based on little evidence. She cites one example of a homeschooler who was abused. There is hardly a week that goes by where I don’t read of a teacher sexually abusing a child under his or her care. This is pretty common stuff. In New Zealand, between 2015 to 2017, the Education Council served 196 disciplinary outcomes to 81 teachers for sexual misconduct. In a synthesis of the literature on educator sexual misconduct prepared for the U.S. Department of Education, Charol Shakeshaft highlights a report that nearly 9.6% of students are targets of educator sexual misconduct sometime during their school career. I highly doubt that anywhere near that percentage of homeschool children would suffer sexual abuse from their parents.

But in addition to sexual abuse perpetrated by teachers, public schools are also places where students can be sexually abused by each other. In the same synthesis of the literature, Charol Shakeshaft notes that the same report that highlights educator abuse of 9.6% of students suggests that of students who suffer sexual abuse at school, 21% were targets of educators, while the remaining 79% were targets of other students.

Finally, who hasn’t heard of the bullying epidemic in schools? Large schools can be havens for bullies. My own personal experience of moving from a small family-like independent school to a large impersonal public school is indicative. In my first term at the school, I was pushed down a flight of stairs by a thug and his friends, and then repeatedly punched in the head while girls and boys from the thug’s class looked on. Few days went by when I was not verbally harassed. Statistics for bullying, both physical and cyber are given on a website dedicated to the prevention of bullying in the States. This again is something children in homeschooling families are fortunately unfamiliar with.

So once again, with this second argument, Bartholet seems to lack any real firepower against homeschooling.

Does Homeschooling Children Prevent Them Learning Community Values and Tolerance of Other’s Viewpoints?

Her final critique, and seemingly her main concern with homeschooling is that parents might not expose children “to community values, social values, democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints”. Let’s be clear about this. What she wants, is for her pet ideas, the ideas of mainstream secular culture to be forced upon all children. Education is brainwashing, and she would rather it be the state that does it than conservative Christian parents whose views she disagrees with.

But surely, it is better for the sake of diversity and our democratic ideals that parents are allowed to instil in their children their values and beliefs rather than a one-size fits all approach which will stifle minority viewpoints.

In fact, there is evidence that one of the reasons the West progressed so extraordinarily in comparison to other civilizations was the comparative lack of absolute power of its governments and freedom of its citizens to innovate. An all-powerful and controlling government that seeks to promote a particular set of values is not good for society. All too often it ends in intolerance. Better to allow diversity of thought and process.

What I find highly amusing, is the contradiction in her argument. On the one hand, she thinks homeschooling prevents the transmission of community and social values, yet at the same time, she argues that schooling won’t “unduly limit parents’ influence on a child’s views and ideas.” So which is it? Does sending a child to a government school impact a child’s worldview and shape their values, or will it have so little impact it does not limit parents’ ability to influence their child’s views? I suspect she is being disingenuous here. It will impact children, but she wants parents to still think they are the ones in control.

It’s ironic too, that she raises the importance of children being taught “democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints” when she herself seems to favour authoritarian control, restriction of parental choice in education and a one-size-fits-all model of values transmission.

So does her argument represent a compelling case for banning homeschooling? Hardly. But it might well wake some parents up to the danger of public schools. When academics like Elizabeth Bartholet want to stop conservative Christians from educating their children at home because it tends to…well turn out conservative Christians, it might wake parents up to realise the danger of secular schooling.

Modern Learning Environments and Beliefs about Children

An interesting piece on the impact of the Coronavirus on modern learning environment schools appeared on Stuff yesterday. For those of you who have not been in school for some time, MLEs are basically a rehash of the 1970s trend of open plan classrooms. They feature bright and colourful furniture and wide-open spaces. The idea is that rather than having a single classroom of say 20-30 students with one teacher, you have much larger spaces, with more students and teachers.

An MLE. Bright colourful furniture, wide open spaces. Beliefs about Children impact our practice.
An example of a MLE. Beliefs about children drive how we approach teaching.

Given that we are to keep our bubbles as small as possible, these schools may have more difficulty than traditional schools in getting back up and running.

So what is the point of these MLEs? MLEs are a product of philosophy. Remember, our worldview, our underlying philosophy drives our behaviour. So our understanding of human nature, of children, of the purpose of education – these are going to impact our approach to teaching.

As I’ve mentioned before, a modern approach to the nature of the child is that children know best, and adults can get in the way of that. Thus we need to give children plenty of chance to interact without too much adult interference. We need to give them more ‘agency’ and allow them to choose what they learn and how they learn. Teachers become facilitators of learning. As the Stuff article puts it, the idea is “to foster self-management and collaboration.” These are admirable goals indeed. What teacher would not want their students to learn to self-manage and work well with others? But do MLEs provide an environment where these goals can be achieved?

The picture is not always as rosy as the promo videos and breathless praise from educational ‘experts’ make out. The changeover (and the resulting millions of dollars of tax payer dollars spent on new fit-outs) is “difficult to justify” according to a ministry funded study – which you’d have to think would be fairly keen to excuse the money it has poured into MLEs.

Teachers burn out with the demands put upon them in these environments. And while some students thrive in MLE’s, enjoying the interaction, others find it very difficult. Children with hearing difficulties find these environments difficult to work in, as do more introverted children and those who need quiet to think and process.

Once again, incorrect anthropology leads us astray. Children are not basically good, requiring little to no direction. They are sinful from conception and need training. It’s no wonder that research reveals concerns around whether the autonomy given to students in large MLEs is effective for learning. Anecdotal evidence from teachers I know reveals that the quality of learning in some MLEs is questionable at best. I’ve heard tales of children wearing headphones while a teacher is explaining a concept, students walking out in the middle of a teacher explanation, other groups of students making such a racket that a teacher working with a small group cannot be heard, students wasting time on Facebook rather than productive learning, and the list does go on, I assure you.

Consider the example of Rototuna Junior High School. Fraser Hill the principal is quoted as saying that their learning spaces each have two teachers, and can have between 90 and 130 students. A ratio of between 1:45 and 1:65? Surely this is a misquote on the part of the reporter? Let’s charitably assume the reporter got this wrong. Let’s assume that the ratios are around 1:30. Even so, under which model do you think a child would be able to feel lost and slip under the radar more easily? What’s more likely to provide an environment for effective learning: a class where a teacher directs student activity and energy to what he deems is most important, or a wide-open environment where student-led learning is taking place? Where is more wasted time likely to occur? If you’re struggling to answer these questions, perhaps you have forgotten what it was like to be a child, or perhaps you were an extraordinary child.

So what really makes a difference? Is creating these bright wide-opened spaces a game-changer for education? New Zealand’s own John Hattie, in his Visible Learning: A Synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement shows that quality teaching has a much greater effect on student learning and achievement than other factors a school controls, including school structures and class size. What we need to focus on then, is making sure we have excellent teachers in front of our classes.

Given the research and the fact that a similar experiment was foisted on the children of a previous generation, one has to ask the obvious question: What on earth are we doing this for? Answer? Image. It looks good, it sounds good, it makes for good promotional videos, and it fits the prevailing understanding of children and human nature. Governments can point to the truckloads of cash they pour into education to show people how much they care about education. As always in politics, image is more important than substance. It is easy to waste other people’s money for grand utopian schemes.

Coronavirus Cost to our Children

An interesting angle on the Coronavirus and education is the impact that missing so much school has on our children and their future educational outcomes. In New Zealand, there have been mixed responses from teachers, parents and schools regarding how important learning is during the lockdown, but at least we have been able to mitigate the potential damage so far with a providentially placed term 1 holiday.

In the States, the timing of this outbreak could hardly be worse, coming as it does before their long summer break. Every teacher who has taught children for consecutive years knows how much children can lose over the holidays, and some claim it is two to three months of learning. But in the US, this summer break has effectively doubled due to lockdown. Some reports suggest that students could lose an entire academic year of progress.

Joy Pullmann, a correspondent for The Federalist points out the injustice of this.

Our nation’s leaders are demanding that American children pay for this crisis through debt-financed spending, while depriving them of the education they need to make that even remotely possible. Our response to coronavirus is upping our society’s selfish demands that mostly the young pay — mentally, financially, socially, psychologically — for tabs the adults run up. This is not just impractical but immoral. Effectively enslaving voiceless citizens is not a just society’s response to a crisis.

Pullmann makes a good point that is worth considering. Here in New Zealand, we are taking on huge debt as a result of locking down our economy. Will our children bear the brunt of this in both future taxes as well as lower future incomes as a result of lower educational outcomes? Let’s hope not. It’s important that parents, teachers and schools work to ensure that these weeks are not an educational wasteland, but a time of fruitful, albeit unusual learning.

If you’re a parent, and you are worried about what your school is providing during the lockdown, there are plenty of useful sites and Youtube channels you can look into. Take a look at this NZ homeschooling blog, which has a great resource page. If your child is doing high school Mathematics, I highly recommend looking at Eddie Woo’s Youtube channel. He is the best Maths teacher I’ve seen. If you have a child studying Cambridge IGCSE or AS and A level Mathematics, I have set up my own Youtube channel to help support my Cambridge students during the lockdown. And while just doing worksheets isn’t always ideal, Worksheet Works is a fabulous resource which contains a tonne of Mathematics and English language resources which can be fine-tuned to your child’s needs. It also has some really fun puzzles and brain-teasers.

Value for Money?

With all the schools in NZ entering lockdown, it has been interesting to see the reaction of teachers and parents to what is going on. It’s made many consider whether education in New Zealand gives value for money.

Of particular interest to me have been the number of teachers and educational leaders trying to allay the fears of parents. According to some, parents shouldn’t worry too much about trying to ensure their kids are working as normal. I’ve even heard some say things like, “Six weeks of missing school isn’t going to hurt kids.” When interviewed on Seven Sharp, Nigel Latta, a well-known New Zealand psychologist and author, was asked how much school work children needed to do while in lockdown. His answer was none unless the children wanted to. Latta said, “Don’t do it, and it will do them no harm at all.” And when asked about parents who might worry about their children falling behind, he said, “They totally will not fall behind. You absolutely shouldn’t worry about this.”

Well in a sense, I understand the point. In the big scheme of things, four, five or even six weeks of missing school may not make a huge difference, particularly for a child in the primary years, and especially if they come from a loving home with fairly well-educated parents. Latta is right, it’s extremely important for parents to provide a calm and safe environment in these times.

But there’s another perspective. I’m a teacher in an independent school which works on a shoestring budget and must attract and retain paying customers. I’ve taught both primary and secondary students, and I would argue that four weeks do matter. In a well-run classroom, with an enthusiastic and organised expert teacher, four weeks can result in tonnes of learning! Parents who are paying taxes and paying a school to educate their children would not be impressed if a school made little or no progress with their child in half a term.

What if Latta and some New Zealand teachers are correct in saying that four to six weeks missed from school isn’t going to matter? That raises an important question. How important is what teachers are doing in school, if missing six weeks has few implications educationally? If this is true, what kind of value for money are we getting from our public education system? Are teachers just glorified babysitters who enable Mum and Dad to pursue a more comfortable living standard? What sort of educational bang for buck are we getting here?

In New Zealand, education makes up around 18% of New Zealand Government expenditure. That’s a whole lot of our tax dollars being put into the education of children. Given the amount of money spent, are we not entitled to expect some sort of return? What kind of value for money are we getting if 4-6 weeks or between 14 to 22% of a school year can be missed with little to no impact on a child?

If our children can be at home with Mum or Dad, ignore most if not all of their school work, and not be disadvantaged, that really doesn’t paint a flattering picture of what is happening in our schools.

But let’s be honest, not every New Zealand school or teacher would claim to have little to no effect on children in this sort of time frame. Schools vary in impact. Yet it would not be wrong to say that in a number of New Zealand schools children would be better off at home pottering around with Mum or Dad. They would learn more!

If there’s one good thing to come out of this lockdown educationally, it’s been that parents have been able to get a bit more of a handle on what their children are learning at school. A number of parents in my acquaintance have been shocked to learn just how poorly their children are being educated by their local schools.

Perhaps some parents will exit lockdown with a new perspective on education. It’s possible some will see the wasted time and opportunities in their local schools and look at change. Perhaps some will embrace independent education. Maybe others will look at lifestyle and consider whether two incomes are absolutely necessary and whether dialling down living standard expectations might enable them to homeschool. Whatever the case, let’s hope we all come out of this lockdown taking our children’s education more seriously.

Parenting Philosophy – Who runs your household?

As a teacher, I see all types of parents and parenting philosophies. I also see the end products.

One type of parent that I see is what could be described as ‘well-meaning, but powerless’. This sort of parent complains to the teacher about their child’s behaviour and how they are unhappy about what he is doing, but they are unable to prevent it. A classic case is the child who continues to use technology when the parent tries to limit it.

How does one get to a stage where a primary aged child refuses to do what his Mum or Dad asks and Mum and Dad are helpless to do anything about it? It all comes down to parenting philosophy. Many new parents-to-be, naively view parenting as something that comes naturally and easily. The idea of a philosophy of parenting seems to over-complicate things.

The reality is that every parent has one, whether they can state it explicitly or not. And given that the nature of both parents and their offspring is fallen and impacted by rebellion against the Creator, we cannot assume our natural approach is the best approach.

So how do parents end up tearing their hair out over a rebellious primary aged child who does not do what they ask? It happens because from the outset of parenting, they have operated out of a faulty understanding of the nature of the child, and the purpose of the parent.

A modern view of the child and parent

What is the nature of the child? Modern parenting and educational philosophies view the child as containing pent up and endless potential for good, just waiting for the opportunity to express their innate truth, goodness and creativity. Children are the answer to the problems the world faces. They will solve the problems of climate change, racism, sexism and any of the other current -ism’s and ‘phobias’, if parents and teachers would just listen to their wisdom.

Where do we see this worldview today? Everywhere. One place where it is particularly obvious is our modern education system. We speak of child-centred education, and student agency. We see modern learning environments where students determine what they want to learn, how they want to learn, and who they want to learn with. When Johnny isn’t learning, we immediately point the finger at a teacher who is perhaps no engaging, or not catering to Johnny’s preferred learning style.

This worldview is also behind the absurd modern trend of seeking the voice of younger and younger people on serious and complex issues they can’t possibly understand. Thus we have teenagers, whipped into a state of emotional frenzy and fear by teachers and a media focussed on doomsday predictions, protesting over climate change despite having very basic to no knowledge of the scientific discussion. Enter Greta Thunberg with her irritatingly emotional and scientifically devoid blackmail foisted upon us by mainstream media.

A biblical view of the child and parent

Biblical wisdom views the child differently. In the book of Proverbs, Solomon reminds the reader that “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child.” Children are conceived in sin. From their very conception, they are tainted by the sin of our father Adam. Thus a chid’s natural inclinations and impulses have to be curbed, and altered so they can live as useful members of society. What comes unnaturally to them must be instilled into them.

That means that our approach to parenting and educating children should not be child-centred if by that we mean driven by doing what the child wants, is interested in, or thinks they need. No, it will be determined by what they actually need, which is the direction, intervention and training of a wise adult.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out which of these views meshes with reality. All it takes is a parent with open eyes. Very early on in the life of a child, as soon as they are able to physically express it, rebellion and self-centeredness become obvious. My youngest has just turned one, and it has been obvious in her for at least 6 months. When told ‘no’ or ‘don’t touch’ she will regularly look at us and reach out to touch what she has been forbidden to touch. When she doesn’t want to eat the food I am offering her on a spoon, she will reach out and hit my hand away, even when what I am offering is good for her, and what she wants to eat is not! No, it is clear to all who would open their eyes that children do not enter this world automatically good and knowing what they need to develop. That is a foolish view.