Please e-mail your responses to: johair@desertchristian.org

Traditional Liberal Arts

Our schools’ mission statement asserts that we provide a ‘traditional liberal arts’ education.  What do we mean by traditional liberal arts?

Tradition has developed somewhat of a bad reputation in the modern United States.  We look on traditions as something old, out-of-touch, and irrelevant.  Our culture wants new, exciting and cutting-edge stuff, so tradition must be bad.  I read an article a few years ago where the author pointed out the problem with conservatives is that they hold on to things that they should let go and the problem with liberals is that they change things that they should not change.  There are traditions we should hold on to and maintain because they pass the test of time and benefit succeeding generations.  There are things we should change and do away with as well.

Traditional Liberal Arts is meant to describe the original view of liberal arts education.  In the western tradition, liberal arts involved a broad offering of subjects to develop a well-rounded person able to discuss and deal with a variety of subjects and topics.  A Renaissance person was the ideal here: someone who could do many things and do them well.

You see, Christianity had influenced learning and schools in Western Europe.  People understood there was a diversity of subjects and areas of learning: art, science, math, history, and theology to name a few.  Universities were first started by Christians who saw there was a Universal that unified all the diversity, hence the name Uni - versity.  That Universal was God!  That is why they saw theology (the study of God) as the queen of all subjects.  Everything flowed out of God who had created such diversity.  Scholars saw the benefit of studying the diverse subjects in the context of studying God.

At Desert Christian we hold on to that idea.  We know that all teaching and learning comes from a view point, or a worldview.  There is much diversity in the world around us that piques our curiosity and is worth learning.  In fact, there is not only much diversity, but endless diversity!  There is also a unity behind all diversity that we want to study.  To develop well-rounded individuals who know about relating the diversity to the unity and visa versa is what we mean by ‘traditional liberal arts’ at DCS.

Beauty

The third and last great idea that I want to address is beauty.  Like truth and goodness that I have written about before, beauty is an absolute.  Just as we know that there is truth and there is a lie, that there is good and there is bad, we know that there is that which is beautiful and that which is ugly.  These ideas have subjective aspects where discussion takes place on issues of taste, yet there is a line in each area where you cross over from what it is to what it is not.

Beauty is all around us.  The physical world from places to plants to people is filled with beauty.  Likewise we recoil from the ugliness we see in our world.  The presence of beauty and ugliness, truth and deceit, good and bad lead us to ask many questions.  Why are both there?  Where did they come from?  Where am I related to these issues?  Can I identify the differences between them? 

One of the objectives of education is to develop the ability to identify and appreciate beauty.  Beauty is not just a one dimensional, surface thing, but there is also inner beauty--a depth to beauty that the trained eye can learn to see.  Developing our eyes to see true beauty and appreciate that beauty must be a part of our education.

Oscar Wilde in ‘An Ideal Husband’ has Miss Mabel say “…to look at a thing is quite different from seeing a thing, one does not see a thing until one sees its beauty.”  This captures the essence of the depth of beauty and moving beyond just the outward appearance.  Peter tells women in 1 Peter 3 to not just deal with the outward trappings of beauty but to cultivate inner beauty which is of great value.

Beauty can be cultivated and destroyed.  This is why people can learn to appreciate beauty.  One can also see and listen to junk and impair one’s ability to recognize beauty.  Beauty is unique.  In ‘That Hideous Strength’ C.S. Lewis shows this by how evil wants to diminish beauty by replacing it with of so much uniformity.

Another concept we want to emphasize at Desert Christian Schools is the idea of goodness.  Like the idea of truth, goodness is an absolute.  There is good and bad!  There are degrees of good but there is also a line where good crosses over to bad.  We want students to learn the difference between good and bad and how to distinguish that and wrestle with the shades of good.

In Hebrews 5 the author states that these Hebrews he was writing to have not grown up in their faith, they are still babies, they need milk and not solid food. The metaphor of being a baby and needing milk is a powerful illustration of their condition.  He contrasts being an infant and drinking milk with being mature and eating solid food.  Mature people eat solid food.  He explains that the mature person is one who has trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.  The ability to distinguish between good and evil is the mark of maturity and wisdom.

Children being immature do not really know what is good for them.  They would eat a candy bar for dinner gladly.  They like staying up late and would only sleep when they fell over with exhaustion.  The mature person knows what is good and what is not good and chooses the good.  Disobedience, by the way, involves knowing what is good and willfully choosing the bad over the good. Knowing the difference between good and bad and choosing to do good is something a mature wise person does.

There are so many areas where good and not good apply in education.   What is good to know and what is not, what is good to listen to and what is not.  What is a good source of information and what is junk.  Who is a good person and who is not.  What is good behavior and bad behavior?  The list of ideas, issues and behaviors that need to be distinguished is huge.  Our students need to develop this skill.

Banks train their tellers to identify real bills over counterfeits by having them see and handle the real ones a lot.  They learn what a good bill is by developing familiarity with what is good.  Likewise, at Desert, we want our students to learn what is good by handling and becoming familiar with what is good. 

The Politics of Educational Choice

Here is the continuation of my discussion on education issues in this political cycle.

In the last article I began to speak about what should be the governments’ role in education.  Related to the issue of responsibility in education is the notion of compulsory education. It was not until the rise and spread of public education (early in the last century) that the idea of compulsory education was added to the equation.  Education for years had been a family decision and was completely voluntary.  Involvement in education was changed from voluntary to compulsory with the arrival of large scale public education. 

Students quickly figure out that education must not be too valuable if you have to make it compulsory.  Does an education have value in and of itself?  If so why do we force people to do it?  College is not compulsory and people are free to go or not.  Colleges seem to have a great many people choosing to attend and pay a lot to do so.  They make the choice without it being compulsory.  It should be the same for a HS education.  I would do away with compulsory education after 8^th grade.  If you want to go to HS go, if not live with the consequences.  I do not see this happening at all.  It is too burned into our psyche that education K-12 has to be compulsory.   

The results of making HS education voluntary would be seen in students and families attitudes toward education.  In Kenya where HS education is not compulsory, families and students vie to get in and take it very seriously.  It changes the whole view of school and education for families when it is not compulsory.  It would change the climate and chemistry in the schools.  Students who want to be there or at least students from families who want them to be there would be in school. Those who do not want to be in school would not be adversely affecting the students who want to be there. This is one of the reasons for the difference on the HS campus here at DC.  Families’ value education (they are willing to pay for it!) and students on the whole want to be at school.  The decision to be in school should be a parental responsibility.

Why is the government willing to take the responsibility of education away from parents?  It seems the message is, ‘making educational decisions is hard, so we, the government, will take that responsibility for you.’  You do not have to make your child go to school, we will!  You do not have to decide what goes on at school, we will!  You do not have to figure out how to pay for school, we will!  By surrendering these responsibilities each family loses the freedom to decide what they want.  This way the government gets to control the money and content of the education instead of parents.  This is what is behind all the disputes between schools and parents on sex education, creation – evolution, literature choices.  If parents had real control these would not be issues, parents would vote with their feet and schools would be responsive to parents choices.

Any candidate that wants to give parents greater voice and control over educational choices for their children is someone I would support.  Are you aware where each candidate stands on the issue of educational choice?

Rights and Responsibilities in Educating Children 

Every four years I make it a point to watch the speeches of the Presidential and VP nominees of both parties at their respective conventions.  I like to do this since it is the longest speech I will hear of either parties candidates all election.  The media gives me three-second sound bites from that point on! J  I like to hear each candidate explain their vision for the US and rationale for their seeking the office. 

Being in the education field, I listen carefully to the candidates comments on education.  This election both candidates acknowledge that US education is in trouble.  McCain said we are operating with an old model, a 1950’s model.  He stated that the US needs to change our approach to a model that addresses the issues and relevance of the new millennium.  Obama on the other hand said the problem was a lack of funding and that increased funding would produce better results.

I see the problems in education going deeper than either of these explanations.  Funding and models of education are problem areas, but not the root.  If we want to change education we have to address the root issues.  Then we can deal with the details.

First root problem in education I see is that we have taken educational decisions away from the people who should be responsible for the decision.  Biblically and in principle, parents have the primary responsibility for their children’s education.  They have the relationship and motivation to see their children grow and develop and learn.  You will notice that at the college level we have none of the hand-wringing and complaints about education that we do in the primary and secondary levels.  I believe this is because the decision of whether, where, and why to go to school is in the hands of the people responsible for that decision.

When I taught government I used to point out that rights are tied to responsibilities.  A right to life has with it the responsibility to protect that right for other people.  Parents have a right to decide their children’s’ education.  When you take away peoples responsibilities you take away their rights.  We have forfeited our rights related to education and that is at the core of the problem in US education.

Why would a government want to take on your responsibility?  My cynical side believes it is so the government gets to decide what to teach and they get to control the purse strings.  Look at the anger over tax credits and the false claim of the loss of money in education.  The education establishment does not want anyone else getting money to educate.  You can also look at the battles being played out related to sex education and who decides what to teach.  Again, at the college level this is not a problem.  People decide what they will pay and if they do not like what the college is teaching they do not go and go where what is taught is in keeping with their values and beliefs.

More to come on this…

Welcome to the start of the 2008-2009 school year.  I look forward to sharing with you this coming year on the topics related to education.  The year has gotten off with a bang.  I do not know if you saw the recent editorial in the Tucson Citizen about Public schools and vouchers and tax credits.  The editorial called for an end to tax credits because now that desegregation has been set aside the public schools are now truly competitive.  You can read the editorial at this site:  http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/opinion/93504.php

Besides the interesting idea that it was desegregation law that made public schools less than competitive the disturbing point they made was that tax credits are taking money away from public education.  This is flatly wrong!  It is disingenuous and misleading.  As you can tell it made me mad!  The tax credit law has not taken a cent away from state spending on education.  State education spending has grown each year under the tax credit law.  To imply that public school students are somehow being deprived because of this program is dishonest.  In truth thousands of Arizona families are able to send their children to the schools of their choice because of the tax credit program.

In fact tax credits are actually helping public education in Arizona.  This program is saving the schools money and allowing for a higher per student expenditure for students in the public system.  The Goldwater Institute reported this in a policy paper they submitted a few years ago.  You can read it at this site: http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/AboutUs/ArticleView.aspx?id=18

Here at Desert more than 1/2 of our families benefit from the tax credit legislation.  Many of these families would not be able to send their children to this school without the presence of this scholarship money.  Tax credits have increased the economic diversity of our school family by allowing lower income families to attend DCS. 

It was interesting that the editorial also said tax credits were in violation of the state constitution.  That is completely untrue! The tax credit law has twice been ruled constitutional by the State Supreme Court and once by the US Supreme Court.  The judiciary says it is in line with the state and federal constitution.  One can be of the opinion that it should not be constitutional but that is different than saying it is unconstitutional.

There is a battle brewing over education.  The state monopoly continues to try to remove any competitors in the arena of education.  Let us all continue to expose the untruths being used to attach educational choice.  Here, by the way, is an interesting article to read on the history of US education:  http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v30n4/cpr30n4-1.pdf

You will not hear these things in the discussion on public education!