Cultural Vigilance

The wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.” —J.R.R. Tolkien

Creed and Education

Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated from education. It IS education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching. There are no uneducated people; only most people are educated wrong. The true task of culture today is not a task of expansion, but of selection-and rejection. The educationist must find a creed and teach it.
--G.K. Chesterton

The Purpose of Life

“...the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks. To do as we say in the Gloria in Excelsis: ...We praise you, we call you holy, we worship you, we proclaim your glory, we thank you for the greatness of your splendour.” —J.R.R. Tolkien

(Thanks to Kay for this quote)

CA Kindergarten Curriculum

Fox has a story about the use of pledge cards given to 5 year olds to prevent harassment against people of alternative lifestyles. Apparently it's never too early to start defining the thought categories of future citizens.

Intelligibility

What is the use of correct speech if it does not meet with the listener’s understanding? There is no point in speaking at all if our words are not understood by the people to whose understanding our words are directed.
—Augustine, On Christian Teaching

The Music of the Spheres

Quotes from Jamie James:

There was a time when the universe was believed to cohere, when human life had a meaning and purpose. A person who devoted himself to a lifetime of study, instead of coming out at the end of it the author of a definitive treatise on the pismire, or a catalogue of the references to Norse sagas in Finnigans Wake, would actually have a shot at discovering the key to the universe.

The concepts of the musical universe and the Great Chain of Being originate in the classical bedrock of our culture, flow through the Christian tradition, and remain firmly centered in the Renaissance and the Age of Reason. They are at the core of the culture. It was not until the nineteenth century that the perspective shifted decisively to the earthly, the tangible. Materialism and sensuality, qualities that had been deeply mistrusted throughout most of the Western tradition, emerged ascendant.

Quotes from Augustine's On Christian Teaching

“For we ‘walk by faith and not by sight,’ and faith will falter if the authority of Holy Scripture is shaken; and if faith falters, love itself decays. For if someone lapses in his faith, he inevitably lapses in his love as well, since he cannot love what he does not believe to be true.”

“For it is the instinct of a corrupt mind to covet and claim as its due what is really due to God alone. This kind of self-love is better called hatred. It is unjust because it wants what is beneath it to serve it while refusing to serve what is above it; and it has been very well said that ‘the person who loves injustice hates his own soul’ (Psalm 11:5).”

“For the treatment of human beings God’s wisdom—in itself both doctor and medicine—offered itself in a similar way. Because human beings fell through pride it used humility in healing them. We were deceived by the wisdom of the serpent; we are freed by the foolishness of God. But just as that was wisdom yet was foolishness to those who despised God, so this so-called foolishness is wisdom to those who overcome the devil. We made bad use of immortality, and so we died; Christ made good use of mortality, and so we live.”

Disadvantages of an Elite Education

"Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers.

William Deresiewicz, former professor at Yale, has written an excellent article critiquing the pitfalls and shortcomings of an "elite" education.

My Current Bannockburn Reading

NEA and Homeschooling

With the current and various battles raging against home schooling, I found the following quotes from an article posted on the National Education Association website to be quite enlightening:

Home Schools Run By Well-Meaning Amateurs
Schools With Good Teachers Are Best-Suited to Shape Young Minds
By Dave Arnold, Custodian and member of the Illinois Education Association

There's nothing like having the right person with the right experience, skills and tools to accomplish a specific task. Certain jobs are best left to the pros, such as, formal education…

So, why would some parents assume they know enough about every academic subject to home-school their children? You would think that they might leave this—the shaping of their children’s minds, careers, and futures—to trained professionals. That is, to those who have worked steadily at their profession for 10, 20, 30 years! Teachers!...

Don’t most parents have a tough enough job teaching their children social, disciplinary and behavioral skills? They would be wise to help their children and themselves by leaving the responsibility of teaching math, science, art, writing, history, geography and other subjects to those who are knowledgeable, trained and motivated to do the best job possible.

These statements indicate just how far some in the profession of teaching have drifted in their priorities with regard to what is true education.

Modern Parables Interview

CBN did an interview with Modern Parables director and writer, Thomas Purifoy. Thomas talks through the purpose of the film series and how they bring the message of the parables to life in our own times.

Thomas is also offering free iTunes downloads of the six films for a limited time on his website. You can also purchase individual films as well.

Liberal Arts Education

Inside Higher Ed has an interesting article on the state of Liberal Arts colleges and what their future holds. While debunking the common arguments for a liberal arts education, the author posits more worthy reasons. However, even these fall flat without an appropriate theological basis, foundation, and purpose for education. Nonetheless, the author has some interesting insights, statistics, and trends.

Current Reading

Following are the books I'm using in an Epiphany Term class on Feasting.

Review of Modern Parables

I recently wrote a review for Reformation21 about Modern Parables, a series of short films and lessons. I am currently using these films in a Sunday School class and am having wonderful feedback as well as in-class discussion.

The Loss of Cultural History

Richard Pells wrote a fascinating article about the lack of cultural studies and cultural ignorance in college American History courses. “History Descending a Staircase: American Historians and American Culture” makes a compelling case for integrated subjects as well as exposing the current trends and thoughts in academia about American Studies. While I don’t agree with all his thoughts, Pells makes a strong case for examining the past through multiple interrelated perspectives.

More Harry Potter Discussion

As a follow-up to last month's literature discussion, here are the next two installments discussing Books 4-6. These are non-edited files that contain extraneous comments and details (such as what books we will read next and when we'll discuss them).

These are a continuation of the exploration of the spiritual and medieval symbolism inherent in these books and how J.K. Rowling uses the elements of alchemy as a structure for the stories.

Part One
Part Two

King's Meadow Classical Christian College Survey

King’s Meadow is moving through the preliminary process of establishing a Christian classical college program. One of the steps necessary in order to be authorized by the state of Tennessee is to demonstrate the need for such a program. We’ve developed a short (16 question) on-line survey to ascertain the potential interest of the community. Please take a minute to complete the Classical Christian College Survey and please pass it along to other folks you know who might be interested.

Happy Birthday, Sebastian!

Johann Sebastian Bach was a musical genius, an intellectual giant, and a gracious man. Bach’s achievement in the area of music is one of the greatest tour de forces in the history of the world - on par with, or surpassing, that of Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Dante, Leonardo, Rembrandt, Milton, Aristotle, Augustine, or Aquinas. Bach was that great and significant. Even more compelling is the fact that he consciously and deliberately wrote all of his music from a Christian perspective and for the Glory of God.

Bach was able to function on a multiplicity of levels: a conservator of past styles and musical elements and an innovator of new forms and styles; a craftsman who brought his art to the highest imaginable summit while creating timeless works of beauty; an artisan who perfected his art with almost scientific precision while remaining lively and accessible to average listeners; a communicator who clearly conveyed a message while simultaneously embedding layers of symbolism - musical and extra-musical - that requires studious inquiry to uncover.

Sebastian Bach remains an agent of the power of cultural change through his clear presentation of the gospel in his work, his commitment to biblical excellence, and his reformational approach to cultural change. In all these areas he provides a corrective and example of how to fulfill the calling of an artist from a biblical perspective and how to engage the world.

The Future of Writing

CNN.com has reported the rise in usage of “IM” language in formal writing. Predictably, there are some educators who support the student’s creation of new language. I’m just reminded that subduing the earth and taking dominion often has nothing to do with being efficient or pragmatic.

You can read the full article here.

Education: Why Music is More Important than the Other Arts

Although we have a sense that the arts are an important part of a child’s education, typically our approach has more to do with a secular understanding than a biblical approach. A smattering of knowledge about the great composers and artists usually suffices.

However, even our measure of who is “great” has much more to do with secular criteria than with a biblical model of artistic objectives.

The importance of music education is to train worshippers. God calls some to be artists; God calls all to worship. As such, the focus and aim of music education is to train and equip students to learn to read, understand, analyze, critique, and create music for the purpose of worshipping well in spirit and in truth. Music itself can be true—not just the lyrics. Since beauty is an attribute of God, ought we not to offer back to Him in worship that which is truly and objectively beautiful? As such, we need to better understand the nature of music to more fully assess its worth and objective value.

In order to that, we need to train students in music for a task greater than recognizing the melodies of symphonies. I love the arts and have taught art history and aesthetics for a number of years; however, to give equal weight to the visual arts and to music in education short changes our ability to worship well. The fact that we do not have a fully integrated concept of music in education is testimony to the triumph of Enlightenment principles.

For the sake of worship, we must restore music to its rightful and equal place in the “core” curriculum of our education.

Psalm 66:1-4 (ESV)
Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name;
give to him glorious praise!
Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!
So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.
All the earth worships you and sings praises to you;
they sing praises to your name.”