What Is The Goal of Education?

Education Is NOT Separate From Worldview

Amazingly, many in our day and age falsely try to separate the outcome of a child’s education from the worldview of the teacher providing the foundation for that education. The objective of many is to provide a positively “neutral” education for children. They don’t want you to teach “religion” but to teach in a completely “neutral” manner. My question is this, when you endeavor to teach a child on the subject of biology, are you going to teach Creation or Evolution as valid? If you teach Evolution, then you are following the Atheistic worldview. However, if you teach Creation as found in Scripture then you are proclaiming the Christian worldview. Some believe you should teach both as equally valid. Imagine telling a child about Nazi Germany and the United States of America in World War 2 and telling them the freedoms of those societies were equivalent. Do you believe that is possible? I don’t think so! The goal of education is to teach truth, not to say everything is as good as the other option. Absolute truth exists and it is the goal of the educator to proclaim the complete truth.

One of the founding fathers Benjamin Rush, wanted the Bible to be used in public education.¹ He understood Christianity was the only true religion and desired for it to be taught. Of course, Rush was foundational in the establishment of public education here in America. My point is that even those who started the public education system (which is now horridly compromised) understood you could not separate education from worldview. Yet, so many in our day believe that the worldview of the teacher does not matter? Is this true? What does Scripture say about this subject? Let’s dig in and examine the Word of God.

The Primary Responsibility of The Parents

“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.

-Deuteronomy 6:4-9

This passage clearly assigns to the parents the primary duty of raising children. Now, I am an advocate of homeschooling because of this passage in Scripture which explicitly speaks to the fact that parents are to train their children. So, the ideal situation is for the parents to homeschool their children to be able to train them as much as possible. In some situations, that may not be possible (i.e. widowed spouses, illiterate parents, etc.). I get that fact and that is a conversation for another article. However, parents are not to give up the primary role of training their offspring. Now, in this text, what is the clear goal of raising and training children? It is to teach them the ways of God and to love, honor, and glorify Him. That is the primary responsibility of the parents, to equip their children to know and follow God. Therefore, whenever we are talking about education it cannot be separated from this objective.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. -Ephesians 6:4

Yet again, we see this concept of children being brought up in the instruction of the Lord. Notice, the duty is given to the father in this verse. Yet again, it is the duty of parents to raise their offspring. The father is to be the leader of the household and lovingly care for his children and his wife. His leadership is to be that of a servant leader who lays down his own desires and even his own life (Ephesians 5:25). The wife is to submit to her husband as to the Lord (Ephesians 5:24). The husband and wife work together in their God-ordained roles to raise up children who will glorify Him. Once again, I have to reiterate the goal of everything when it comes to raising children is to prepare them to live life for the glory of Christ. This truth remains stable even when considering their education.

The Duty of Learning

The primary principle of learning is that you are growing and able to apply that which is true. Think about it, when the doctor is operating on you, do you want him to have been trained in correct or incorrect doctoral methods? I believe the answer is self-evident. If the proper means of education is to assist students in knowing the truth, then education must never be detached from the Christian worldview for it alone is true! Creation and Evolution are not both equally true in any way. The fact that God created in 6-days and rested on the 7^th is the truth. There are not 300 genders, only male and female as created by God in His image. If education is to be performed it cannot be severed from biblical Christianity. The results will be horrific wherever education is performed apart from the truth of God. For where the truth of God is discredited, there is no foundation for truth left whatsoever.

So, the duty of someone who is obtaining an education is clearly to learn that which is true. If they are to achieve this goal from their educational source, then that source must be rooted in biblical Christianity, or else the education will go astray at multiple levels. The child who is taught to see evolution as accurate in the public school system is not being raised “neutrally” they are being educated in atheistic humanism. The idea of neutrality in this realm or any other is a myth. As Abraham Kuyper once said, “Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!” We are called to honor Christ in all of our life and not just part of it. I urge you then to see education within a Christian worldview and not separate from it! The goal of education is to teach children the truth that they may live a life honoring and pleasing to God. To seek any other end is to seek an unbiblical objective.

Sources

¹ https://wallbuilders.com/defence-use-bible-schools/