Christians in Public Schools Part II

...continuing the conversation from here. This conversation has been a little awkward for several reasons. For one, my audience is split. I'm talking to Michael, but with the knowledge that there are other readers who are interested in this conversation. Secondly, there is so much I want to say that I keep slipping into stream of conscience style. Please forgive me for that. Lastly, it seems more than a little disjointed just because it is spread over several different web pages and comment blocks. After this paragraph, you (the reader, whomever you may be) may assume that "you" is referring to Michael and anything meant for my other readers is in italics.

Thanks again for stopping by, Michael. Conversations like this one are healthy and vital. You have certainly helped me understand your position, although I can't say that I have been converted. :-)

[1] I agree with you that immature teenagers is a modern concept. In fact, if you peruse my blog, you will see that I argue just this point, especially with respect to age of marriage. The short answer is, we have failed to prepare them. But implicit in preparation is a context in which to prepare them. I would argue that public schools increase the tendency toward prolonged adolescence and irresponsibility. Movies like “Failure to Launch” did not strike a nerve for no reason. 

Well, for the most part we seem to agree here... at least about the state of our teens. However, I don't believe that public schools are at fault. I want to narrow the topic a bit, though. I also find it interesting that you think co-ed classrooms to be such a large part of the problem (I did at least read as far back as this post on your blog). What keeps us from being completely honest about one gender's needs while we are around children of the other gender? Should the needs of one gender be a secret held from the other? The only arguments I can think of to separate the discussions by gender are: maturity level (which sparked this part of the conversation, ironically) and wasted class time (which is debatable, because I believe understanding the needs of the spouse is vital to strong relationships).

[2] I think many Christian teens go wild not so much because they’ve been sheltered, but because they been told (and had embodied for them) that Christianity = obeying a bunch or rules. Families and churches do not present teens with a compelling, transcendent, winsome vision of life in God’s kingdom. Turning them loose in public schools only makes moralistic Christianity look even worse. The notion that we the teenage years are a season in which we should expect rebellion is also a modern notion, and not biblical. Public schools foster, implicitly and explicitly, rebellion against authority, and portray parents and their beliefs as archaic.

I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of the problem. In fact, I believe I may have jumped to conclusions as far as your personal beliefs. I didn't realize it at the time, but I think I assumed you fit into the "rules lawyers" category, and for that, I apologize. Somehow, though, as I'm reading your response over and over, I can't help but think that this very argument supports my position that the schools are not at fault... at least until I get to the last line. If we were truly preparing our teenagers, "turning them loose" in the public education system would be no different than sending them out for job site training. In the workplace, assuming they work outside of a Christian organization (and perhaps even inside one), they'll be confronted by the ideas of unsaved people on a daily basis. I'm not sure how school is different. Your last line is what makes me pause. Can you give me an example of how public schools foster rebellion against authority and/or portray the parents' beliefs as archaic?


Side Note: I'm actually quite guilty of fostering rebellion in teens. I tell my kids all the time that "just because your mom invites you to smoke weed with her doesn't mean you have to, and it doesn't make it the right thing for her to do either." Working in an alternate school puts me into contact with kids who have some of the worst upbringings, and I absolutely try to get my kids to think for themselves rather than blindly following in their parents footsteps. I'm still pondering how this plays into the discussion, but I felt compelled to make note of it.

[3] One could answer this by appealing to ancient Israel. God told them to get rid of the idols. Couldn’t they have obeyed him and “handled” the idols around them? I suppose, but he wanted them to be gone. We have this notion that unless kids are allowed to kind of “try out” the world they will not know how to stand up to it. I disagree. Real life happens in other contexts besides public schools, and kids can be very well equipped for all life temptations away from that context. Plus, there are certain temptations I want to keep them away from, no matter what school they’re at. This is simply wise parenting.

Point (mostly) ceded. I really just wanted to know your position on this one. I don't believe we should encourage (or expect) kids to give evil a spin either. I have heard quite a few stories, however, of kids in Christian schools who were experimenting with the same sinful activities... perhaps even a larger percentage of the school population, given the smaller size of Christian schools. If this is the problem, I don't think Christian schooling is the solution. We have to better prepare preteens for the temptations they will face rather than try to shield them from it. As for wise parenting, that seems a moot point if we've established that teens should ideally be adults. If they are, they are not in need of the same type of parenting. Parents don't stop being parents when their children reach adulthood, but neither can they (or should they, in my opinion) shield them from the rest of the world. It is this behavior (sheltering our teens too much) that I believe leads to the extended adolescence that you blame on the public schools. 

[4] This has nothing to do with fear, and the problem goes much deeper than “peer pressure” and unsaved teachers. The real problem is that public schools, in every way, take the view that Christ has nothing to do with knowledge or anything that’s important. He may come up in a history class as a kind of “religious figure,” but the official curriculum excludes any notion of teaching actual spiritual knowledge based on the lordship of Christ over all things. But students don’t realize this is happening. It’s not like they can go home to their parents and “report” the godlessness they were imbibing at school. It’s kind of like the nightly newscast. It’s not spewing out some explicitly anti-Christian garbage, but implicit (and explicit) in everything it broadcasts is the idea that God has no part of running and being involved in his universe. He is officially excluded. This is all-pervasive and has its effects on students who are not equipped to properly critique it. Heck, most Christian adults are not equipped to properly critique it. The Bible teaches that “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” are found in Jesus Christ, and that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” But public schools deny this truth all day, every day. This is the real problem, not the kid who is talking about the pot he smoked last night (though that is a problem).

This is where I really take offense. I think you fail to recognize the power of Christian teachers despite the fact that many feel as though their hands are tied. The presence of Christian educators is needed even if we are not "officially" allowed to teach biblical knowledge. We do stand out. We do make a difference. We do form relationships with kids that reach beyond the classroom, where our hands aren't tied. I also think you forget the mentoring roles we play that have nothing to do with the curriculum and everything to do with improving our students' lives, which includes fostering relationships with Christ. Private conversations with students can and do include Christ whether we risk our jobs or not. To say that I deny that Jesus Christ is Lord all day, every day is ludicrous.

[5] This question seems to leave out the great mass of church history. The gospel has been spreading quite well over the centuries without Christian children going to officially agnostic government run schools. I’m talking about giving children a distinctively Christian education, not cloistering them up in a monastery or the like. Frankly, if Christians starting developing schools where Jesus’ command to “love me with all your mind” was taken seriously, I think we’d start to see the impact very soon. Historically, Christians were the ones who were sought after in various vocations because they could be counted on to work harder and with more integrity than others. Sadly, this has changed due to the church, not because the culture has become “better” people. Even our Christians schools need a lot of work. Your question also assumes a kind of “two worlds” idea: The secular world and the “Christian” world. There’s only one world and it’s God’s world, and the sooner we teach and embody this reality, the sooner Jesus and the gospel will be seen by all as the Lord that he is. The task is complicated today because of our radical individualism, but Jesus was clear that “all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” The call is for Christians to raise their children and educate them in a way that makes Jesus’ lordship clear. This will necessarily give God’s people many opportunities and venues in which to share the gospel.

In trying to write quickly so as not to forget any of the questions  that were brimming, I believe I worded this question poorly. What I really meant was: Aren't we missing out on an awesome opportunity to influence the lives of the unsaved children in the public schools? I did not intend to leave out the history of the church. 


I also disagree with the idea that there are "two worlds" and I think this whole discussion originated with that very point, which Josh McDowell made on his blog ("let's take Christ with us into the secular world"). Aren't Christian schools just another attempt to create our own little niche? 


Also, how do you feel about preparing kids for globalization and/or diversity in the working world? Does the school in which you work have a population that reflects the races/cultures of the surrounding community? I guess what I'm getting at is this: When I was growing up, I never knew anybody who went to a Christian school. As far as I know, nobody I was around knew anybody from Christian schools either. (If I have any readers from way back when, feel free to correct me on this one.) We knew about Christian colleges, but the kids from the Christian schools in the area might as well have been invisible, despite the presence of several schools in the county. Isn't that a little "cloistered," as you put it? Or is it just coincidence that I never encountered them?

[6] When I say that government schools are “officially agnostic,” I mean precisely what you’ve said, namely, God gets the silent treatment. I say it’s agnostic because the public school doesn’t take an official position for or against God’s existence and reality. But of course, the way it works out is “against.” I think I explained that earlier. Believe me, the ACLU and others are standing by to make sure that nothing positive about God’s existence gets talked about in public schools. So it’s official. You’ve pointed up the problem rather well. Public schools teach children that if they want to believe in God, that’s find for them, kind of like believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. No one will stop you if you want to believe in them. But don’t try to bring it into the classroom as though it actually had anything to do with knowledge. It’s just your belief, right? And you should probably keep your beliefs to yourself and your church. So kids learn to privatize their faith, to wall it off and put it in a separate category. They don’t necessarily know they’re doing this, but they are. They’re being taught that spiritual knowledge is all relative, that is, unknowable, and that if they want to have “faith,” then they hope that does something good for them. But don’t possibly think that it is true for all people everywhere. How narrow-minded! You get it?

I get what you're saying, but I'm inclined to think that either I've been extremely lucky or you've been extremely unlucky as far as the attitudes of the educators we've encountered in the public schools. It may be geography as well, as being reported to the ACLU here in the Bible Belt is probably less likely than in California. In fact, the only time I can think of the ACLU getting a mention around here (in this context, at least) was when an atheist teacher at my own high school tried to tell a student that he couldn't read his Bible in class after he finished his classwork. (Again, readers, correct me if I'm wrong.) Also see #4... most of my responses there apply here as well. Perhaps we should combine these two if this continues?

[7] I’m not some kind of utopian, so I don’t think all Christians are going to abandon the public schools next week. But I’ll tell you this, if Christians finally decided that biblical wisdom required them to pull out of the public schools and give their children a Christian education, the public schools would have to shut down. It’s Christians who are keeping them open. We have the power to decide about these things. We’re not stuck. But we’ve got to do some better thinking.

What I was specifically addressing was the role of Christian teachers. I really took offense to the statement on your blog about the advice of the toothless drunk hanging out by the liquor store being equivalent to the advice of a teacher in public education. I realize that may be an extreme example, but it implies that every teacher in public education is guided strictly by the state curriculum rather than by the presence of Christ in his/her life. I really wanted to know if you believe that we, as educators in the public schools, are somehow going against God's will by remaining in our chosen career paths.

[8] Again, the church needs to decide that they’re serious about education. The real indicator to me that large swaths of the church don’t take the life of the mind (and heart) seriously is how little the church puts towards Christian education. Sure, we’ll spend hundreds of millions of dollars on church building programs, but where’s the line-item in the budget for scholarships to fund children’s educations. We’ll spend millions on dollars on Christian camps, but not Christian education. At my Christian school, we scholarship a lot of students who can’t afford our school. Even more significant is the issue of taxes. Give everyone back the taxes they have to pay to support government schools and we’ve got a different ballgame going, don’t we? There are ways to pay for it, but the church isn’t interested. That’s because our Christian children are on largely the same trajectory as the non-Christian ones. They aspire to the same things and the same standards of living and the same ideas about material progress and accumulation. And the public schools are their ticket to these goals. 

Ironically, even though I'm defending public schools here, I support vouchers as well. I think more choices for parents will help children in poverty compete with children from higher income homes. I just don't think that the public education system is the fundamental problem for Christian teens struggling with temptation. All of this still boils down to the point made earlier: most of today's teens aren't spiritually prepared for the world. 


I'm not sure how to take your point about public schools being the ticket to material progress and accumulation. Would I be right to infer that you assume the students of Christian schools are less likely to be materialistic and/or financially successful? Don't Christian schools prepare their students for college and careers just as much as public schools? 


I think that through this conversation I've come to realize that Christian elementary schools might make sense... perhaps even middle schools. A large part of my argument hinges on Christian students being good influences on non-Christian students, and preteens aren't prepared for that responsibility. Many teens (and adults, as you said earlier) aren't prepared for the responsibility, but I think the problem lies in the preparation rather than with the public schools. 


I'm not completely sold, though, because of a very solid argument made by my late wife: her Christian education did not prepare her for the critical thinking she needed to be successful in college. Jenni was just as intelligent as she was stubborn (the two qualities I loved most about her), so she overcame the obstacle and was actually more successful than our whole college crew. However, she often talked about feeling shortchanged because she had to adjust in her senior year of high school (at a public school) to the higher level thinking skills with which her classmates were already accustomed. Perhaps her experience was atypical, but her accounts make up the deepest pool of knowledge I have to draw from when it comes to Christian schools. Is this an issue at your school? Is it what you had in mind when you mentioned Christian schools having things they need to work on as well?


I'm enjoying this exchange. I'd like to continue, but the hour is too late and the post is too long. I'm sure you'd like a response before I write a book on my beliefs and opinions. As you suggested, the opportunity to examine our assumptions is healthy and vital. I hope to continue the conversation soon... thanks again for stopping by!