performing

I think my husband is making a nerd out of me. Well, I guess I should say he's making a bigger nerd out me. After just a little over four months of marriage, he's got me occasionally watching the news (my dad would be proud), weekly anticipating the Saturday arrival of our Time magazine, reading Ann Coulter on Thursdays (don't tell), and just this week I've caught myself listening to NPR news during the two minute drive from our house to church/school. And to make certain I've a good lense through which to view these clashing worldviews, every evening while I'm ironing I've made a habit of listening to the Al Mohler radioshow podcast I downloaded the last time my laptop came across a signal. Have I told you that I love Al Mohler?

Yesterday in the 2 minute drive home from school, NPR news interviewed some educators with different views on software-based curriculum in public schools. One teacher said something about "...students are performing better..." and I asked aloud, "WHAT?" I've heard this phrase many times in my life as a student and a teacher, but yesterday I was wearing my CWV hearing aid (in case you don't know, that's Christian World View). That one phrase tells much about the purpose of the school system, its methods, and its assessments: performance. Is there a drama? A play? Have the students learned their lines and are now doing a better job of spitting them out at the right time? I thought education was supposed to be about.... education.

I know I performed well in my public school days. I crammed the study guide answers into my brain the night before my tests. I always made As. I was salutatorian of my senior class. Ashamedly, I've since learned that this is nothing to brag about. I was very poorly educated.

When I decided I wanted to be a teacher I thought a great deal about the purpose and goal of what I'd be doing. I found that the goal of education must be that students learn and love truth, gain the ability to reason and distinguish truth from falsehood, and attain the skills necessary and a passion to persuade others of truth. I believe, for this reason, that all subjects should be unified under the Lordship of Christ and comprehensively seen through the lenses of the Word of God and the glory of Christ.

I know the secularists in the public school system will never be about God's glory or use God's Word, but maybe they will at least learn to teach students--as our deistic and polytheistic forefathers were taught--to read and think, and not to perform.

For now, Ben Robinson and Al Mohler with their sagacious worldviews are making up for my lost days in public school. They make me want to read and watch and listen to the world, think, and develop my own good worldview. They are my good educators.