Educator B.V. Hill has suggested “teaching as reconciliation” as a way to approach the question of teaching Christianly.
- child in relation to society
- education of thinking and feeling
- educational decision making
The key issue standing in the way of reconciliation in schooling is the dominant value that is given to autonomous human mastery in contemporary schooling. Unless we address this issue anything else we do will be no more than a token gesture.
The secular values of mastery
The knowledge that is most valued in schooling is the knowledge that facilitate this autonomous mastery.
Knowledge as power for mastery is the priority value in schooling because mastery is the priority value in life.
They are admired because they symbolise that most important of human values in this world, the power of human mastery.
The idea of mastery in the value system of the modern secular world is an idolatrous distortion of the biblical calling to rule and subdue the earth. The biblical calling is a calling to a rule over creation in the service of love. The chief end of human life is loving God with all we are and have and our neighbour as ourselves.
In the biblical calling power is a trust to be exercised on behalf of another. This means that the power is used rightly only as it is used to advance the interests of love as revealed by the God who is love.
In the biblical calling all exercise of power is valued only as it serves the ends of love.
The idolatrous secular idea of mastery all too often prevents us from living out the words of Jesus;
- we overlook the simple fact that “mastery” is the equivalent of “lordship”.
- The dominance of the idea of mastery as an educational and life goal stands in the way of reconciliation because it represents life as a contest, a battle, to be won.
- I may have the most sincere desire for reconciliation but if the manner of my living is governed by a motivating principle that generates alienation (mastery/lordship) it will remain a frustrated desire.
- Abandoning mastery as a (ultimate) life value will transform the whole of our educational practice.
- We will want to assess how effectively these concepts and skills have been integrated in a wisdom that shows understanding and appreciation leading to responsible action.
- By rejecting mastery as a life value we refuse to recognise the power that comes with knowledge as having value in itself, but only as equipment for the service of love.
- The practice of competition has been distorted by the idolatrous idea of mastery.
(competition in itself may be neutral)
- The healthy ingredient in competition is the kind of rivalry in which the achievements of one spur others on to similar or even greater achievement.
- The secular ideal of mastery perverts this good thing by changing the direction of rivalry from the attainment of a common goal to the outdoing of the other person.
- A healthy rivalry is not directed towards winning against others who become losers, or also-rans, but towards achieving a common goal together.
Serving God in love
To be human is to shape and control our world.
The goal of human life we understand to be the service of God in love; Matt 20:28, 22:37-38.
Every attempt to exercise mastery that is divorced from this loving service is inevitably distorting in its effects.
What the school can do, and what it is uniquely fitted to do, is provide the knowledge base that will enable is students to develop a fullness of service in love. This will provide its students with invaluable preparation for life, regardless of the spiritual direction they take. It will bear its richest fruit in those students who go on to live their lives in a personal commitment to God by faith in Jesus Christ.
To achieve so; we need to recognise the 3 major goal for schooling;
Learning for understanding
Learning for appreciation
Learning for responsible action
Learning for understanding
One of the great failure of modern secular schooling is its failure to give serious attention to the questions of meaning that are given implicit answers in the ordering systems taught to students.
- meanings are taught as part of the hidden curriculum with the result that students adopt these meaning without critical testing.
Humans may find it important to find a higher meaning for life but this is an issue that is beyond the scope of science.
- the assumption of a science free of religious questions is itself a religious assumption.
- We must do this in a way that makes it plain that these are not questions external to science but are fundamental to an understanding of the nature of science itself.
- Christian schooling that aims for learning with understanding will not allow the questions of meaning that are implicit in every area of learning to remain part of a hidden curriculum or implicit, untested assumption.
Education for understanding also affects the choice of what to include in the school curriculum and what priority to give to what is included. We will surely not only include areas of learning but give them high priority if they enhance students’ understanding even if they contribute nothing to their ability to control the world.
Learning for appreciation
Much of the riches of creation that God has given to us to enjoy is passed by or despised as valueless, or of little value, because it does not advance the cause of human mastery.
We value it, not because of what we can do with it, but because of the riches of God’s gift to us.
We know we cannot serve God in the fullness of love if we fail to appreciate and enjoy in thankfulness the riches of his gifts to us – to lead our students to know this world with appreciation of its diverse riches so that they will be equipped to enjoy this world to the full in thankfulness to God (Ps 145,147,148, Act 14:14-17, 1Tim 4:25,6:17).
Students need to be led by teacher who directs attention to the wealth that is to be found in the experienced world.
The development of this breadth of appreciation is not be regarded as an extra – it is not a program of personal enrichment added to basic knowledge.
Learning for responsible action
We want students to develop a knowledge base that enables them to exercise a dominion over the world that controls their environment for good.
However the goal of acquiring this knowledge is responsible action, not autonomous mastery.
It is only by doing so that learning for mastery can be what it ought to be, learning for responsible action in the service of love.
What have I learnt over these few days?
As I pause and thank God for the life He has blessed me with, I am caught with the awareness of how times have flown by…I am now 43yrs old.
I joked that every birthday is another notch downwards to the end of the burning candle. We are closer to our ends….Jo reminded me that it was also closer to our new beginning in heaven.
What a difference in perspective!
Interestingly, I am also reminded that I should be heaven-focused - longing for heavenly home more than earthly habitat by Edmund.
Today, I went to CHC for their celebrity outreach service. I was blessed by the many changed lives among all the artistes and celebrities.
Yet within me, I asked if I had past my prime, my best years, my best contribution. Jokingly I reminded myself I could not sing nor dance like them. And it was within second, God reminded me that I had offered to the painful world, not through singing nor dancing, but through His enabling in my life. He “rewinded” the video of my life and showed me the times He used me to bless His people, teach His flock, challenge His leaders.
My place is not on the stage of this world! Nor politics! Nor business!
My place is in the house of God. I am and have been called to be His pastor, His shepherd, His servant.
Yes, I can lay down the approval of man, the applauds of the audience, the affirmation of the world. I can lay down the limelight, the media, the flashy world. Because my soul longs for the courts of the Lord…..I miss the time of godly contemplation, the time of repentance at the altar, the time of worship, the time of being with God…..for such is what I am made for.
God, I miss you Lord. I miss Your Intimacy, Your closeness, Your healing presence, Your convicting works, Your amazing grace…Lord I miss You.
Forgive me for choosing the broken cistern of the world instead of the beautiful fountain of life. Forgive me for giving in to worldly pleasure rather than heavenly joy.
Forgive me for giving up…..
Thank you Lord for not giving up…
Thank you Lord for still loving me…
Thank you Lord for grace still amazing…
By Your Grace, I will arise…..
As I pause and thank God for the life He has blessed me with, I am caught with the awareness of how times have flown by…I am now 43yrs old.
I joked that every birthday is another notch downwards to the end of the burning candle. We are closer to our ends….Jo reminded me that it was also closer to our new beginning in heaven.
What a difference in perspective!
Interestingly, I am also reminded that I should be heaven-focused - longing for heavenly home more than earthly habitat by Edmund.
Today, I went to CHC for their celebrity outreach service. I was blessed by the many changed lives among all the artistes and celebrities.
Yet within me, I asked if I had past my prime, my best years, my best contribution. Jokingly I reminded myself I could not sing nor dance like them. And it was within second, God reminded me that I had offered to the painful world, not through singing nor dancing, but through His enabling in my life. He “rewinded” the video of my life and showed me the times He used me to bless His people, teach His flock, challenge His leaders.
My place is not on the stage of this world! Nor politics! Nor business!
My place is in the house of God. I am and have been called to be His pastor, His shepherd, His servant.
Yes, I can lay down the approval of man, the applauds of the audience, the affirmation of the world. I can lay down the limelight, the media, the flashy world. Because my soul longs for the courts of the Lord…..I miss the time of godly contemplation, the time of repentance at the altar, the time of worship, the time of being with God…..for such is what I am made for.
God, I miss you Lord. I miss Your Intimacy, Your closeness, Your healing presence, Your convicting works, Your amazing grace…Lord I miss You.
Forgive me for choosing the broken cistern of the world instead of the beautiful fountain of life. Forgive me for giving in to worldly pleasure rather than heavenly joy.
Forgive me for giving up…..
Thank you Lord for not giving up…
Thank you Lord for still loving me…
Thank you Lord for grace still amazing…
By Your Grace, I will arise…..
Reading 3 : Stuart Fowler - schooling for the service of love
Educator B.V. Hill has suggested “teaching as reconciliation” as a way to approach the question of teaching Christianly.
- child in relation to society
- education of thinking and feeling
- educational decision making
The key issue standing in the way of reconciliation in schooling is the dominant value that is given to autonomous human mastery in contemporary schooling. Unless we address this issue anything else we do will be no more than a token gesture.
The secular values of mastery
The knowledge that is most valued in schooling is the knowledge that facilitate this autonomous mastery.
Knowledge as power for mastery is the priority value in schooling because mastery is the priority value in life.
They are admired because they symbolise that most important of human values in this world, the power of human mastery.
The idea of mastery in the value system of the modern secular world is an idolatrous distortion of the biblical calling to rule and subdue the earth. The biblical calling is a calling to a rule over creation in the service of love. The chief end of human life is loving God with all we are and have and our neighbour as ourselves.
In the biblical calling power is a trust to be exercised on behalf of another. This means that the power is used rightly only as it is used to advance the interests of love as revealed by the God who is love.
In the biblical calling all exercise of power is valued only as it serves the ends of love.
The idolatrous secular idea of mastery all too often prevents us from living out the words of Jesus;
we overlook the simple fact that “mastery” is the equivalent of “lordship”.
The dominance of the idea of mastery as an educational and life goal stands in the way of reconciliation because it represents life as a contest, a battle, to be won.
I may have the most sincere desire for reconciliation but if the manner of my living is governed by a motivating principle that generates alienation (mastery/lordship) it will remain a frustrated desire.
Abandoning mastery as a (ultimate) life value will transform the whole of our educational practice.
We will want to assess how effectively these concepts and skills have been integrated in a wisdom that shows understanding and appreciation leading to responsible action.
By rejecting mastery as a life value we refuse to recognise the power that comes with knowledge as having value in itself, but only as equipment for the service of love.
The practice of competition has been distorted by the idolatrous idea of mastery.
(competition in itself may be neutral)
The healthy ingredient in competition is the kind of rivalry in which the achievements of one spur others on to similar or even greater achievement.
The secular ideal of mastery perverts this good thing by changing the direction of rivalry from the attainment of a common goal to the outdoing of the other person.
A healthy rivalry is not directed towards winning against others who become losers, or also-rans, but towards achieving a common goal together.
Serving God in love
To be human is to shape and control our world.
The goal of human life we understand to be the service of God in love; Matt 20:28, 22:37-38.
Every attempt to exercise mastery that is divorced from this loving service is inevitably distorting in its effects.
What the school can do, and what it is uniquely fitted to do, is provide the knowledge base that will enable is students to develop a fullness of service in love. This will provide its students with invaluable preparation for life, regardless of the spiritual direction they take. It will bear its richest fruit in those students who go on to live their lives in a personal commitment to God by faith in Jesus Christ.
To achieve so; we need to recognise the 3 major goal for schooling;
Learning for understanding
Learning for appreciation
Learning for responsible action
- child in relation to society
- education of thinking and feeling
- educational decision making
The key issue standing in the way of reconciliation in schooling is the dominant value that is given to autonomous human mastery in contemporary schooling. Unless we address this issue anything else we do will be no more than a token gesture.
The secular values of mastery
The knowledge that is most valued in schooling is the knowledge that facilitate this autonomous mastery.
Knowledge as power for mastery is the priority value in schooling because mastery is the priority value in life.
They are admired because they symbolise that most important of human values in this world, the power of human mastery.
The idea of mastery in the value system of the modern secular world is an idolatrous distortion of the biblical calling to rule and subdue the earth. The biblical calling is a calling to a rule over creation in the service of love. The chief end of human life is loving God with all we are and have and our neighbour as ourselves.
In the biblical calling power is a trust to be exercised on behalf of another. This means that the power is used rightly only as it is used to advance the interests of love as revealed by the God who is love.
In the biblical calling all exercise of power is valued only as it serves the ends of love.
The idolatrous secular idea of mastery all too often prevents us from living out the words of Jesus;
we overlook the simple fact that “mastery” is the equivalent of “lordship”.
The dominance of the idea of mastery as an educational and life goal stands in the way of reconciliation because it represents life as a contest, a battle, to be won.
I may have the most sincere desire for reconciliation but if the manner of my living is governed by a motivating principle that generates alienation (mastery/lordship) it will remain a frustrated desire.
Abandoning mastery as a (ultimate) life value will transform the whole of our educational practice.
We will want to assess how effectively these concepts and skills have been integrated in a wisdom that shows understanding and appreciation leading to responsible action.
By rejecting mastery as a life value we refuse to recognise the power that comes with knowledge as having value in itself, but only as equipment for the service of love.
The practice of competition has been distorted by the idolatrous idea of mastery.
(competition in itself may be neutral)
The healthy ingredient in competition is the kind of rivalry in which the achievements of one spur others on to similar or even greater achievement.
The secular ideal of mastery perverts this good thing by changing the direction of rivalry from the attainment of a common goal to the outdoing of the other person.
A healthy rivalry is not directed towards winning against others who become losers, or also-rans, but towards achieving a common goal together.
Serving God in love
To be human is to shape and control our world.
The goal of human life we understand to be the service of God in love; Matt 20:28, 22:37-38.
Every attempt to exercise mastery that is divorced from this loving service is inevitably distorting in its effects.
What the school can do, and what it is uniquely fitted to do, is provide the knowledge base that will enable is students to develop a fullness of service in love. This will provide its students with invaluable preparation for life, regardless of the spiritual direction they take. It will bear its richest fruit in those students who go on to live their lives in a personal commitment to God by faith in Jesus Christ.
To achieve so; we need to recognise the 3 major goal for schooling;
Learning for understanding
Learning for appreciation
Learning for responsible action
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