Monday, October 20, 2008
On Public Education
Let me start out with a couple of disclaimers:
First, I can be accused of bias in this. I am the product of public education. I briefly got obsessed with the idea of a private high school but my parents wisely waited me out. Both my undergraduate and graduate colleges were state schools. And now I work for the state of Minnesota, teaching at a community and technical college. My opinions are of course drawn from my experiences, but I don't think that precludes me from thinking rationally about this.
Second, I don't want anything here to be construed as an attack on any individual or any specific decision. One of my dearest friends teaches at a private school and his kids attend it. And maybe that's a good thing and the best decision their family could have made. I'm not trying to second-guess that decision or others like it. I'm looking more broadly.
But I'm a champion of public education. And in particular, I wish the people who call themselves Christian who want to create and support private, "Christian" schools would reconsider.
Public education is good precisely because it is public. It is for everybody, so it benefits everybody. I mean not only that anybody can be a student and get the benefit, but also that because it tries to educate everybody, the community as a whole is better off. Plenty of people complain about public schools not doing a good enough job, but imagine a world without public schools. Imagine how many people would be completely illiterate and much more ignorant about the world around them. Historically, that's been the reality in many cultures.
In particular, though, public education is good for raising and training Christians. I know this is not the common view. People seem to want to send their kids and even their grown, college-aged kids to private schools that operate within a Christian worldview. I can understand this impulse. The idea is to make sure they learn truth from the start. But there are problems with this. I'm not sure that any institution can really be "Christian," though perhaps a community can be. Institutions somehow have pressures that push them in strange directions. That's probably a whole 'nother blog entry.
Here's the thing: sending a student to a school that tries to only teach Christianity is not how you educate them, it's how you indoctrinate them. And an environment like that is generally not going to show students how to wrestle with doubt: it's just going to drive it underground. I went to public schools, and one of the lessons I learned well was "I am not like all other people." I got to say no to things that other people said yes to. I got to find out that my family disagreed with some popular notions. To me, that's pretty good training for following Christ. I'm currently watching a family member make bad decisions all based on the lifestyle she's seen on television her whole life. If she'd been taught as a child that sometimes you have to stand apart from the ways of those around you, she'd be better off right now.
Now there's some evidence that private schools do a better job than public schools. I'm not sure how solid this evidence is. Oh, I know how my friend teaches, and he does it well. And private schools are sometimes able to provide better setups in terms of class size and the like. But any student going to a private school either has parents who are wealthier than most (even in our wealthy nation) or people who put a higher priority on education than most. And chances are, having parents like that makes a lot of difference too.
So what I'd like people to consider is this: what if we took all those resources and all the time and energy involved in setting up and running these private schools and contributed all of that to the public schools? If all the parents who care enough to sacrifice to get their kids to private school would show up at PTA meetings, they'd be a voice that couldn't be ignored. And if the extra money that it costs to send a kid to a private school was contributed to the public school, that'd help too.
And all of that wouldn't just help the private school kids: it'd help all the kids. It would be for the public good, and especially for the good of those who can't begin to afford a private school. And that's a very Christ-like thing to do.
Just to be clear, I wouldn't want these Christian parents to be trying to use their voice to make the public schools "Christian." Don't demand that literal six-day creation be taught in science class, ''cause that ain't science. Do demand that students be allowed to talk about God and faith when appropriate, and encourage your kids to learn how to do that in respectful and beneficial ways. You can do your "influential leader" report on Dr. King or Nelson Mandela and tell how their faith influenced their actions. Don't expect the school to conform to you, but act to transform the school through your loving presence.
In other words, your kids should be in the school the way they'll be in the world. Because it's a good thing to do, and because it prepares them for what they will someday need to do. Otherwise, someday they leave the nest and enter a world that isn't all built around being or acting Christian, and they're in for a shock. I think we can do better for them, and for everybody, by actively supporting public education.
First, I can be accused of bias in this. I am the product of public education. I briefly got obsessed with the idea of a private high school but my parents wisely waited me out. Both my undergraduate and graduate colleges were state schools. And now I work for the state of Minnesota, teaching at a community and technical college. My opinions are of course drawn from my experiences, but I don't think that precludes me from thinking rationally about this.
Second, I don't want anything here to be construed as an attack on any individual or any specific decision. One of my dearest friends teaches at a private school and his kids attend it. And maybe that's a good thing and the best decision their family could have made. I'm not trying to second-guess that decision or others like it. I'm looking more broadly.
But I'm a champion of public education. And in particular, I wish the people who call themselves Christian who want to create and support private, "Christian" schools would reconsider.
Public education is good precisely because it is public. It is for everybody, so it benefits everybody. I mean not only that anybody can be a student and get the benefit, but also that because it tries to educate everybody, the community as a whole is better off. Plenty of people complain about public schools not doing a good enough job, but imagine a world without public schools. Imagine how many people would be completely illiterate and much more ignorant about the world around them. Historically, that's been the reality in many cultures.
In particular, though, public education is good for raising and training Christians. I know this is not the common view. People seem to want to send their kids and even their grown, college-aged kids to private schools that operate within a Christian worldview. I can understand this impulse. The idea is to make sure they learn truth from the start. But there are problems with this. I'm not sure that any institution can really be "Christian," though perhaps a community can be. Institutions somehow have pressures that push them in strange directions. That's probably a whole 'nother blog entry.
Here's the thing: sending a student to a school that tries to only teach Christianity is not how you educate them, it's how you indoctrinate them. And an environment like that is generally not going to show students how to wrestle with doubt: it's just going to drive it underground. I went to public schools, and one of the lessons I learned well was "I am not like all other people." I got to say no to things that other people said yes to. I got to find out that my family disagreed with some popular notions. To me, that's pretty good training for following Christ. I'm currently watching a family member make bad decisions all based on the lifestyle she's seen on television her whole life. If she'd been taught as a child that sometimes you have to stand apart from the ways of those around you, she'd be better off right now.
Now there's some evidence that private schools do a better job than public schools. I'm not sure how solid this evidence is. Oh, I know how my friend teaches, and he does it well. And private schools are sometimes able to provide better setups in terms of class size and the like. But any student going to a private school either has parents who are wealthier than most (even in our wealthy nation) or people who put a higher priority on education than most. And chances are, having parents like that makes a lot of difference too.
So what I'd like people to consider is this: what if we took all those resources and all the time and energy involved in setting up and running these private schools and contributed all of that to the public schools? If all the parents who care enough to sacrifice to get their kids to private school would show up at PTA meetings, they'd be a voice that couldn't be ignored. And if the extra money that it costs to send a kid to a private school was contributed to the public school, that'd help too.
And all of that wouldn't just help the private school kids: it'd help all the kids. It would be for the public good, and especially for the good of those who can't begin to afford a private school. And that's a very Christ-like thing to do.
Just to be clear, I wouldn't want these Christian parents to be trying to use their voice to make the public schools "Christian." Don't demand that literal six-day creation be taught in science class, ''cause that ain't science. Do demand that students be allowed to talk about God and faith when appropriate, and encourage your kids to learn how to do that in respectful and beneficial ways. You can do your "influential leader" report on Dr. King or Nelson Mandela and tell how their faith influenced their actions. Don't expect the school to conform to you, but act to transform the school through your loving presence.
In other words, your kids should be in the school the way they'll be in the world. Because it's a good thing to do, and because it prepares them for what they will someday need to do. Otherwise, someday they leave the nest and enter a world that isn't all built around being or acting Christian, and they're in for a shock. I think we can do better for them, and for everybody, by actively supporting public education.
Labels: Christianity, private education, private schools, public education
