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The Irrelevance of “Schools”

By Kevin Swanson, Executive Director of Christian Home Educators of Colorado

American high schools are obsolete. Those aren’t just my words. That is a quote from Bill Gates, the most successful businessman in America today—a comment that attracted the barest attention from the media and academia. Speaking before an assembly of US Governors in February 2005, Gates said, “By obsolete, I mean that our high schools—even when they are working exactly as designed—cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.” Interestingly, the billionaire recommends rigor (character), relevance (life integration), and relationships, all three are fundamental to a Christian view of education.

 

Three Contexts for Biblical Mentorship

There are three contexts for mentoring and none of them include what many think of as a school. The first is the home, the second is the church, and the third is the business. In a Christian world, it is the ministers, priests, elders, or pastors that mentor in the church. This was common from 400 AD to 1300 AD, a period when Christian thinking dominated culture in Europe, prior to the humanist renaissance. Fathers and mothers mentor in the home. This has been common for about 6,000 years, more or less. Masters (doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, carpenters, and firemen) mentor in earthly labor. This was the education received by most Americans until the early nineteenth century, with the exception of those that would go into the ministry (who were taught by other ministers in seminaries like Harvard and Yale). Ministers, fathers, and masters. None of these are teachers and yet all of them are teachers! Could it be that God intends all of us to be teachers (Titus 2:4, Deut. 6:7; 1 Thess. 2:11)? Could it be that the development of a teaching class and teaching colleges (a relatively modern phenomena), is a product of an improper understanding of what a teacher does?
We are not eliminating the notion of “schools” entirely, only the modern conception of schools separated from home, church, and vocation. Of course a mentor may wish to assemble twelve students in a room and talk to them of a vine, an unfaithful servant, and the deep love he has for them. As I recall, Jesus did something like this.
As we bring fathers, mothers, pastors, and master artisans into education, we will see a relevant curriculum for the life of the student emerge because the principles of individuality, relationships, and life integration are necessarily realized in that education. The content of the educational material will be driven by the work that must be done in the life of the student and by the worldview of the mentor, not by some government agency with its concept of statist life.

 

The Increasing Irrelevance of Colleges

On graduating from college with an undergraduate degree 18 years ago I was amazed at how useless I was for the corporation that hired me. Immediately the company enrolled me in highly useful classes of their own making, classes like Experimental Statistical Design Techniques or Advanced CAD Design (as they did for every new recruit), just so I could be functional at a basic level in the engineering design work.
While there are some excellent partnerships between business and school (e.g. cooperative education or medical school hospitals), the marriage is still unnatural and contrived, and the university struggles to maintain any level of relevance whatsoever.

 

Making Education Practical

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, home education has revived this vitally important element of life integration to produce a wildly successful education. Let’s not stop there! As your children graduate, continue to apply these time-tested, God-established factors that produce excellent education. Seek out teachers that are doing the Word whether in music, engineering, or life. Moreover, ministry training will best occur in the context of the church itself. If a young person is taking classes in the medical field, he should be working at a hospital at the same time. Or, if he is studying law for three years, he should be working in a law office at the same time. While the connection of his classes to his work (knowledge by application) may not be seamless in the training process, hopefully he will learn how to take what he learns in his morning classes and apply them at the law office in the afternoon.
This is how a young person becomes highly productive in the field into which God calls him. Success in life is finding the calling that God has given each person, preparing for it, and doing it to the glory of God.

Kevin Swanson, host of the Generations radio bulletin and executive director of Christian Home Educators of Colorado (CHEC), has recently published a book on home education called Upgrade: 10 Secrets to the Best Education for Your Child.
This article excerpt is reprinted from the CHEC Homeschool Update, 3rd Quarter, 2005; 720-842-4852, chec.org