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Francis Schaeffer on Education
NOTE: While this lecture was given in 1982, much of this
article can be applied directly to the homeschooling family
today.
From a speech given in 1982...
Now, moving from public schools to private schools, what is
the priority? Notice I am not saying Christian schools, but all
private schools, including Christian schools. If you are really
going to do something here, you have to think larger than your
own interest. What we must do in the private schools, including
the Christian schools, is to stand against those who have done
so much to ruin our public schools in not allowing them to get a
hold on the private schools, and specifically, the Christian
schools, through a control of the curriculum. What we should be
doing is struggling to see that the Christian school's
curriculum is not controlled by those who have with their world
view ruined the public schools.
This does not mean that the state does not have a legitimate
interest in the safety of the pupils in such a thing as a
firedoor. There are Christian schools that have said the state
has no right even to tell them not to have a fire trap. That is
not so. The state has a responsibility to say that a group of
people meeting in a building like this we are meeting in have
exit signs around the room, so that if there is a fire you will
not all burn to death, and that is equally so for the kids in
school. So the issue is not something like fire doors. The issue
is that they must not begin to bring the same destructive
teaching into the private schools by the back door of curriculum
control that they have brought so dominantly into the public
schools. We must not allow them to bring in through the back
door a control of the curriculum and especially at the very
point where the Bible's content is denied and contaminated.
Therefore, the protection of the Christian school curriculum is
another one of the priorities, which Christians ought to be
consciously and intelligently standing for.
However, let me say another side of this question of the
Christian school and our protection of it. While we are saying
that the Christian school is not to allow its curriculum to be
corrupted, we must also say that the private school, and
specifically the Christian school, should give a good education.
We are to say we are going to control the curriculum. We are
not going to let the state bring in the materialistic view as
the final reality through the back door. But if we are going to
say that with any validity the Christian schools must be giving
a really good education. It should not just be a matter of not
teaching what is wrong in a twisted education that rules out a
Creator. Our Christian schools should not primarily be negative
oriented. It is to be positive.
It is not just to be negative. It should be a superior
education, if you are going to really protect the Christian
school. It should certainly teach the students how to read and
write and how to do mathematics better than most public schools
enjoy today. It should do that but it should also appreciate and
teach the full scope of human learning. Christian education is
indeed knowing the Bible, of course it is, but Christian
education should also deal with all human knowledge. We can
think of what I said previously about the humanities. Christian
education should deal with all human knowledge - presenting it
in a framework of truth, rooted in the Creator's existence, and
in his creation. Real Christian education, if we are going to
protect our Christian schools, is not just the negative side, it
is positive, touching on all human knowledge; and in each case,
according to the level of the students, showing how it fits into
the total framework of truth, the truth of all reality as rooted
in the Creator's existence and in His creation. If the
Judeo-Christian position is the truth of all reality, and-it is,
then all the disciplines, and very much including a knowledge
of, and I would repeat, an appreciation of, the humanities and
the arts are a part of Christian education. Some Christians seem
absolutely blind at this point.
If Christianity is not just one more religion, one more upper
story kind of thing (as I speak of it in Escape From Reason and
in my other books) then it has something to say about all the
disciplines, and it certainly has something to say about the
humanities and the arts and the appreciation of them. And I want
to say quite firmly, if your Christian school does not do this,
I do not believe it is giving a good education. It is giving a
truncated education and it is not honoring to the Lord.
If truth is one, that is if truth has unity, then Christian
education means understanding, and being excited by, the
associations between the disciplines and showing how these
associations are rooted in the Creator's existence. I do not
know if you know what you are hearing or not. It is a flaming
fire. It is gorgeous if you understand what we have in the
teaching and revelation of God. If we are going to have really a
Christian education, it means understanding truth is not a
series of isolated subjects but there are associations, and the
associations are rooted in nothing less than the existence of
the Creator Himself.
True Christian education is not a negative thing; it is not a
matter of isolating the student from the full scope of
knowledge. Isolating the student from large sections of human
knowledge is not the basis of a Christian education. Rather it
is giving him or her the framework or total truth, rooted in the
Creator's existence and in the Bible's teaching, so that in each
step of the formal learning process the student will understand
what is true and what is false and why it is true or false. It
is not isolating students from human knowledge. It is teaching
them in a framework of the total Biblical teaching, beginning
with the tremendous central thing, that in the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth. It is teaching in this
framework, so that on their own level, as they are introduced to
all of human knowledge, they are not introduced in the midst of
a vacuum, but they are taught each step along the way why what
they are hearing is either true or false. That is true
education. The student, then, is an educated person. I just say
in passing, John Harvard understood that when he founded Harvard
University. It was founded with this whole thing in mind. The
student, then if he is taught this way, is an educated person,
who will have the tools to keep learning and enjoy learning
throughout all of life. Is life dull? How can it be dull? No, a
true education, a Christian education, is more than the
negative, though that is there. It is giving the tools in the
opening the doors to all human knowledge, in the Christian
framework so they will know what is truth and what is untruth,
so they can keep learning as long as they live, and they can
enjoy, they can really enjoy, the whole wrestling through field
after field of knowledge. That is what an educated person is.
In short, Christian education should produce students more
educated in the totality of knowledge, culture and life, than
non-Christian education rooted in a false view of truth. The
Christian education should end with a better educated boy and
girl and man and woman, than the false could ever produce.
Protecting the Christian school must carry with it more than the
negative; it should produce a superior education in all areas
of. knowledge, and notice I am saying all areas of human
knowledge.
Permission is granted in advance by the author
to anyone who wishes to reproduce this speech in part or in full
provided that the following credit is given wherever it appears:
Copyright by Francis A. Schaeffer, 1982, "Priorities 1982". Two
speeches given at the L'Abri Mini-Seminars in 1982. The above
permission is granted for non-commercial purposes only, not the
be reproduced for financial gain in any form. For additional
information write to: Franky Schaeffer V Productions, P.O. Box
909, Los Gatos, CA 95031.
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