Education, education, idolatry

There are some subjects which must be approached with caution and trepidation, because their content is so accepted that to question is to vandalise. Here is a subject which, if I question, I will be seen not as iconoclastic or revolutionary, but as needing therapy or possibly clinical restraint for my own good. The subject is: education.

Now let me qualify this: I don’t want to question the concept, necessity or validity of education. Education exists in our nation largely through the efforts of many Christians who saw it as a way of making God’s word accessible, of providing opportunities for the deprived, and of driving forward social progress.

The concept is not my problem. My issue lies elsewhere; and I should say at this point, that the questions I am about to raise are not ones I have had to face as yet. I ask them as a concerned onlooker, not knowing whether I am right or not. Here is my concern: evangelical Christians are in danger of turning education into an idol. The next few paragraphs outline what I mean in two areas.

The first is, I think we are in danger of becoming part of a new class movement. One of many twenty first century ironies is that, having thrown off the oppressive class regimes of previous eras, we have simply invented new ones. Witness the apparently irrepressible urge to push one’s spending to the limit in order to buy a 4X4. Not that we go off-roading, or live up a mountain (in fact most of us live on large housing estates with very nice lawns), nor do I own livestock and need to drive through bad weather and over rugged territory in order to feed them. In fact I have little or no practical reason for owning a vehicle approximately the same size as a Chieftain Tank with the fuel consumption of Lithuania. No. I need one because it shows who I am. It shows how much I earn. Because other people do not have one, and I do. In other words, we have bravely cast off a class system based on birth and money, and replaced it with a class system based on just money.

And I am uncomfortably suspicious we do the same with education. Once upon a time, of course, very few people got to go to university and the opening up of space for young people from all backgrounds was a tremendous achievement. However that is not the same thing as saying that everyone is academic, or suited to university life, or indeed that universities are able to teach something appropriate to everyone’s inherent gifts (I know a gifted salesmen for whom university would have been a complete waste of time, but who now earns substantially more than many graduates, whilst also earning the respect of his staff and witnessing effectively for Christ). But increasingly we seem to be ignoring this. The idea was that universities be opened up to all, that those suite to it should be able to attend. Now the attending part is the crucial element. The government has not helped by stating its aim of getting 50% of young people into university: this makes the assumption that everyone at least ought to be academic in a way that benefits from university education. And here’s the problem: many of us are buying into this.

Is this a problem? It could be, because we teach our teenagers to find their identity entirely in academic achievement. From an early age all they hear about is the need to strive at school, pass SATS, aim high, do lots of GCSEs and many A levels. That’s OK so far as it goes. But what happens if a child is not academic? Struggles with reading? With numbers? Or that their abilities are simply not in processing information through pen and paper? This is why I think it my be a problem: we’re turning academic success into a new class system. If you don’t get into university you are not as worthy as those who do. If you get an apprenticeship, or start in a shop and work your way up, then you are somewhere further down the scale than those who have a degree (by the way, if you think this is the disgruntled rant of an academic failure, I have an honours degree).

Let me illustrate with a genuine situation. In discussing the future of someone’s teenage son, education inevitably came up, and with it mention of university. What reduced this mother’s face to an expression bordering on horror? The suggestion that if the lad was not academic he could do something else. Nope. There was no question: he’s going to university, because if he doesn’t…well!

So here is my fear: Christians taking the profoundly positive concept of education, and making it almost the purpose of one’s early life. Narrowing personality, gifting and achievement to what can be measured within the confines of academic life. And looking with horror upon anyone who doesn’t make it.

Why is this such an issue? Because, along with many other pressures upon the young, it tells them their image, identity and purpose lie here. And what if they fail? What if they aren’t academic? What if their gifts would be best served outside of education? What if they aren’t ready, and in the loneliness of life in a faraway city they fall into wrong habits and company to comfort themselves and forget their failure? It used to be that the well to do would want their son in politics or the army or the church. Well, there is no kudos in the church any more, and no one wants their kids in the middle east - so it’s off to university you go!

It may be your child will excel at university. Maybe they won’t. Either way, what they really need to know is that their identity is as an image bearer of God; that no amount of exams will take away their sins; that in Christ they are safe and have a purpose and ‘career’ that God will carve out for them in good works; and that the only thing that endures is not a certificate, but Christian character.

My other point focuses a bit earlier on the transition from junior to senior school, and the incredible amount of energy used by parents to get their children into the ‘right’ institution. Now I must reiterate: I have not had to make this decision, so I may contradict what I am about to say in the decades to come, but I want to raise the question.

When parents are obsessed with getting the right school, the best school, when they fake addresses on forms, or keep moving house through terror that their kids might go to a less academically certain school - is this sending the right message? What I mean is this: are we implicitly telling our kids that it is absolutely essential that they go to the best places and mix with the best kids? Well, you may reply, so what if we are? God has given care for the family as a priority, and we are providing the best for our children.

True enough, and who can question that? And that’s the problem: we dare not question a decision based on “the best for my family”, because it is self-evidently true. However, that isn’t the whole story. We should indeed question our definition of ‘best’. Many times I have heard people say the reason they provide their kids with every conceivable toy and gadget is because they want the best for them - whilst they as parents are working 70 hour weeks to provide these trinkets, thereby hardly ever seeing the aforementioned children who are traded between grannies, clubs, childminders etc. In other words, ‘best for my family’ is not a universal absolute; it is as polluted by sin as any other motivation we have.

Now the reason I mention this is because it gives us an opening into the whole moving/catchment area/best school thing. “We moved three times in order to make sure we were in the catchments of the schools whose league tables showed the best academic results, and the areas were nice and peaceful; we do the best for our family”. And I can understand that, I imagine that one day I will feel like that. But I also feel, right now, when I watch the horrors on the news, that I would like to move my family up a deserted mountain in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a security fence and guarded by 4x4s adapted to carry 4 inch Howitzers. It may be for the best reasons, but it doesn’t work and it doesn’t fit with God’s plan for my children. They have to be in the world to serve Christ, I can’t create some kind of pseudo-Eden in which they never fail at school and they never meet nasty people. If they don’t learn how to fail, and how to cope with obnoxious people, they will never survive this world.

So my point is this: is the constant desire for better areas, better schools, no failure, killing the sense of mission which God wants for my children? Numbers of missionaries from the UK have dropped.. Is this related to the fact that missionaries go to difficult places, with difficult people, in difficult circumstances, with no status, possibly no clean water, no promotions, poor housing etc - whilst all through their lives we have taught kids that the best thing in life is keep going where its nicer, don’t fail, stay away from failures, get good qualifications, so you can get a good job and earn good money and have a good house etc etc.??? Over 25 years ago Roy Joslin noted that people converted in the inner city became more responsible at work, earned better money, moved to the suburbs and the inner city people were being left with decreasing gospel witness. Are we, inadvertently, worsening the situation through our idolising of education?

I’m aware you may be very upset as you read this. Please remember I’m only asking the question, and I know how strong the urge is to protect one’s child from failure and the world’s ills. But in the same way we have heard that our obsession with cleanliness has led to a fall in child immunity, maybe our drive for perfection has led to a loss of sense of mission.

I know, I’m being hard. And I can imagine this conversation:

Annoyed parent: “But God wants the best for our kids! God the Father cared for His Son as His Beloved!”

Me: “Yes he does love Him infinitely. But when Jesus was incarnated, where was He born? At the margins, on the edge of empire, in a nowhere place, in a shed, with no healthcare and only shepherds for company, with the outcast, the failure; in the dirt, with lowest, the most needy”

Annoyed parent: “Yes it may have been a shed, BUT! It was in a good catchment area”.