The Relevance of Christian Values in Education
One of the key factors upholstering the advent of modernity has been the separation of all aspects related to religion from the sphere of public life, thereby paving the way for a secular society governed by the principle of reason instead of blind faith. However, the question is that to what extent can one or should one go in order to be justifiably called secular! The question whether there indeed lies a difference between secular and religious ideals also attracts attention in this context. In this piece of writing based on personal views regarding the philosophy of Christian education, the above two concerns shall be addressed with specific reference to its relevance in the multicultural, multi-ethnic and secular Australia.
Sceptics, modernists and rationalists have always been extremely averse to the idea of education having an undertone of any religious faith in it. They hold such a view due to various reasons which have both ideological and historical basis. Ideologically, their antipathy towards the underpinning of religious faith in education emanates from the premise that it is not inclusive. It could unnecessarily and menacingly interfere with the personal beliefs of a student belonging to some other faith. From the historical point of view, the series of atrocities waged by Christian institutions is often highlighted to express dissent towards imbibing the spirit of Christianity into education. Dudgeon et al., (2010) illustrates the inhumane treatment of the aborigines of Australia by the state authorities and the complicity of the church as well in it. The justification provided for resorting to separation of aboriginal children from their biological parents was that of embarking upon a civilizing mission by gas-lighting the indigenous population of the region about the perils of being an aborigine and the glories attached to being the superior white-skinned Europeans. Holltrop (1996) mentions of the atrocities of the immigrant Christian population from Europe to America through their evangelical mission. The very fact that they treated the indigenous population of America as second class citizens was a deviation of the egalitarian and all-embracing ethos of Christianity. Holltrop (1996) also hints at the Christian view of being students. He presents the logic that the faith of Christianity view the students as sinners who ought to be goaded into the path of salvation by means of rigorous disciplining. Such authoritative and condescending attitude on part of the teacher towards the student if nurtured shall lead to an unhealthy relationship between the two, which shall be having an undesirable cascading effect on the entire process of teaching and learning. Another branch of thinkers stress upon the vitality of maintaining the spirit of multiculturalism, hence they downplay any attempt to infuse Christian ethos in education. Maddox (2011), citing the fact of introduction of multiculturalism as a constitutional principle in Australia, argues that the existence and operation of educational institutions shall be breeding more esotericism and parochialism instead of social cohesion. This goes as far as the reasons behind the negative reactions to inculcating an essence of Christian faith in education is concerned.
Personal Philosophy of Christian Education
Now, the discussion shall be focusing on the positive aspects of inculcating the spirit of Christianity in education. To begin with, the argument of Neumann must be invoked. Neumann (2011) makes an attempt to arrive at a common ground between faith and reason which are often considered in common parlance as antithetical to each other. Faith and Reason, both in his opinion is born out of a sense of belief. Reason, as he opines is not totally a product of the sensibilities acquired from what ones literally experiences, a degree of imagination and enigma is involved in it. Although faith is more often than not based on trust which lacks a verifiable basis, but it cannot be detached from human participation in the concerns related to their being, which is also the basis for reason. Thus faith and reason are interconnected to each other.
Since, the matter of concern in this respect is to examine the probabilities of education in Australia being inclusive of Christian principles, mention of the basic foundational principles of the former and diagnosing its compatibility with the latter needs to be attempted. According to the declaration of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers of February 2011, the national education rests on the pillars of equity, relentless strive for excellence, inclusivity and sensitivity towards the predispositions and value perceptions of individuals belonging to diverse backgrounds (Tuinamuana, 2011). Against the backdrop of this argument, the subsequent discussion shall be focusing on how can secular education and Christian beliefs could be effectively reconciled.
Biesta and Miedenna (2002) illustrates the sensation created by the 1992 declaration by the education minister of Netherlands. Though the Dutch society is thoroughly secular wherein all the aspects of public life have been clinically separated from the sphere of religion, Christianity to be precisely correct. However, the education minister of such a society had called for the inculcation of religious values into the fold of educational curriculum. It was driven by the concern that the youths of the country were increasingly falling prey to the clutches of antisocialism and were leading themselves astray. Of the three probable solutions to deal with it, secularization of religious principles and disseminating it among the students was considered appropriate. It was even welcomed by the parents.
In response to the issue of a sense of bias and the fear of indoctrination percolating into the fabric of the process of teaching and learning, the following viewpoints can be levelled to deconstruct it. Whelan, Slattery and Cannon (2007) provides a vivid account of the initiative taken by the Catholic Schools of Broken Bay in conducting a worskshop to interact with a chosen set of teachers and principals over a period of time and relate to them the benefits of the New South Wales system of schooling. The system was not fundamentally different from the core principles of education cherished by Christian institutions, namely, emphasis on the quality of teachers, facilitating growth and development of students on a cooperative basis, fostering the spirit of amicability across the different sections of the society. That tradition has since time immemorial been maintained in the system of Christian education. This can be connected to Lederhouse’s illustration a Christian teacher named Marilyn, who considered children as a gift of God and teaching as service to God. She strove hard even at her old age to make her teaching skills better (Van Brummelen & Elliott, 1997).
Pedagogical Approach towards Christian Education
Adding to them, the view of Edlin and Van Brummelen (1999) can be put forward. They opine that in Christianity, the relationship between a student and teacher is hierarchical in nature, which is higher for the latter in the continuum, the way Jesus himself practiced. However that does not imply that there exists something like a theological privilege of a teacher dominating the student. The teacher is supposed to abide strictly by certain biblical values which Christ himself had mandated. The degree of paternalism is definitely there, but the hint of benevolence and the sense of divinely sanctioned dutifulness adds to its charm. The task of teaching is considered as equivalent to worship, as it is carrying forward of the legacy of Christ and his activities. Christianity acknowledges human frailties and that is what is supposed to perennially motivate a teacher towards improvisation and sharpening the skills. Hence, it is expected that a teacher should have humility, elsewise he or she can never learn. For being a good teacher, it is essential to be a good learner. Edlin and Van Brummelen (1999) also make the point that due to the existence of these value systems in Christian education systems, parents show enthusiasm to send their children to such school so that they could be directed to the right path. In this regard the idea of obedience as presented by Howell (2006) must be mentioned. Obedience and discipline in Christianity is something which everyone owes to God, just like in secular institutions it is owed to the bureaucratic authorities.
With regard to the qualities of a teacher to be possessed according to Christian ideals, Honey and Mumford (2008) provides a typology. A teacher is supposed to be; an activist who shall be ready to experience new things; a theorist who shall integrate the experiences and observations; a pragmatist who shall be open to new and innovative ideas, and a reflector who uses reason to challenge the status quo. This is very much in tandem with the conception of Marmon (2013), which terms the mode of learning advocated by Christianity as transformative learning.
Christianity has often been associated with conservatism and rigidity. That would be an understatement as Christianity is an eclectic mix of values, with provisions for both conservative and liberal ideas as Holltrop (1996) says. Hill (2009) says that Christianity has a harmonious balance of faith and reason, which is very evident in the fact that it has expressed dissent towards the mechanical mode of education which lays emphasis on national interest and mercantilism. Hill (2009) on this note connects Christianity to Marxism, especially on the note that by critiquing the Western mode of education which is devoid of concern for the downtrodden.
Compatibility of Christian Values with Secular Education in Multicultural Settings
Having provided an overview of several viewpoints I would like to express my personal opinion on the issue of Christianizing education. It is very evident that the values which are cherished by Christianity, can be applicable generally, even outside the ambit of a framework that is Christ-centric, and Christianity does not propagate indoctrination as Edlin and Van Brummelen (1999) had tried to convey. My take on the matter would be that it is more important to live by the values than aligning with the faith of Christianity. Naturally the need to Christianizing per se is insignificant. An individual who merely follows the faith but is not guided by the values cannot be called a Christian. Hence, it is not necessary to make education having a blatant mark of Christian faith when the values can easily be secularized and applied in daily life.
As it has already been mentioned in the previous section that in Christianity the role of a teacher is of utmost importance, since the task of teaching has been associated with the virtue of serving God by ensuring that his creations, the students benefit out of it. It is not a matter of charity, nor is it something to be treated as a mercenary activity despite monetary remuneration being involved in it. In other words, teaching should be resorted to with the mindset of serving God through humankind, which sums up the philosophy of Christianity with regard to teaching. This hints at the fact that pedagogy is of utmost importance as per Christian traditions, it has to be essentially loaded with the most perfect elements and methods of teaching as service to God has to be done with the best of what can provide for within the range of capabilities. Pedagogy as per Christian traditions is also expected to be dynamic, since one has to constantly improvise upon oneself in being able to deliver the best of the best. It has also been mentioned in the previous section that Christian education as such lies in living up to the values espoused and propagated by Jesus Christ himself through his life, and in all the good work that he did. Hence the values of Christian education has the element of being secularized and applied to the other non-denominational systems of education as well. In this section an attempt to reconcile the principle of secularity and the Christian values in providing a personal account of an ideal pedagogical approach shall be presented. The discussion shall be focusing upon the viewpoints provided by several scholars, with an entailing personal opinion.
Student-Teacher Relationship in Christian Education
Bev Norsworthy (2007) had very skillfully established the connection between freeing oneself from the shackles of psychic prison, that is the quagmire of acquired ideas and value perceptions; and adopting a mode of teaching which is in tandem with biblical values. Teaching as an activity, as he presents, consists of a series of learning and unlearning. He establishes it as an inevitable condition to be fulfilled for a teacher in order to be able to drive oneself incessantly in the path towards perfection. The method prescribed by Bev Norsworthy (2007) involves an essential openness and receptibility to new and innovative ideas, which could be acquired by means of either experience or by the process of getting informed. That acquired idea has to be challenged against the personal philosophical standpoint and comprehension of the values of the Bible to determine its justness. This requires on part of the teacher, an immense amount of courage as Dr. Parker J. Palmer (2006) had said in one of his lectures. In my opinion, he is quite justified in what he had said as it is not an unknown fact that posing any form of resistance to the status quo has always been treated with contempt. If we take a look at the death of Jesus, he had embittered a section of the population for challenging certain viewpoints of the Jewish community during his times. As an example I would like to present the egalitarian conception propagated by Christ that the Kingdom of God to all those who lead a just life, which went fundamentally against the Jewish view that it belonged only to the Chosen Ones of the Lord, that is the Jews themselves. He had to die for the sake of his revolutionary ideas, but the impact which he had left in the minds of the people is still cherished today. Jesus had shown a lot of courage, and that is also expected of teachers in order to raise good students, who shall not concern themselves with just acquiring information, instead they shall treat education as a wholesome exercise of self-discovery and transmitting that to bring about a change in the world. However, since the pedagogical approach has to be applicable in the secular environment of Australia, I would however not be favourably disposed towards Bev Norsworthy’s (2007) model which speaks of taking recourse to the Bible. The concern herein is that the Bible is an eclectic mix of principles, both conservative and liberal. On one hand Bible calls for universal amicability, and on the other hand it condemns for example, the sexual minorities. Hence I would suggest that discretion of a teacher should be limited in being guided by the Bible and only those principles be inculcated which has a general appeal.
Assessment, Records, and Feedback Strategies in Christian Education
Norsworthy’s (2007) proposition of challenging of the status quo, and Parker’s (2006) conception of the courage involved in teaching, both very evidently hint at the exercise the faculty of reflection which a teacher ought to Effie Christie (2007) and Barbara Larrivee (2000) have talked about, illustrating its importance in their works. Christie (2007) defines reflection as an exercise which urges the teacher to confront themselves for the activities he or she has indulged in. That is something which she considers as necessary for teachers to be able to self-evaluate themselves and enhance their capabilities as teachers. The reflective contemplation which she talks about also calls for devoting a deep insight into the attitude towards the achievements and qualifications of the students and relate that to the process of teaching and learning in a critical way to diagnose the area wherein there have been some lacuna. Having located the shortcomings, the teacher is then expected to undertake adequate measures to rectify the shortcomings and help out the student to achieve better results. This conclusion she had reached on the basis of a research conducted on a group of school students at New Jersey. Her work which involves the use of empiricism has the potential to infuse scientific temperament into a religious value and thereby help in secularization of a religious principle for the purpose of its objective applicability. To define and explain this against a concrete theoretical proposition, I would like to cite Siebren Miedema’s (2009) reflective account on the philosophy of Dr. Wolterstroff on Christian education. The point which she makes it clear that these elements of scientism is already present and immanent in the Christian doctrines, and is also encouraged by the faith. Larrivee (2000) also provides her argument on similar lines but the unique factor of her viewpoint is that she infuses the element of ethics as justification. She tries to assess the impact pedagogical practices of a teacher is likely to have on a student from a moral standpoint. She had been critical about the fact that the beliefs and value perception of a teacher often goes unchallenged, hence she prescribes that the teacher on his or her own accord should put an insight into the kind of work he or she is doing.
In one of the previous paragraphs I have talked about a selective approach towards inculcating Christian values. The discussion shall now provide an account of certain cherry-picked principles and standards which could be characterized as a harmonious combination of Christian values and the principle of secularity, which I have been stressing upon. Teaching is not just about imparting information as a rigorous academic pursuit. It must also have the element of benevolence and empathy. As per one of the core foundational philosophies of Christian education, the teacher is supposed to be a facilitator of the overall growth and development of a student. It is thus necessary for a teacher to express the emotional side to the student as well and play the role of being a healer as Christ extended his magnanimity in emotional terms to the ones suffering from a peace deprived soul (Holley 2016). This role of being a healer in secular and more technical terms would be considered as the role of a counsellor. Modern schooling systems have made this an essential capability to be possessed by aspiring teachers, since a student spends a major portion of the day in school under the care and guidance of the teacher, hence it is necessary that the emotional wellbeing of the student is taken care of. The pioneering research work of Samia Michail (2011) provides an evidential basis for justifying the need of care oriented teaching practices. The inference of her research suggests that usually children from underprivileged backgrounds, both social and economic are more likely to bear the brunt of penalizations for obvious reasons, misconduct at school premises. She had delved deep in to the causalistic probabilities of the phenomenon she had observed, and she had reached the conclusion that lack of love and care was the prime reason why they behaved in a wayward manner. Hence she opined that penalties are not an effective method of dealing with such students. Punishments in her opinion had the potential to drive such students further towards the path of deterioration. The only way to redirect such children into the correct path was in her opinion, catering to their emotional needs. In this regard the views of Gore, Ladwig and King (2004) regarding the power dynamics between the teacher and the student has to be mentioned as well. They opine that an inter-personal relationship between the teacher and the student is quite essential, as good teaching is inherent in what the teacher does. The teacher must not consider himself or herself as having more power and influence above the student and use that to intimidate the students, that would not be complementing their idea of quality teaching. The trust factor, as they have put forward is like a cement which not just binds relationship between students and teachers, but also amongst the members who are a part of the teaching faculty. Quality teaching is in their view cannot proliferate in an environment which is marked by hostility amongst members of the teaching faculty. This hints at the issue which has been left untouched by Christian philosophy of education, that the relations in the activity of imparting and receiving of education is not just about the student and teacher relationship. In modern institutionalized education system, the structure is bureaucratic to serve the requirements of a complex society. Back then in Jesus’ times the level of complexity of society was much less than it is in today’s world, naturally we it is not a desirable option to rely solely on the Bible for seeking solutions for the complex problems of a complex system comprising of different levels of superordination and subordination. Hence it is necessary to implement additional mechanisms to deal with the problems effectively.
Conclusion
An effective system of pedagogy calls for the teacher to deal with a diverse batch of student. The works of Lewthwaite et al., (2015) and Cummins, (2000) hint at its vitality. Lewthwaite and others provide the report of a research conducted within the Diocese of Townsville Catholic Education schools in North Queensland which acquaints with the importance of being inclusive of the aboriginal students. Cummins (2000) had hinted at being inclusive and extending provisions for bilingual mode of teaching so that children who are not proficient in English language do not feel alienated. These pedagogical practices also have a basis in Bible, especially with reference to the life of Jesus Christ, and his sermons which was open for all.
In secular societies, Christian denominational schools are frowned upon by the State as well as the general public since their existence is believed to be antithetical to the spirit of secularism. Pike (2004) had countered the standpoint by citing the example of Christian schools of the United Kingdom which were Christian only in name, as the predominant guiding principle of Christian schools was that of the Enlightenment Philosophy. I would like to conclude by stating that the discussion had extensively dealt with the issue of an ideal system of pedagogy having a harmonious balance of both religious values and the principle of secularity, and it can be deduced that secularity and the essence of Christianity are intertwined to each other. Christian values can be universally applicable albeit selectively, and denominational schools too should be allowed to exist as long as they act Christian-like in their day to day administration.b
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