In the last few weeks, life has changed dramatically for families across the globe. For families living in some parts of the United States, the most predictable elements of their busy schedules—the nine-to-five work day, daily school routine, church commitments, soccer practice, piano lessons—have vanished from the calendar. For perhaps the first time since the holidays, last summer, or never, families finally have the chance to breathe.
But will they? How will families adapt in such a crisis? And how will they ensure their children’s learning continues while at home, far removed from the influence of their teachers?
The Stoics, a philosophical school originating in ancient Greece, gained a place in the annals of history for their fierce resilience in moments like these. Stemming from their determinist outlook on life and commitment to holding personal affection at arms-length, they refused to let the storms of this world throw them off-kilter. Rather than viewing obstacles to their plans as indestructible barriers, they instead saw them as signposts pointing toward a new way forward. As the great Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, wrote:
“The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way” (Meditations, Book 5.20).
As inspiring as this response may be, most readers of this blog are not Stoics. But many of them are Christians. And like Stoicism, Christianity contains the conceptual apparatus to receive life’s curve balls, even crises, with peace and mental fortitude. What is more, Christians can continue to live their daily lives amidst challenging circumstances with faith (a virtue the Stoics do not share), as they trust in God’s faithfulness and sovereign will over all situations.
With this quiet but stable confidence in God Almighty, Christians need to remain focused on the present calling on each of our lives, which for parents at this time, includes the oversight of the education of their children. Whether a parent of public, private, or home school education, this article will offer both vision and encouragement for what this period of education can look like at home.
The Call of Parenting
While it may be difficult, parents should embrace the reality that supporting the continuation of their children’s learning while at home during this period is a great calling and opportunity. This calling is found in scripture, for example, when the apostle Paul instructs fathers in the Ephesian church to bring up their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4 ESV). Discipline, or training, requires dedicated effort and intentionality on the part of both parent and child. It does not come by accident. And effective instruction, the meeting of minds around wisdom and knowledge, requires the instructor “to know that which he would teach,” as educator John Milton Gregory put it in The Seven Laws of Teaching (26). Most importantly, the discipline and instruction Paul refers to is to be “of the Lord,” that is, God-centered and in line with scripture.
In Parenting: The 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family, Paul David Tripp provides some clarity for what God-centered parenting looks like in contrast to human-centered parenting. In particular, he identifies two contrasting parenting mindsets: ownership parenting and ambassadorial parenting.
Ownership parenting begins with the premise: “These children belong to me, so I can parent them in the way I see fit” (13). As Tripp observes, this tends to be the perspective most modern parents fall into. It is motivated by what parents want for their children and from their children. It is fundamentally rooted in a subtle form of selfishness. As a result, this approach tends to distort how parents think about self-identity, work, success, and reputation. Too easily, they begin to locate their self-identity and inner-sense of well-being in their children. They view their work as harnessing the power to turn their children into something, be it their own image or the image of someone else.
Over time, their view of parenting success morphs into whatever the world deems as success. Popular options include academic achievement, athletic accomplishment, musical ability, or social likeability. Ultimately, this mindset leads parents to fuse their reputations to the “final product” of their parenting: their children become trophies. Needless to say, ownership parenting is not God-centered, biblical parenting and it will ultimately lead to frustration, disappointment, and inevitably, a relational fracturing between parent and child.
Tripp contrasts this human-centered approach of ownership parenting with the God-centered approach of ambassadorial parenting. In international relations, the purpose of an ambassador is to represent the message, methods, and character of the one who sent him (14). In the case of parenting, God has given parents the mission of disciplining and instructing his children. Tripp summarizes it well:
“Parenting is ambassadorial work from beginning to end. It is not to be shaped and directed by personal interest, personal need, or cultural perspectives. Every parent everywhere is called to recognize that they have been put on earth at a particular time and in a particular location to do one thing in the lives of their children. What is that one thing? God’s will. Here’s what it means at a street level: parenting is not first about what we want for our children or from our children, but about what God in grace has planned to do through us in our children” (15).
Parents who adopt the ambassadorial mindset of parenting can rest in the fact that they are not autonomous but instead report to a higher authority. They are therefore not obligated to create, develop, and execute a self-proposed plan for their children, but instead need simply to follow the marching orders of God as presented in scripture. I use the word “simply,” but don’t mistake simplicity with ease. Biblical parenting is far from easy. It requires rigorous training, instruction, and the pursuit of godliness.
But when parents can reach a place in which the leadership of their homes ultimately is dependent on and rooted in the grace of God, incredibly blessing is the result. It allows parents to support their children in all sorts of worthwhile pursuits and cultivation of skills, including music, sport, art, and crafts such as carpentry, from a posture of confidence in God rather than a spirit of anxiousness.
Now that I have laid out the calling for God-centered parenting, let me know turn to the topic of education, which is particularly relevant at this time when so many parents are unexpectedly finding themselves responsible for continuing their children’s education at home.
Rather than offering parents guidance on how to educate (see other articles on our website), I want to instead offer some motivation for why education continues to be so important in the modern world. It therefore is not a responsibility parents should take lightly, but instead should seize as an exciting opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of their children.
Educating for the 21st Century
In Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm of Classical Learning, authors Robert LittleJohn and Charles T. Evans remind their readers how much is at stake in equipping students to face the unique challenges they will encounter in the 21st century (see Patrick’s Review). In particular, Littlejohn and Evans identify three major developments in the world today that engender the need for both an enriching and strategic education. They aren’t referring to developments that have merely emerged in the last few weeks, but rather, in the last several decades. These developments are important for parents to be aware of as they begin to temporarily step into the role as home educators.
The first development is an economic one. While there will always be a need for men and women to work particular trades, the majority of the workforce today can be characterized as “knowledge workers,” a term coined by management expert Peter Drucker. This sort of work calls for highly creative and adaptable individuals who are able to pick up new skills quickly and teach themselves new concepts without much guidance (11). These individuals need to be able to think on their feet and outside the box, and not be intimidated by a field of knowledge they have not yet studied. Moreover, with the unprecedented rise in technological advancement, the economy calls for not a small minority of these men and women to be fluent in the languages of math and science, computer programming and engineering (12). In other words, the need for sharp minds and piercing intellects is arguably greater than ever.
The second development in the world today which requires a unique education to face it pertains to morality. The explosion of economic progress in the West has brought with it a host of corporate scandals fueled by unrestrained greed and shameless deception (12). At the same time, traditional assumptions regarding marriage, sexual ethics and gender identity have been called into question. Over the last century, the western world has undergone various iterations of secularization, leaving its constituents to figure out for themselves which moral compass, if any, they will choose to follow. If the sociologists are right, then Gen Z, the generation of students born between 1997 and 2012, truly is the first post-Christian generation.
The third development LittleJohn and Evans identify as significant for educators to consider today is the broad philosophical movement from modernism to postmodernism. In modernism, particularly with the dawn of the Enlightenment, truth was assumed to be objective and knowable. While there was certainly debate over the most reliable source of truth (science, history, economics, psychology, or religion), it was hardly called into question whether objective truth was out there and accessible. In the present moment, however, what some cultural analysts have called postmodernism, it is no longer generally assumed that objective truth exists, much less whether it is knowable. The intellectual hubris of modernism has been replaced with an unexpected humility, though it is a humility rooted in an apathetic, insidious relativism: “You believe your truth and I’ll believe mine.”
In light of these three developments, parents need to be strategic regarding the education they choose, and in some cases provide, for their children. In particular, Christian parents who desire to equip their children to be culture makers, and not simply cultural critics, need to take seriously what tools are needed to face the unique challenges this third millennium poses. As ambassadors of God, heavenly envoys called to represent and embody his mission, parents have a real opportunity to shape the lives of their children in a God-centered direction. This opportunity begins, first and foremost, in the home.
Life Together at Home
So far in this blog, I laid out a vision for parenting from a biblical perspective and planted some seeds for thinking about the sort of education parents should seek for their children in the 21st century. Of course, for us at Educational Renaissance, this education is going to be Christian, classical education. Now I would like to close by offering a practical place for parents to start: the cultivation of Christian community in the home.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian-turned-spy during the Nazi regime, actually wrote a short treatise on the significance and contours of Christian community, called Life Together. Reflecting on his own experience in Finkenwalde, the seminary Bonhoeffer led amidst opposition to Hitler, Bonhoeffer reminds us that Christian community should never be taken for granted or perceived as human-earned. Bonhoeffer explains:
“It is easily forgotten that the community of Christians is a gift of grace from the kingdom of God, a gift that can be taken from any of us any day…. Therefore, let those who until now have had the privilege of living a Christian life together with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of their hearts. Let them thank God on their knees and realize: it is grace, nothing but grace, that we are still permitted to live in the community of Christians today.” (30)
Bonhoeffer penned these words after Finkenwalde had been finally shut down by Nazi occupation. He had experienced authentic, life-giving Christian community and now understood what it is like to live on the other side of it. Parents likewise should not take this opportunity to shape Christian community in their home for granted. While it will be difficult, no doubt, especially during this period of home isolation, it remains a channel of blessing, a vehicle through which parents and children alike can experience the goodness of God. In fact, one example of Christian community Bonhoeffer has in mind as he writes this is family life. He explains that God gives various measures of the gift of visible community and that one example is “…the privilege of living a Christian life in the community of their families” (30).
So what does Christianity community look like for Bonhoeffer?
It is a community centered around Jesus Christ in which the Word of God rules. It is characterized by service and agape love rather than self-centered ambition. The sort of service he has in mind is simple and humble, rather than occurring in a searching, calculated fashion (38). It entails mutual submission to one another rather than the pursuit of subjugation over others.
Ultimately, of course, it is a community of grace that is received, not earned, through Jesus Christ. As Bonhoeffer puts it,
“Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our community is in Jesus Christ alone, the more calmly we will learn to think about our community and pray and hope for it.” (38)
Of course, we must not conclude that, because community, like other elements of grace, is an unmerited gift from God, there is no injunction or personal responsibility on our part to cultivate it. The apostle Paul, who adamantly teaches that salvation is a free gift from God simultaneously enjoins the Philippian church “…to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12 ESV). It is the responsibility of each parent to lead their home into this community of grace and instruct their children how to live life together. We should not expect this to be easy. There will be conflict, acts of unkindness, and moments of selfishness that surface from time to time, every day even. But amidst these challenges, there will also be moments of forgiveness, love, joy, peace, patience, and all the fruits of the Spirit.
My prayer for families during this extended period of home isolation is that they would grow closer together as they learn to love, serve, and teach one. For parents who now find themselves in the surprising role as home educator, remember, you are first and foremost an ambassador, called by God and equipped to complete his mission. So do your best, train your children in good habits, teach them living books through the practice of narration, and leave the results to God.
Wow! A clear voice of reason and guidance through these troubling times. Thank you!