We love our work and love our students. In my classes, I often teach about living with purpose and intention.

Every summer my wife and I take a few interns who travel and produce summer camps all around the country.

Through my work at Artios Academies I have had the opportunity to speak to several organizations around the country.

My passions include my work, my family, my wife, the outdoors, theology, Art, culture, how I might strive to combine all of these passions to Glorify God.

A FEW NOTES ABOUT THIS BLOG:

• I post 3 times a week.
• I mainly post about Christianity, Culture, and Education.
• My posts are intended to spur conversation and help me to clarify my own thoughts.
• Not everything is on the blog is reflective of my current opinions. ( I reserve the right to change my mind)

We all exercise dominion. It is one of the great attributes that we inherit by virtue of being created in the image of God. What is unique about this attribute is that it is not just inherited, we are commanded to use this attribute correctly.

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” – Genesis 1:28.

We will all always try to exercise dominion over things. When Cain was expelled and sent into the land of Nod, he realized that he was cut off from God and was a fugitive. So, he built a city to give himself a sense of importance and security. Cain was exercising dominion in that situation. However, we often neglect this attribute in the education of children. Often, we spend our energy teaching students not to exercise dominion. We try to squelch the desire and innate tendency to exercise dominion in our homes and classrooms. Unfortunately, a child’s desire to exercise dominion does not disappear, but rather appears in the form of apathy. A child who is not taught to exercise dominion appropriately will inevitably exercise dominion inappropriately.

We are born fallen, that means we must be instructed in righteousness. Scripture tells us to train our children in the way they should go. We are image bearers of God and that includes the innate ability to exercise dominion. Our children should be taught how to use that innate ability to follow and serve God. If this attribute is neglected, children will inevitably use it to serve themselves.

We hear music all the time. In our cars, elevators, offices, lobbies and virtually everywhere else. We hear it so much that we often lose sight of how incredible this gift is until we see someone experience it after being isolated from it for a long time.

I found this video today. Its clip from an upcoming documentary entitled Alive Inside. The basic idea is that Music can help elderly people who suffer from Dementia or Alzheimers. An organization is giving these elderly people ipods with music that they used to listen to, and after listening to the music, these people have a tremendous response. This video below is about a man named Henry, and the quote below is taken from the video.

“The philosopher Kant once called Music the quickening art, and Henry is being quickened; he is being brought back to life”.

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” – Romans 8:28 (NKJV)

If God acts according to His will, then by virtue of being image bearers of God, we also act according to our will. The issue with us is that while God’s will is perfect, our will is distorted and sinful. God’s will is also limitless, while ours is finite. However, that does not change the fact that we have free will.

We make choices and judgements according to our purposes, acting freely within the boundaries of our created nature. So, what does all this mean regarding education? It means that if we are going to educate a student’s behavior, we must educate students in a manner that recognizes their free will.

If our goal is to teach our children to love God and live according to God’s will, we must approach education in a manner that is different from the world. The world tends to approach the student as a passive learner. A teacher presents information deemed to be true, and the student accepts that knowledge. This does not recognize the created nature of free will that we all have.

This manner of education will not do anything to inspire the student to truly live the Christian life; rather, it only allows the student to regurgitate what the Christian life is. Teaching is not just telling children what to believe. Children have free will, and they will always have free will. As teachers, it is our job to point that will to God.

This is where it gets tricky for parents/educators. The free will we all have comes from where the Heart is.

“As a Man thinks in his heart; so is he.” Proverbs 23:7

We must approach the student as if they are a free agent. We must teach the student that we, in our current fallen state, are not free. Rather, when we submit ourselves to God, we are truly free. Only when we submit ourselves to God’s will are we free to live as God created us to live.

While in between teaching classes at Artios Academies one day, I stumbled across one of our amazing teachers tutoring a 9 year old child in sentence diagramming.

Now, before I continue I want to say something about narration. Narration is a method of education that requires the student to take something they have learned and communicate (or narrate) it to someone else. It’s a great method of education. It shows that the student not only heard the material, but synthesized it in such a way that they can communicate it back to another person in a way that is different than how the material was presented to them. It shows that the student didn’t just memorize the material, but rather completely grasped the concept. 

So this grammar teacher, knowing my disdain for grammer, had me sit down beside the student.

She told the student, ”Do you know Mr. Lane? Mr. Lane hates grammar and sentence diagramming. In fact, he doesn’t know how to do it. So, can you teach him how to diagram this sentence?”

As I sat beside the student, he proceeded to teach me more about sentence diagramming than I have ever learned before! The student walked me through each process in a manner that was different than how his teacher taught him, but in a way that proved that he grasped the material!

So, what is the moral of this blog? Children, even at a young age, are much more capable of understanding concepts than we give them credit for. They should be taught in a way that not only focuses on memorization, but on understanding, grasping, and communicating concepts.

C.S. Lewis writes in The Abolition of Man:

“Education without values only serves to make man a more clever devil”

This is absolutely true. Man is born fallen and with the natural inclination to sin. Any ability taught to man through education, apart from the biblical way to use that ability, only gives man another way to sin. When we educate our children and students, we must do so in a way that not only teaches them how to do something, but also the biblical reasoning and biblical way to do it.

The problem is that we often teach biblical values with a “do this/don’t do this” method. While we must teach biblical commandments, we must also teach students the reasons behind these commandments. God does not arbitrarily hand down commands through scripture. He has a reason behind His commandments and He often explains the reasons to us in scripture. Why then, would we as educators, teach students the what, without the why? Understanding the why is imperative to educating the heart. Teaching the what may penetrate the mind, but seldom permeates or changes the heart.

One cannot have biblical morality apart from a reorientation of the heart from sin towards God. We must educate towards the heart if we are to truly educate morals. If we want our children to live the Gospel, then they must experience the Gospel in their hearts. Psalm 119:11 reads “Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against you”. Have you ever considered what this verse is NOT saying?  “Your word I have treasured in my mind,…” Through this verse, God is teaching us a key point in educating morality:  Morals are not a product of the mind, but rather, they are a matter of the heart.

The typical classroom is sterile. It has florescent lights and cinderblock walls. We place an emphasis on memorization, fact acquisition, and quantitative analysis with no appreciation of other ideas, work, or cultures. We don’t allow students to experience or grow in their creativity. There is a tendency to put creativity in the “fine arts box” and ignore it altogether when studying the academic. What a shame! How much we miss when the creative Hand of God is not fully acknowledged and the creative hands of our students not passionately encouraged.

Creativity is what teaches us to think abstractly. Students who do not exercise their creative muscles might be able to learn what is presented to them; however, they will be unable to formulate new ideas.

We must educate students in a way that allows them to experience the divinely inherited attribute of creativity. Creativity is an attribute that God deemed important enough to instill in us when we were created. Therefore, we should deem it important enough to educate. After all, if we are indeed image bearers, and we choose not to educate part of that image, then we are essentially saying the Creator part of God is not as important as the rest of God.

The fact is children have this attribute of Creativity whether we educate it or not. The problem is we live in a fallen world, where sin is pervasive in our culture and lives. Our children are bombarded with examples of creativity which at their best glorify man and at their worst wreak havoc in relationships and lives.  As educators and parents we must ensure creativity is fostered and encouraged in ways which bring honor and glory to the Creator himself.  We must teach the created to exalt the Creator.

• On the first day God created the heavens and the earth.
• On the second day God created separated sky and waters.
• On the third day God gathered the waters into one place allowing dry land.

The events that we see in the creation story are no doubt the work of a rational and thoughtful God.

Rationality, reason, and thinking are attributes that we inherit by virtue of being created in God’s image. It something that is inescapable of humans. We think and act with rationality in everything we do. This is something we do by virtue of existing and bearing God’s image. Learning to think and reason correctly is something that must be taught to students.

“…be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” – Romans 12:2

We must teach our students and children to think correctly, to reason as image bearers of God, and to view the world as God views the world.

Now, this next part is VERY important. There are those who would say it is better to wait to teach children reason or logic until they are older. They say that the “child” is not capable to be taught how to reason correctly; however, this view is incredibly incorrect and dangerous. To say this is to deny that children, regardless of age, are image bearers of God. It says that the “thinking” aspect of God’s character doesn’t apply to young children. But any parents who’s child has argued and convinced them to stay up past bedtime knows that children are capable of thinking rationally.

All of the attributes of God that we inherit by being made in his image are present in us from the beginning. They must all be developed and trained to be used correctly from the earliest age.

When we look at our children or students, we must understand that they bear the image of a rational and thoughtful creator. We must acknowledge this ability for students of all ages. It is something that we must develop and instruct correctly and with purpose in order to educate them to perfectly and completely fulfill the purpose that God has for them.

John Piper rediscovered an incredible theology called “Christian Hedonism”. It is essentially the idea that we are able to take pleasure in God and pleasure in Life because God takes pleasure in himself. It is a beautifully simple idea that can be hard for many Christians understand, but Noel Piper explains the idea through the simplicity of apple pie.

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” – Romans 8:28 (NKJV)

God has a purpose for everything he does and if we are bearing the image of God, we must do all things (including educating) with purpose. As parents, teachers, and educators, we must know the goal and our purpose in education. Donavon Graham, author of the book Redemptive Teaching, gives the best goal of education I’ve ever read.

The task of true education is to develop knowledge of God and His created reality and to use that knowledge in exercising a creative-redemptive dominion over the world in which we live. Such an outcome can be attained only by loving God and communing with him, resulting in the wholehearted worship of God.

You notice that in this “purpose statement” of education, there is nothing about concepts. There is no list of subjects or standard course competencies that should be taught. The entire purpose of education is to allow us to see God, God’s created reality, and to use that knowledge to serve and glorify Him. Every course should be designed with this purpose in mind – from conception to outline to final exam, always giving priority to the “Who” over the “What”.