Factory Christian Education

Here is another post from Brent Sears on education. You can check out his last post here.

Many Christians look down on relavent systems that are modeled after the world, when in reality, a lot of the staples we consider essential to the Christian life are actually just secular ideas rehashed in a Christian context.

In today’s post, Brent explains how our current Christian education model is fashioned after the secular model, which has ceased to be as effective coming out of the industrial age and into the information age. While many Christians will acknowledge that the secular system is not working, they won’t use the same logical reasoning to reconsider how we educate within a Christian worldview.

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It won’t work for everyone.

Of course it won’t.  People are different, especially in how they learn.  We know this, but when it comes to any type of educational reform we are looking for a standardized one-size-fits-all solution.

The problem is that we are starting with a factory model – putting raw materials in at the front end, working them through a very planned out process, and having them come out approved at the end.  Every product made goes through it, quality standards are measured, and sameness is the goal.

At age 5 most students start the (factory) education system – they are all blank slates when they start, they go through a very structured process with their peers, and they come out approved at the end.  Everyone is the same, regardless of their talents, skills and abilities – because they are all meant to fill a spot in a factory.

This isn’t going to work for the future – and with the Internet it is now possible to access information much faster than every before, without the need for a teacher to hand the information out in a textbook.

Guess what Christian education is built on?  It is not a biblical model that ensures separation from the world.  It’s a worldly one – actually it’s the same one that is used to train factory workers.

Is it a wonder why young people never mature and grow because of their (factory) Christian education?  If you want to lose a lot of people, then work really hard for well over a decade to educate them the same way regardless of their needs.  One by one they will peal off and go find places where they can grow.

How many people do you know long to go back to high school when they are finished?  The same is true for Sunday school, because the systems are identical…the only difference is one is Christian.