Philosophy of Education
A school’s philosophy of education is at least as important as its curriculum. The development of a positive attitude toward learning and of effective learning skills depends completely on the nature of the delicate relationships among all the parties involved. The people with primary responsibility for a child’s education are her parents. They have the responsibility and the best opportunity to establish a relationship of love and trust which will enable them to expect a positive response from their child to their attempts to instruct him.
Although home-schooling is an excellent alternative, there are good reasons for delegating some of the responsibility for educating a child to a “helping” institution. The proper position of the “school” is always subordinate to the parents. The parents must carefully chose whether to send their child to a school, and which school is most suitable. The school is accountable to the parents for carrying out the educational responsibilities which they have essentially contracted with the parents to carry out. An effective school will have as one of its highest priorities the maintenance of the vital relationships between teachers and parents, and between teachers and students. A religious school will also strive to encourage all parties’ relationships with God.
I send my daughter to Covenant Love Community School, a private Christian school, because CLCS subscribes to this philosophy. In my experience, the government public school not only does not, but also would be systemically incapable of implementing it if it did. The prevailing attitude of many (but not all) personnel in public schools is that they are the educational experts and that parents need to defer to the school. Instead of the school working for the parents, the parents find themselves working for the school in the sense that they must enforce on their children policies and curricula in the formulation of which the parents have had no say. The “forced genital exam” case in a school in East Stroudsburg, Pa. is a perfect example of the logical outcome of the public school philosophy. The school personnel in this case honestly had no clue as to how the parents of these girls would feel about their actions. Imagine that! The institution which should be accountable and serving has no understanding of the desires of those whom it is supposed to serve!
Educational Content
The content of education is always value-laden. The information which a teacher presents, the reasons why she presents it, the way in which he presents it – all of these communicate to the student a particular set of ideas as to what constitutes the “good life”. This is inherently a “religious” issue! And there is vast and sometimes incompatible diversity in “religious” belief today. Since the government public school is effectively the only school available to anyone but the wealthy, it comprises a “winner-take-all” system. At our current moment in history, the winners are secularism and self-fulfillment. This is why a poster entitled “I AM ME” which expounds a totally self-centered view of life can be displayed in the hall of the district administration building at student request. But imagine what would happen if a group of students wanted to display a poster containing the Ten Commandments!
In other issues, the “winner” has often not been determined yet. “Tracking” has dominated the last several school board election discussions in my local school system. I can never understand why people always appear puzzled about the quantity and intensity of the animosity among board members and between the board and the administration. The answer is clear – we can either have tracking or not have tracking, but we cannot both have and not have tracking! This same principle applies to multiculturalism, Afrocentrism, religious music in school performances, and other issues which represent the deepest of convictions of many people. It seems to me that there is no other way to accomodate all points of view fairly than by having a choice of schools. This is why I choose to send my daughter to CLCS, a school which shares my deepest convictions.
Accountability
Accountability is the powerful feedback mechanism which makes human institutions work to any extent whatsoever. We are normally able to affect the institutions which affect our lives either by ballot or by the free exercise of our buying power. In the government public school system however, both of these mechanisms have been effectively short-circuited. Our money is taken from us in the form of involuntary taxes, and the school board is extremely limited, by bureaucratic inertia and union contracts, in what it can actually accomplish . The ultimate test of whether a school is doing a good job is whether parents and taxpayers will send their children and their money to it! CLCS has earned my trust and my support.