Education In The Media Age

We live in the communication age, have hundreds of years of trial and error to study and respond to, and are daily using tools that today’s silver-haired generation would never have imagined.

Yet, in the midst of all the changes, the cause for excellent education remains the same as it has been for thousands of years.

Mankind was created to be relational beings, and effective education can only happen in the context of healthy relationships. Those who struggle with relationships will struggle with academics, significance, and security.

Any school district in any community cannot improve education apart from improving family relationships. Districts that are faltering can never be made successful through legislation, additional resources, or better teachers.

Better schools will only be experienced when we see better parents, for there seems to always be a correlation between academic success and parental involvement.

Our nation would be best served by living as if all life mattered, rather than putting our energy into making shirts declaring that someone matters. First and foremost, we need to live as if our children matter by giving them our time and attention.

Instead, we so often hire someone else to spend time with our children so we can be about making sure the children are fed and clothed. Parents often spend so much time trying to sustain life and meet their own desires that their time and influence with their child is minimized.

Even churches have joined in this failing process by hiring staff to spend time with their youth because the adults of the church are too preoccupied to rearrange their schedules.

If we are relational beings, and we are then effective, educational processes must revolve around healthy relationships and not just academic information. This is becoming increasingly difficult as the definition of “healthy relationships” becomes harder and harder to define.

Today, children in the United States are more confused relationally than any other time in our history. They are confused as to what a family is and to what roles each family member plays. They are confused as to what love is, and have no idea with the term actually means.

They have grown up seeing the adults in their lives use what they should be loving, and love what they should be using, and they have no idea of what is and is not true.

Confusion always arises when each man does what is right in his own eyes, and we are in the midst of trying to accommodate all people, no matter what they believe and how their belief system affects the people and situations around them.

The problems in education will, most likely, not be addressed, for in order to do so we would need to admit our mistakes, reestablish our relationship with God, and rearrange our lives so that other lives matter more than ours.

Public schools cannot address the issues of this day because they represent the issues of the day. Our children are trained in political correctness while ignoring obvious truth, for in a Godless educational system there is no obvious truth, and these young impressionable minds will be influenced by the loudest, strongest, and most prevalent voice.

If we were to address the public education crisis, I would do the following.

Reestablishment of the fact that there is one God who created and sustains the universe and who has a purpose for all He has created.
Hire teachers who know God and love Him.
Train teachers to focus on healthy relationships.
Hire faculty to work with parents with the goal of healthy parent-student relationships.
Teach simple truths not based on what each person believes, but on what actually is true. Family and gender need not be confusing, and a teacher is responsible to clear the confusion, not create confusion.
Insist on parental involvement within the school and educational process.

When children are convinced that their significance and security comes from God, who does not change, and they know what good relationships look like and have experienced the same, they will do well academically.

In essence, effective education is a byproduct, not a product. We do not produce it.  We enjoy it because we have focused on those things that support it.

Who Should Care?

But God said to Jonah, "Do you do well to be angry for the plant?" And he said, "Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die." And the Lord said, "You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"

Jonah 4:9-11

Our smartest thought is only equal to God's dumbest thought. It is hard to think clearly when the fog of self makes life's journey so difficult to navigate. This life was not about Jonah, and it is not about me.

Without God, people cannot experience life, and those without God act like people without God. They are purposeless, empty, self-absorbed, and angry and have nowhere to go for answers.

Unlike Jonah, we should care and be willing to be used to solve the problem, and the first problem we need to allow God to solve has do to with our hearts, not theirs. 

Wasted Gifts?

There is a substantial amount of money being donated to political causes in the United States. As of today, according to OpenSecrets.org, the candidates for public office have been given $993,651,906.00.

I cannot help but wonder why? 

I am amazed at the amount of money competent business people seem to waste on politicians. Our nations’ leaders have failed to lead. We are a nation that has abandon God, abandon reason in the areas of family, gender, abortion and public aid, budgeting, etc.

We spend extraordinary money on educational systems that are broken. Information at institutions of higher learning seems filtered through a politically correct cheesecloth. Safe zones, where the free expression of ideas are no longer welcome, are becoming more normative. Those who graduate from college often need to be retrained because the schools have become more of a holding tank than a training ground. 

To add to the confusion, we pay athletes, who have used and enjoyed the freedom they have been given in our country, millions of dollars to entertain us and then watch them disrespect the very symbol that represents the system that gave them their opportunity. 

Why? Why are there so many people willing to give so much for so little in return? Incompetent government, spoiled self-centered athletes, and fantasy world universities represent the problem not the solution. 

People and businesses must be donating for some reason that serves themselves. They must be giving for what they get out of it regardless of what it actually accomplishes. They must be giving to obtain power or position for themselves and are willing to continue to support a broken system for their personal benefit. 

This seems terribly short sited.

For years those who have donated to the nonprofit I serve have insisted that we show that their investment with us, in the form of a gift, is well used. Obviously that is not the same standard placed upon those in politics, athletics or education. 

Silver Birch Ranch is beginning to make plans for it’s 50th summer. For fifty years we have worked with children and families in order that they may know Christ and learn how to make Him known. The real answer for the challenges we face is to know God. Those who truly know God, love God. Those who love God love people. If you know God, love God and love people you will make proper decisions and be worthy of donated dollars. 

If you are going to give your money away I would suggest that you give it to Silver Birch Ranch. They have been able to stay focused for 49 years and are still serving our nations children and families. Since gifts given or fees paid to government, athletic events and colleges seems like a certain waste you could use your resources to fund something outside those “norms” that has the possibility of actually fueling real hope and change. 

I think we, as a nation, should rethink why we give. You can find more information on Silver Birch Ranch at silverbirchranch.org.