The Church view on education
1982 B.B. Min. 156
23. Affirm that it is the right and duty of parents, according to Scripture, to provide their children with an education according to their conscience, and that the State has no right to overrule this right of parents.
24. Express to the Queensland Government the concern of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland that the effect of the “Education Act and Anothr Act Amendment Bill” in its present form, is to weaken the rights of parents in the education of their children by extending the control of the Education Department over all schools, whether receiving State assistance or not.
25. Inform the Queensland Government that this Church regards Part VII(b) and Section 66 of the Bill, in its present form, as a threat to the independence of theological colleges and Bible institutes, and respectfully request that the Bill be amended to rectify this.
26. Request the Queensland Government to withdraw the entire Bill for redrafting in a form which will express the God-given right of parents to educate their children in spiritual and moral matters and exclude any secularist assumptions that all children belong to the State.
27. State its conviction that the authority of all civil governments is derived from God (Romans 13:1) and is therefore limited by God (Acts 5:29), and call upon the Queensland Government to recognise this truth.
28. Affirm that this Church opposes the introduction of a Sex Education component in the proposed Human Relations Course in State Schools.
29: Affirm that this Church supports the concept of the conducting of voluntary courses in Sex Education outside of school time and the provision of home resources to equip parents in the task of sex education for their children.
1982 B.B. Min. 156
31. Express to the Premier of Queensland, every member of the Legislative Assembly, the Anglican Church, Roman Catholic Church, Uniting Church in Australia, Lutheran Church of Australia, Baptist Union in Queensland, Churches of Christ, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Reformed Churches of Australia, Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia, Seventh Day Adventists, and Assemblies of God, and to the media, the position the Church as taken on the matter, enclosing a copy of Assembly Paper No. 11:-
Education Act Amendment Bill
(Addendum to Public Questions and Communications Report)“The Public Questions and Communications Committee set up a sub-committee to report to the Assembly on the “Education Act and another Act Amendment Bill” which was introduced to the Queensland Parliament on 26th November 1981 by the Hon. W.A.M. Gunn, Minister for Education. This Bill proposes extensive amendments to the Education Act 1964-74 and a small amendment to the University of Queensland Act. Much concern has been felt within this Church and in other denominations about provisions of the Bill. As a result several delegations have seen the Minister including one from the Assembly’s Committee on Training for the Ministry. It now appears that the Bill will again be brought forward in Parliament in August 1982, when it could be amended.
From the earliest days of European settlement in Australia, the Christian Church has been actively involved in education at all levels. When the churches were unable to provide equal educational opportunities in all parts of the Australian colonies, the various colonial governments began to provide “free compulsory and secular education”. (At that time “secular” meant “non-sectarian” rather than “godless” as some now take it.) At this stage most of the Protestant Churches withdrew from primary education with the proviso that clergy would have right of entry into state schools to provide religious instruction to children of their denomination. Provision was also made for non-denominatlional bible reading in state schools. Our Church, together with others, is still, hwoever, participating in general primary and secondary education, and the wording of the Bill concerned has the effect of threatening the independence of Christian schools and particularly of cutting across the right of parents to provide their children with an education in accordance with their conviction and conscience.
The scriptures teach the sacred duty and right of parents is to education their children (Deuteronomy 6:4-7; Psalm 78:1-8; Proverbs 4:1-4, 6:20-23; 2 Timothy 1:5, 3:14-17) while it is the duty of the State to preserve order and punish wrong doing (Romans 13:1-4). Over the past century, during which the State has provided schooling for the majority of its citizens, there has been a tendency for it to consider that it should have control over all education. Under the existing Education Act, all children are required to attend a state school unless they are attending another school “acceptable to the Minister”, and so there is already a considerable degree of control over all schools. In the Bill, however, this control is extended very widely by a system of compulsory registration of schools. The Church might well be concerned since it is the aim of the Education Department not merely to provide skills for living, but a whole philosophy of life which might well be quite contrary to the biblical view of life, since only a minority of educational administrators and teachers can be expected to be convinced Christians.
Section 63 of the Bill provides that “the Director-General shall establish and maintain a register of non-State Schools registered under this Section which in the opinion of the Minister are providing or able to provide satisfactory facilities and efficient and regular instruction in a range of subjects and activities acceptable to the Minister” and further that a school may be removed from the register and ordered to be closed if it does not meet the Minister’s requirements. While the right of appeal to a District Court Judge is provided under Section 63C, there are no criteria given by which the Judge can make his decision. All that the Bill requires is that the schools’ activities “are acceptable to the Minister”.
In the Bill the definition of “school” is extremely wide, applying to:
“(a) A pre-school centre, primary school, secondary school or special school; or
(b) any other school, college, institution or place notified by the Governor in Council … by notification published in the Gazette”
only excluding rural training schools and colleges or other institutions of technical and further education. Such a wide definition can clearly apply to any educational institution whatever, conducted by Christians including Church schools, parent-controlled Christian schools, bible institutions, theological colleges and even Sunday Schools if the government of the day saw fit so to decide.It is being argued by the Education Department that such registration of schools is necessary to safeguard “quality of education” but this is not really achieved since there are no objective standards or guildelines to define what is a high-quality education. The while direction of the Bill is that the curriculum of schools should be “acceptable to the Minister” (which really means the Education Department). This is apt to mean that non-state schools would be required to adopt features of the state school system with which many Christian and other parents have become dissatisfied, which has led them to provide alternative schooling for their children, often at considerable expense to themselves.
The registration of teachers, which once was voluntary, has now become compulsory. Part VII(b) of the Act as it is proposed to be amended, would preclude anyone who is not a registered teacher from being employed in any school (as “school” is defined above) and can put at risk the position of theological lecturers and perhaps religious instruction teachers.
Under Section 66 of the Bill, there is a prohibition against conferring “an award that is called by a name or is in a form that is likely or is intended by that person to induce a person to believe that such award is an award of a tertiary educational institution” which is defined as “any university, college, school or institution in Australia that provides educationi at a level above the level of education provided at secondary schools”. This would seem to prevent our Theological Hall from providing any diploma or certificate to those who have completed its course unless the Bill is amended, or the Hall submits to Department registrations, which could involve compulsion to teach liberal theological positions.
The sub-committee believes that the Bill represents a dangerous instrusion by government and particularly by the Public Service into what are essentially the rights of parents and, in the case of theological education, of the Church itself, and recommends that the Assembly strongly express its opposition to the Bill in its present form. Rev J.J.T. Campbell, For the Sub-Committee”.
1984 B.B. Min. 212
8. Advise the Minister for Education, the Hon L.W. Powell, MLA, and the media that this Assembly supports his positive public recognition of God as Creator; and commend the Minister for requesting the Biblical view of creation to be taught in the Science classes of Queensland schools, and assure him of our prayers and encouragement as he oversees the implementation of his directive.
1986 B.B. Min. 149
11. Reaffirm B.B. 1984 Min.212(8):
“Advise the Minister for Education, the Hon L.W. Powell, MLA, and the media that this Assembly supports his positive public recognition of God as Creator; and commend the Minister for requesting the Biblical view of creation to be taught in the Science classes of Queensland schools, and assure him of our prayers and encouragement as he oversees the implementation of his directive.”
1987 B.B. Min. 329
14. Affirm its continuing adherence to the principles expressed in its 1982 Statement, B.B. Min.156, p.67, Clauses 23 to 27 inclusive:
“23. Affirm that it is the right and duty of parents, according to Scripture, to provide their children with an education according to their conscience, and that the State has no right to overrule this right of parents.
24. Express to the Queensland Government the concern of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland that the effect of the “Education Act and Anothr Act Amendment Bill” in its present form, is to weaken the rights of parents in the education of their children by extending the control of the Education Department over all schools, whether receiving State assistance or not.
25. Inform the Queensland Government that this Church regards Part VII(b) and Section 66 of the Bill, in its present form, as a threat to the independence of theological colleges and Bible institutes, and respectfully request that the Bill be amended to rectify this.
26. Request the Queensland Government to withdraw the entire Bill for redrafting in a form which will express the God-given right of parents to educate their children in spiritual and moral matters and exclude any secularist assumptions that all children belong to the State.
27. State its conviction that the authority of all civil governments is derived from God (Romans 13:1) and is therefore limited by God (Acts 5:29), and call upon the Queensland Government to recognise this truth.”
15. Endorse as a matter of broad policy with respect to the Education Act and Another Act Amendment Bill, 1987, the following:
That the Assembly gives profound thanks to God, and expresses its gratitude to the State Government and the Minister for Education for their conspicuous promotion of Christian standards and for teaching in public education and their zealous encouragement of Christian schooling and higher education, and prays for God’s guidance for and strengthening of our Government as they continue to stand for righteousness and true knowledge in education.
1987 B.B. Min. 329
20. Request the State Government to add the following Clauses to the “Education Act and Another Act Amendment Bill 1987” in the form herein suggested or in a form to that effect.
“Nothing in this Act shall operate:
A. to authorise or permit the Governor in Council or the Minister or any Council or body operating pursuant to this Act to impose any requirements in relation to the teaching of any religious philosophy or to require special educational qualifications of any person to teach any religious philosophy or to restrict in any way the nature, content or extent of the training of such religious philosophy or to affect any course accreditation by reason of the inclusion in such a course of religious philosophy.
B. to enable the exercise of any power or right of the Governor in Council, the Minister, a Council or other body operating under this Act in such a way as the inclusion in the students’ course of any religious philosophy might adversely affect the selection of such student for entry into any higher education institution.
C. to exclude the conferring of an award by any religious denomination upon any person in connection with training undertaken by that person in a tertiary education institution conducted by that religious denomination for the purpose of qualifying persons to promote the religious philosophy of that religious denomination.”
1989 B.B. Min. 279
31. (i) Commend the Hon Lin Powell, MLA for his commitment to the protection of children in State Schools by opposing the re-employment by the Minister of Education of teachers in State Schools who have been convicted of drug offences.
(ii) Rejoice in the knowledge of the fact that while a person may be convicted of a crime, there are those who show true repentance and a change in lifestyle.
(iii) Acknowledge that, because of the sensitive nature of some areas of employment such as teaching children, there may at times be a need to exclude a person from re-employment in such a position even after a person has repented and has shown a change in lifestyle.
(iv) Direct the Clerk to advise the Premier and Mr. Powell of these decisions.
1990 B.B. Min. 219
2. Encourage all Sessions to investigate the possibility of establishing centres of Christ-centred education within the bounds of their respective Charges, and to encourage parents, in the meantime, to support local Christian Schools.
3. (a) Call upon parents to be totally involved in the education of their children when this is being undertaken through any system, including the State System.
(b) Encourage Christians who are serving within the State Education System, to view their work as their Christian vocation, and to strive in all aspects of their work to witness a good confession to their Lord, and endeavour, through study and faithfulness, to aspire to roles of leadership within the State Education system.
(c) Call upon all Ministers and Elders and people to uphold in prayer those Christians whose calling it is to work within the State Educational System.
4. Declare that in its opinion according to the Scriptures:
(a) Children are not the property of the State, but rightly belong to the care of their parent/s under God in every respect until such times as their parent/s surrender this right by committing serious crimes as defined by God’s Word.
(b) The education of all children is ordinarily the sole responsibility of parents.
(c) In the fulfilment of this responsibility, it may be necessary for parents to delegate this function to others who may education “in loco parents”.
(d) Neither the State or any other person has the right to determine what is appropriate education for children not their own, nor to insist compulsorily that any un-Biblical education of children takes place contrary to parental wishes.
5. (a) Acknowledge that whereas the matter of the education of children is a matter of conscience before God, it nevertheless encourages all members, adherents and other worshippers to:
i. test the education their children receive according to the principles of God’s Word.
ii. strive for true excellence in the education provided for their own and other children.
(b) Acknowledge that whereas parents may choose to send their children to schools where there is no underlying Christian philosophy (e.g. State Schools et.al.) not withstanding any inherent problems in such schools, it nevertheless encourages its members and adherents and other worshippers to consider placing their children in Christian Schools.
6. Advise the Queensland Minister for Education and the Queensland Shadow Minister for Education of the above resolutions.
(1990) B.B. Min. 241
5. Encourage all parents of school age children within the Presbyterian Church of Queensland to:
(a) View Protestant Christian Schools as a viable alternative for education;
(b) Use every lawful means at their disposal to oppose and avoid Human Relationships Education in Queensland State Schools.
1991 B.B. Min. 155
That the Assembly:-
1. Commend to all Sessions and Presbyteries, the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Education, for their study.
2. Recommend to all sessions and Presbyteries the Accelerated Christian Educatioin Programme as worthy of implementation both as a school curriculum and as a home schooling program.
3. Encourage parents of the PCQ to consider the option of home schooling their children as a rerwarding and potentially successful method of educationg their children.
4. Declare that, notwithstanding the Christian faith and good intentions of many of its teachers, the prevailing philosophy of the Queensland State Education System is eminently humanistic and therefore anti-Christian. However, the Assembly reaffirms its decision of 1990 Minute 219, Clause (3), namely:
(a) Call upon parents to be totally involved in the education of their children when this is being undertaken through any system, including the State System:
(b) Encourage Christians who are serving within the State Education System, to view their work as their Christian vocation, and to strive in all aspects of their work to witness a good confession to their Lord, and endeavour, through study and faithfulness, to aspire to roles of leadership within the State Education system.
5. (a) Incorporate in the record the text of Dr Noel Week’s lectures delivered at the Assembly Seminar on education;
(b) Thank Dr Weeks for his presentation to the Assembly.
“CAN EDUCATION BE NEUTRAL?
BY DR. NOEL WEEKS
PRESENTED TO A SEMINAR HELD DURING THE QUEENSLAND STATE ASSEMBLY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF QUEENSLAND, MAY 1991
If you asked the average person who has some connection with education (like a state school teacher) the above question, you would probably receive two different answers. Some people would affirm the possibility of an affirmative answer, and may continue by saying that that is what the state school offers: an education without any sectarian bias. You might also receive a negative response from somebody who would deny the possibility of objectivity. Since there is no objectivity, since there is always bias, then education cannot be neutral. However, they may well go on to affirm that only certain biases should be tolerated. The state has a responsibility to prohibit, for the good of society, teaching from certain points of view.
I think you could also make some generalisations about the sorts of people who give those different answers. There would be exceptions of course, but one can still make generalisations. Older people would be more likely to affirm the possibility of objectivity than younger people. People with a science background would tend to lean towards objectivity, and people with a humanities background would tend to deny it.
OBJECTIVITY:
In the post-Reformation period, Europe was devastated by wars over religion. Against that background, the search was carried on to find an approach on which all men could agree regardless of their individual religious commitment. We may call what' was presented as the solution "science", "reason" or something similar. What is crucial is that it appeals to what is supposedly both valid and accessible to all. It may take various related forms, one being a stress on investigation and the discovery of facts. That is the empirical method, somewhat influential in English philosophical history, and hence quite common in Australia. Another path would emphasise reasoning more; that is the appeal to truths of reason which are obvious to all. In popular discussion, mathematics is the example cited, with the laws of mathematics held out as universally valid and accessible to all.
When Australian governments set about constructing a state school system, they relied upon this tradition. They claimed to construct a system which would not favour one particular sectarian position, but be open to all. Yet there was a particular Australian flavour to the attempt. Influential groups in Australia have feared the undercurrent that derives from convict and poor Irish roots. They have feared a streak of lawlessness in the Australian character. For this reason, the teaching of morality, and religion as a support to morality, has been seen as an important prevention to anarchy.
In the original plan, but falling increasingly into neglect, we find an attempt to teach a non-sectarian morality and non-sectarian religion in state schools. Most proponents of this attempt to put state schools above religious divisions would yet affirm that they are not indifferent to religion. They mean this sort of religion.
I would like to deal with various consequences of this view.
A THEOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCE - DEISM:
If one takes the various components I have sketched, one can almost predict the result. Man's reason searches for knowledge of a world that one may discover by empirical or scientific investigation, and in the process, one is careful to exclude any religious factors for fear of sectarian controversy. As a result, one must find a world from which God has been excluded from the outset. The earlier form of this belief was deism, that is, that God created the world to run by laws, but then left it strictly alone. If God did anything in the world, it would create a religious issue, an issue decided by faith rather than by reason.
Deism in turn, has consequences. One of these is a denial of the deity of Jesus, for any coming of God into our world would create a religious issue.
I occasionally meet Christians who want to defend an atheistic methodology in science. They say that the very nature of science should be narrow, and to exclude all religious questions. We can have our science here and our religion over there in some other department. In case you have encountered that position, I ask you to think through a series of steps. Scientific methodology
can be valid only if its presuppositions do not clash with the world it investigates. One presupposition is that God does not act in the world at any time after the original creation. If that is true, then Jesus is not God!
Often, the atheistic methodology seems to work in science because of the long-suffering and patience of God. Science depends upon the regularity and repeatability of the operations of the cosmos. God commands that such regularity continues (e.g. Jeremiah 33:19¬22; 31:35,6). Hence, because of God's patience, science, like other human activities dependent on the stability of creation, may continue. Science is not possible because God is excluded from the cosmos, as the Deists would argue. It is possible because God, at this time, directs the operations of the cosmos in a certain way.
THE SCIENTIFIC CONSEQUENCE: EVOLUTION:
If there can be no action of God in the world except perhaps to create laws, forces, or "atoms" at some very distant beginning point, then God cannot create distinct kinds of animals. That makes biological evolution a necessary consequence. It is very important to realise that Darwin did not invent the notion of evolution, but simply came forward with a seemingly plausible mechanism.
I encounter people who see as their prime goal getting creation taught in state schools. I have no objection to this aim, but think they are attacking only a part of the picture. It is not a question of evolution only. All of science has been placed into an artificial framework. At first, God was retained to be the origin. An origin that is inactive forever after is of no practical consequence. Hence, the move from Deistic science to atheistic science, is quite to be expected.
The consequence is that in our non-Christian schools, the pupil is taught to see the creation around him as an area from which God is excluded. The historian of Science, Kuhn, has stressed the way the framework in which science is taught and the unspoken assumptions of the teacher influence the pupil. Perhaps there is no better illustration of the pervasive influence of those assumptions than what is happening with the environmentalist movement. A world from which God has been excluded is a world where moral considerations are not relevant. Generations of students have thus been taught to see the physical and biological environments as amoral. The environmentalist movement recognises that there are moral issues involved.
However, they came out of an education where morality was excluded because God was excluded. Since God, who is above the creation, has been excluded, the environmentalists try to introduce religion and their morality from below. They stress pantheism, and are thus opening the door to the other religious influence from below, Satan.
Do not let the apparent success of science blind you to the consequences when students are trained to see the world not as the creation which displays God's everlasting power and divinity (Romans 1:20), but as they very world from which God is excluded.
MAN:
I mentioned earlier a second way of answering the question of whether education can be neutral. 1 would like to sketch why that second approach has arisen. Once you exclude God and all religious or moral considerations from your study of the world, then man becomes a particular problem. The common path was to view man as a mechanism or an evolved animal. The two alternatives are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Life can be seen in mechanical terms. That way of viewing man has, in turn, its own consequences.
CREATIVITY:
Machines do not have creativity. They are pre-programmed, even if the program is very complex. Further, if one knows the program, it is possible to predict the actions of the machine, or what actions by the outside observer would make the machine act in predictable ways. Thus the machine analogy leads to the denial of originality to man. We may think we have our own ideas but really do not.
If we are pre-programmed, or are destined to act in predictable ways by the impact of environmental input upon that program, then we have no responsibility. We could not choose the way we act. There has therefore been reaction in the name of freedom and creativity. If you remember that the direction being opposed was seen as a movement of reason and science, then you will see the further problem. The reaction has to be irrational. It has to set up an opposed duality of freedom over against determinism and imagination over against reason. This reaction is tied into the tendency to emphasize feeling over reason.
In a world in which creativity is given the highest value, and in which feeling is elevated above reason, morality has no place. Here is why the pursuit of scientific objectivity and the pursuit of irrational freedom can exist together within the same school, and often within the same curriculum. They have a common enemy: the Christian view of a morally responsible man who lives within a world created and ruled by God in his providence. If morality is dead, then there is no right or wrong. If there is no right or wrong, then there is no certainty as to truth.
This conclusion must eventually destroy the original starting point: that man could discover truth by means of reason and scientific research. One sees that some people have reached that conclusion, but such is the prestige of science, that the acid of relativism is only just beginning to corrode it.
CONSEQUENCES FOR THE HUMANITIES-:
One finds that in the Humanities, especially in areas requiring imagination, the consequences of the denial of truth and reason are being felt. They are especially strong in the Fine Arts and the study of literature. If there is no "right" way to do things, then other areas become affected. There is no point to teaching rules of grammar or spelling, or rules of any sort.
THE CONSEQUENCES FOR SOCIETY:
If there is no right and wrong, then there can be no rule of law in society. Society is faced with anarchy. Hence a purely pragmatic ethic has been invented. Society, for its own self-preservation, may allow certain things and disallow others. In doing this, society is not enforcing any law or standard, for there is no such law or standard. It is being arbitrary. At the moment one of the arbitrary rules is tolerance. However we should realise that the long term logical consequence of this position is totalitarianism. That logic has already been played out in the development of the Weimar Republic into Nazi Germany.
Faced with anarchy in society and with no absolute to which to appeal, Humanists have put a particular emphasis into the school: it is to be the place where people, having no moral reason to cooperate, are to learn to work together. It is therefore very important to Humanists that all children attend the same schools, and is also the reason why student group work has become the fad in some schools.
SCHOOL AND SOCIETY:
You may be thinking that all I have been doing so far is to give an intellectual history of our times, with very little reference to schools, and you would be largely correct. However, it is that intellectual history that has shaped schooling. Schools reflect the dominant ideas of our time. If those dominant ideas are non-Christian, then schools will promote ideas and behaviour antagonistic to the Bible; and I would suggest, for the most part, that that is what we see. In the sciences, an artificial world is constructed, a world emptied of God. In the Humanities, the relativistic ideas that there are no standards are taught. Even the Christians in the system are in a quandary. They can see that what is happening is not right, but they need help to see the whole picture, and to see the need to present a distinctively Christian position. The church has to recognise and oppose the dominant non-Christian intellectual forces in our culture, and by doing this, to give help to the Christians seeking to meet the challenge where they work and live. It is no use us saying we do not like "dirty" books in English classes if we have no answer for the position which says that there are no standards for what is "good" literature. We cannot bring in Creation to biology classes and leave untouched the non-Christian assumptions in other sciences.
In this talk, I have tried to explain why education is where it is. In the next, I will try to lay out, briefly, a framework for Christian education.
Finally, I will mention something to correlate with the problem mentioned earlier of the functioning of states with no ethical standards. John Dewey was convinced that American democracy had a problem. He was anti-Christian, believing that religion was disproved. He knew that left society without a common ethical basis. Hence he believed that children had to learn together at school in order to learn by experience how to live and work together in a democracy. This involves children having to learn cooperatively in groups. We may note then, that a common approach to pedagogy in primary schools springs from one man's conviction that Christianity has been disproved and superseded.
CONCLUSION:
In this talk, I have deliberately raised many issues to illustrate the fact that on point after point concerning the education of children, issues arise to which a biblical position gives a clear and distinctive answer. That answer is not of relevance to education only. For example, questions of environmentalism come up. We as Christians have to apply a biblical approach to education. If we fail to do this, then we will fail to apply the biblical approach elsewhere also, and thus will fail in our responsibility to teach our children to apply biblical principles.
CHRISTIAN SCHOOLING - THE CHARACTERISTICS (By Dr Noel Weeks)
Presented to a Seminar held during the Queensland State Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland, May 1991
SOME PRELIMINARY CLARIFICATIONS:
Those of you who have read my book will know that I am an advocate of Parent-Controlled Christian schools. However, that is not the topic this evening. This evening I am concerned with the question of a Christian approach to the classroom and content of the curriculum. The Christian approach is commonly limited to a more loving and caring attitude towards the pupils. That is partly because Christian supporters of the state school system know that the Christian teacher in that system has little say in curriculum content; hence it is logical to concentrate on things which are under the individual teacher's control. I think we need to go beyond relationships, important as they are, to curriculum and teaching methods. Another reason for the limitation to relationships is that that has seemed a safe area for Christians to withdraw into now that God seems excluded from science and the other disciplines. As will be clear from my previous talk, I do not consider it right for us to retreat in this way.
MATHEMATICS:
Once you raise the possibility of a distinctively Christian curriculum, you almost always encounter the retort that the content of the curriculum is neutral. 2 + 2 = 4 in anybody's mathematics!
Most practitioners of more sophisticated mathematics will tell you that, at the level at which they work, mathematics is closely connected to philosophical and value questions. We are not concerned with that level, however, but with the level of primary and secondary teaching. It is the philosophical and theological questions raised at that level by the competing systems of instruction that I wish to discuss.
I mentioned in the previous talk that one school of non-Christian thought saw unaided human reasoning as the solution to man's problems. However, once philosophy is pursued, it ends up in as many irresolvable disputes as theology. For example an attempt was made to reduce philosophy to logic, and logic to a discipline that would operate with symbols and fixed rules like algebra. A union of logic and mathematics does not solve all problems. What is the basis of mathematics itself? How can we be sure that what we call its "laws" are not mere human conventions'?
A search for a deeper and surer basis to mathematics led some to propose that Set Theory was the solution. This in turn interested some people who were concerned with teaching mathematics. They argued that if we have discovered the deeper logical basis to mathematics, then that is what we should teach in schools. If students can understand the logic and reason from the basics, then they will not need to go through the dull, boring memorisation characteristic of mathematics. Thus was born the New Maths.
I cannot speak for Queensland, but in N.S.W., the New Maths is virtually dead. It simply failed to yield the results claimed for it. Students learned a new jargon, but did not discover the key to all mathematics. Some "unkind" mathematicians also claim that that was because it had been proved years before the mathematically ignorant educators inflicted the New Math on schools that Set Theory could not be the basis of all mathematics.
The point I want to make is that the trends and debates over teaching mathematics in infants' schools in the last decade, cannot be understood without understanding Rationalism. Rationalism is a religious movement; a belief that man, by the use of reason, can surmount his problems. You will notice, further, that the New Math offered to take the drudgery out of mathematics. It is characteristic of many non-Christian approaches that they claim to be able to remove the labour and drudgery that have come into the world as a result of man's sin. Since the New Math has failed to deliver on that promise, other solutions have been proposed. One is to let machines take all the work out of mathematics. Students do not then need to learn anything by rote any longer, since calculators will do all the work. Another proposed solution is the osmosis method. Students should never be forced to actually learn and master anything. Exposure will ensure learning by osmosis without the pain of conscious effort.
We encounter here more examples of the utopian stream in non¬christian culture; the belief that we can escape the curse and return to the garden of Eden without the need of Christ. A Christian approach to mathematics will recognise that there is an order to the world, a regularity maintained by God in His providence; hence the existence of mathematical regularities or "laws". That order is not exhaustively penetrable by the mind of man, however, especially in a world under the curse. We cannot deduce every mathematical truth by flashes of insight based upon a few fundamental axioms and rules. They have to be learned or deduced by a process involving effort. Those beliefs give you a distinctive approach to mathematics.
LITERATURE:
I am deliberately moving from mathematics to literature because I want to argue that similar considerations can lead us to a Christian approach to literature. How is it possible that we can read a novel about people who have never existed, in conditions we have never experienced, and yet find it plausible? It is because there are certain regularities in the human condition that we can believe that people would do the things that are done in the novel. That is not the same as saying that we can predict what people will do. The regularity of the human condition is not the regularity of mathematics. The more complex a situation, the more we are reduced to predicting a number of possible outcomes rather than a single outcome. In retrospect, any one of those outcomes might be believable.
In speaking of fiction being believable, I have not yet asked the question: "Believable to whom?" Your understanding of human action and motivation will influence what you take to be believable; hence much literature appears false and contrived to a Christian for the author lacks the understanding of human nature which comes from Scripture. We do not have time to go into the vast complexity of the human personality, but there is one point I must take up. Scripture teaches us that man is sinful, yet he is not without some knowledge of the truth. There is thus a conflict between the desires of the sinful nature and the truth which his conscience knows. Realistic literature is believable because it portrays that conflict, which is why great literature generally has characters in some sort of conflict.
The significance of this point is that we are currently being swamped with literature that lacks any real conflict. It may have "bash them up", "shoot them dead" conflict between characters, but it lacks the real conflict that occurs in sinful, yet responsible, people. Especially when this unrealistic fiction includes sexuality with no ethical dimensions, it is defended as exposing children to life "as it really is". That is nonsense, but unless we take our biblical understanding of man into our study of literature, we will not perceive why it is nonsense.
SCIENCE AND THE ENVIRONMENT:
We tend to group Mathematics with science and Literature with History. My move from Mathematics to Literature, and then to Science, is not haphazard. Before coming to Science, I made two points crucial to Science. The first is that the regularity of the creation is preserved by God's patient providence alone. The second is that man is a sinful but responsible creature.
Science is in trouble today, because a fundamental premise of the movement which developed modern science, was that man's mind was untouched by depravity. The emotions might be affected, and man might need reason to overcome the power of those passions, but the reason was pure. Thus science was an area to be pursued without moral considerations. Further, science, in that it unlocked the secrets of the universe, was seen as what would lead man to salvation. Against it was arrayed the dark forces of religion and superstition, but the light of reason would prevail. We are reaping the consequences of a false religious hope in science.
This is not an argument against science as an examination and utilisation of the regularities of the creation. Like all other human endeavours, however, it has to be governed by the commands of God.
Currently, science curricula are being invaded by large amounts of environmentalism, which is dangerous for two reasons. To the extent that it is coherent environmentalism, it is held together by pantheism. A lot of the time it is not coherent, and the result is a disjointed curriculum. Hence children receive no general overview of the working of the physical and biotic parts of the creation. Only a Christian view of the world can combine the regularity of the world and man's role in it.
THE HUMAN WORLD:
Once again, I can build upon what has already been said to discuss briefly the social sciences. The things I have said about the regularity of the cosmos are relevant for Geography. My picture of man as a creature forced to make decisions, is relevant for History. There are important interactions. The geographical environment creates the context in which many of man's decisions are made. The decisions of man have, in turn, an important impact upon the geographical environment.
It is crucial to note that the geographical context sets many of the issues to which man must respond. However, it does not cause his response. One of the consequences of seeing man as a machine or a conditioned animal, is that the outside inputs determine the actions of man. Responsibility is removed, and hence we have forms of geographical or environmental determinism. Thus History tends to disappear in Humanistic curricula.
There is another common tendency in curricula in the social sciences. If there is no right or wrong and we must live pragmatically; what is for the good of the state, or what most people want, becomes the standard of judgment. Morality is replaced by the opinion poll. In line with this, Sociology, which attempts to study and predict the way the mass will react becomes very important. Australian Studies curricula are appearing in schools with practically nothing on Australian history or geography, and largely devoted to sociology.
PRIMARY EMPHASES:
You may object that most of what I have been saying, concerns the secondary school and not the primary. I would dispute that for reasons which will emerge later. However, I would like to take up specifically the primary school. I said in my earlier talk that there was a tendency for rationalism to rule the Sciences, and the defence of freedom and creativity to rule the Humanities, especially the Fine Arts. I need to qualify that by saying that there is also a tendency for the idea of freedom to play a more important role in primary than in secondary. Indeed, if you want to see what are the dominant fads in education, you look to primary rather than secondary. The pressures of preparing for employment or tertiary study force the secondary school to confront reality. Primary tends to be more driven by theory; and one such theory that I have already mentioned: the belief that we can learn without work.
Another common idea derives from the influence of Romanticism. It was a reaction to the priority of reason, stressing freedom and creativity. Hence there is a tendency to argue that children are discouraged by the discipline of school, and will learn much better if they are left free to teach themselves.
A second part of this opposition to reason was opposition to the analytical nature of science. Science breaks things up into bits in order to understand the bits as a means of understanding the larger whole. Philosophical movements opposed to empiricism will oppose analysis as a way of understanding, and say that the pupil must be exposed to the whole, from which they will intuit the pattern.
For example, it is a common tendency today to deride phonics as a means of teaching a child to read. That is, we are not supposed to teach the sounds of individual letters. Nor are we to teach children individual words. Rather, we are supposed to expose the child to whole sentences until he intuits how the script works.
Similarly the curriculum is not to be divided into separate subjects like English, Mathematics, History and so on. Rather, we are to devise ways to teach all at once.
On the practical level, the great problem with expecting children to learn everything for themselves, or to intuit how a script works, is that only some children will do so. The child not gifted with that sort of mind is severely disadvantaged. A Christian school cannot cater just for the academically gifted.
On a more theoretical level, the opposition to analysis is misconstrued. The world has regularities on many levels. Take an animal for instance. It has organ systems, and it is legitimate to study the regular.-workings of organ systems. Such systems involve cells and we can study those in turn. Each cell is a functioning system, as are the mitochondria within a cell. Opposition to analysis is really a denial of the many layered regularity and wonderful interrelationship of the cosmos.
Finally, I will mention something to correlate with the problem mentioned earlier of the functioning of states with no ethical standards. John Dewey was convinced that American democracy had a problem. He was anti-Christian, believing that religion was disproved. He knew that left society without a common ethical basis. Hence he believed that children had to learn together at school in order to learn by experience how to live and work together in a democracy. This involves children having to learn cooperatively in groups. We may note then, that a common approach to pedagogy in primary schools springs from one man’s conviction that Christianity has been disproved and superceded.CONCLUSION:
In this talk I have deliberately raised many issues to illustrate the fact that on point after point concerning the education of children, issues arise to which a biblical position gives a clear and distinctive answer. That answer is not of relevance to education only. For example, questions of environmentalism come up. We as Christians have to apply a biblical approach to education. If we fail to do this, then we will fail to apply the biblical approach elsewhere also, and thus will fail in our responsibility to teach our children to apply biblical principles.”
1992 Commission of Assembly
26. The Clerk laid on the table a communication for the Public Questions and Communications Committee re a “Report on Review of Permanent Exemptions Under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984”, and moved that it be received.
The motion was seconded and approved.
27. Rev L.J. Percy moved, it was seconded and approved, that the Commission of Assembly:-
Advise the Attorney-General, the Hon. Michael Duffy, with copies to the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition , the Queensland Members of the House of Representatives, the Queensland Members of the Senate, and the Media of the following:-
(a) The Presbyterian Church of Queensland requests that no amendments be made to Section 38 of The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Educational Institutions Established for Religious Purposes) as the exemptions granted in the Act enable a Church to consistently administer its own educational institutions in keeping with its doctrines and practices.
(b) The Church’s position on sexual practices is as stated in its 1989 Communication to the Queensland Minister for Education [BB Min.279.13(b) (c); 14(a)] viz:-
“13. (b)Advise the Minister for Education and Director General of Education that the Assembly regards the proposals set forth in its interim report on ‘Human Rerlationship Education for State Schools’ as a major change in education policy across the whole curriculum from pre-school to grade 12, which is in conflict with Religious Education in schools in that the proposal propagates a pluralistic, humanistic and rationalistic philosophical basis for society rather than a Judeo/Christian basis.
(c) Call on the Minister for Education to return to the status quo in practice, whereby the Judeo/Christian philosophy is accepted as basic and whereby Biblical ethics and morality are not merely an alternative to other bases for behaviour.
14. (a) Advise the Minister for Education that the Assembly regards instruction in human sexuality to be primarily a responsibility of parents, to be given within the Biblical constraints of chastity before marriage and fidelity within marriage, to the exclusion of all other sexual practices and preferences.”
1997 B.B 83
7. That the Assembly respond to the report “Children and the Legal Process” issued by the Australian Law Reform Commission and publicised in media reports (eg Courier Mail 20th May 1997) by stating that:
“Children are God’s creation, gifted to their parents who are responsible to care and provide for them, although perhaps delegating some tasks such as education etc. Furthermore children have the right to be shown God’s love and care through creation, providence and redemption in light of the Scriptures, which care involves discipline.”
And convey this to the appropriate media and Federal Government Ministers.
2006 B.B. MIN. 134
8. Write to the Minister of Education, with a copy to the Premier, Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party, and the Media, stating that in respect of the Inclusion Education Policy of the Department of Education, the Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland urges the Department to;
a. Respect the right of all students to disagree with religious views contrary to their own and to have the right to state why they disagree.
b. Recognise that respect between adherents of different faiths has nothing to do with any mutual agreement with, or respect of, their beliefs; but everything to do with the Biblical absolute to; love our neighbour and even our enemy, independently of his/her beliefs.
2007 B.B. MIN. 99
9. Request Parents and other interested persons, who are concerned about matters of education in State Schools, to both pray that our children will be guarded and protected in the Education System; but to be aware that there are also practical things which can be carried out, as follows;
v Teachers and Principals are responsive to visits and input from parents who have a concern about their child’s education. So there is a need to be aware of the school environment and to take up matters with Teachers and the Principal.
v In a similar vein active membership of the Parents and Friends Association at the School is a direct pipeline to the Principal and to the Department of Education.
v Local politicians are most interested in what you think – and how you will vote at the next election in which they will be standing. So a visit to them to raise an issue can be very effective.
v There is even the pathway of joining a political party and becoming active in policy development and perhaps standing for office or election.
v Letters to the Editor and comments on talk back radio can raise an issue to public prominence and bring about positive change.
2010 B.B. MIN. 99
14. Note that the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has released the draft K–12 Australian Curriculum in English, mathematics, science and history for online viewing and consultation. It is available at www.australiancurriculum.edu.au. For K-10, the consultation closed on 30 May 2010; and for the senior secondary years, the consultation will close on 30 July 2010. This consultation website enables everyone to read, review, download or print the draft Australian Curriculum. It also enables individuals and groups to provide feedback by commenting directly on the draft curriculum and completing an optional online survey.
15. Advise Members of the House, who are considering making a submission to the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, of the following:
15.1. We have a responsibility as Christians and as citizens to contribute to public debate and bear faithful witness, whether in the courts of kings or in the public square (Jer 36:1-32; Acts 17:17). In so doing we follow the example of the apostles and prophets before us, even if it means that we must at times be critical of the decisions or actionsof political rulers (eg, I Kings 18:18; Mark 6:18; John 19:11), for God’s call is to evangelise and teach entire nations(Jer 1:5; Acts 2:14; 9:15; 17:22; Matt 28:18-20). The Word of God gives us the standards according to which we ought to make judgement and expose that which is evil (ICor 6:2; Eph 5:8-14; II Tim 3:16), always remembering that the ultimate Judge is the Lord (I Cor 5:12-13; cf Matt7:1; Rom 2:3).
15.2. The private and public education of children is a long-standing concern of Scripture (Deut4:9-10; 6:7-9; 11:19; 31:12-13; Ps 78:5; Prov 6:20; Acts 5:42; Eph 6:1-4; IITim 3:14-15;cf II Chron 17:7-9; Neh 8:1-7).Scripture teaches that all wisdom, knowledge and instruction comes ultimately from God (Ex 4:12; 24:12). There is indeed benefit in being educated in the best that the world has to offer (Dan 1:4), but what is most important is the wisdom of knowing and following the ways of God (Dan 1:8-21). The best education is one that trains and teaches children the Truth, the Way and the Life, and we know that all of these are in Jesus Christ our Lord (John 14:6). Thus, we are admonished to set our minds on that which is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy (Phil 4:8) and to avoid the deeds of the sinful flesh(Gal 5:19-21). These revealed truths provide us with the standards by which we should assess and comment on the proposed national school curriculum.