… although we often succeed in teaching our pupils ‘subjects,’ we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think … They learn everything except the art of learning.

—Dorothy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning, 1947

LESSON 1 — ASSIGNMENTS

Readings

Lesson 1
Read pages 52-57, and pages 88-89 in Teaching and Learning in America’s Christian History.
The books of Daniel, chapters 1-6, and First and Second Timothy. Make notes about their character qualities and any references pertaining to their education.

Reflections

Earnestly consider the following questions:

Do I have a teachable spirit?
Am I willing to rethink what I already know about Christian education and be retooled in Biblical methods of teaching and learning?
Do I like to read, research, and reason for myself and with my children?
Am I willing to expand my vocabulary of liberty and learning?
Do I enjoy writing? Am I willing to develop the necessary language skills to teach and correct student work?
Can I set aside perfectionism for excellence? Do I have the courage to persevere when my character is challenged?

Writing

Write a short summary of the characteristics of the education of young Daniel and Timothy Apply to Christian education for the twenty-first century. Identify your role.
Apply definitions and principles gleaned from this lesson to your “Educational Philosophy Chart”; found on pages 103-104 .

Preparing for the Seminar

This Seminar is designed to take you on a spiritual journey, for thinking and reasoning with the revelation of God’s Word are spiritual exercises. It’s also designed to challenge you intellectually, to help you root out vain and deceitful philosophies, and to place you on a course of daily renewing your mind. When Jesus Christ was asked by a lawyer, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” He responded, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment” (Matthew 22:36-38).

Loving God with all our mind is an intellectual exercise. For nearly a century, many American Christians have woefully neglected Christ’s command to love God with all their mind. This has plunged America into our current crisis in education. Our nation is now called a “nation at risk” because of this crisis. Our watchmen have been asleep on the walls for decades. We have permitted secular educators to lead us astray and rob us of our American heritage of classical Christian education! Sadly, Christians continue to lose the battle of education because of ignorance and passivity! This Seminar is designed to awaken your mind and elicit a commitment from you to put on the whole armor of God and arm yourself for the battle!

	Secular Public Education	Principle Approach® Education	“Modern” Christian Education
AUTHORITY comes from...	The civil government (Federal, state, and local)	The home, parents, and family	The Church
The source of the PHILOSOPHY of EDUCATION is...	Horace Mann, John Dewey Socialistic principles	Historic American Christian educational philosophy (Pre-Dewey) Individual conscience Republican purpose, the character of Christ	Fundamental reaction to Dewey and progressive philosophies Evangelistic focus
The METHODS of teaching have these characteristics...	External stimulation Behavioral modification Free expression Discovery learning Reduced curriculum with lowered expectations and vocabulary	Inspiring consent of the student to learn Reflective thinking and reasoning from principles and leading ideas The Notebook Approach and daily writing Rich vocabulary of liberty Tutoria method applied through the principles of Individuality, Self-Government, Christian Character, and Conscience or property Internal inspiration of the mind and heart Student accountability for his own learning Teacher is “lively” notebook- subject comes alive	External control Discipline Content memorization and rote learning
The CURRICULUM emphasizes...	Familiarity with subject content received in blurs, blobs, and bits Memorizing and parroting facts Multiculturalism Social studies, language arts Lowered expectations God removed; man and his achievements glorified	Mastery of the principles and ideas of subjects to form a unity of truth Teachers research and design their own courses Subjects valued and taught individually; their contributions to the Gospel are identified Classical literature, languages, and fine arts Standard is elevated because the standard is Christ! God and His wondrous works glorified	Familiarity with subject content; cover the material to pass the test Worldview of the textbook writer Secular content “Christianized” with Scripture
The GOAL is...	Socialization of student Functional literacy Democratic leveling	“Furnishing each individual such aid as (education) can give to reach the fullest expression of his value in Christ.” Biblical Christian worldview Christian scholarship and character for leadership/servanthood	Christianization of student Protection from public school influences Literacy

From the writings of C.S. Lewis:

“For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head. . . .

“And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive,’ or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity.’ In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function we make men without chests and expect of the virtue and enterprise. We laugh and honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

(The Abolition of Man, Chapter 1)

The Purpose of this Seminar

For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

—Proverbs 23:7

American Christians have been searching for the type of education that builds classic academic disciplines, instructs in righteousness, and equips our youth with a Biblical, Christian world and life view! The ability of the Principle Approach® to restore Christian character and academic scholarship to American education, while discipling our next generation for Christian leadership in the twenty-first century, is now evidenced in thousands of educators and students around the nation. With its foundation rooted in the Biblical and colonial models of education, this approach provides a whole educational program that can be successfully implemented today by Christians around the world.

The primary purpose of this Self-Directed Seminar is to help you lay a solid foundation for successful Principle Approach® teaching and learning by first establishing a Christian philosophy of education within you. Completing the Seminar will enable you to appropriate the excellence of Christ for your own scholarship and character by equipping you with the tools of Biblical thinking and reasoning. It also provides the opportunity for you to practice the disciplines of Christian scholarship and character, so that you can successfully teach them to your students. And the Seminar will introduce you to the principles, methods, and textbooks of American Christian Education.

Today most teachers and parents have received a secular education from secular schools and universities using secular textbooks through secular methods rooted in a secular philosophy of education. Most schools of higher education promote a secular worldview through the course content and the educational philosophy of professors, so that even Christian educators, to a large degree, must rethink and reformulate their philosophy of education. Most Christian educators are unaware that their methods are secular and that the majority of Christian curricula and textbooks on the market today are produced using “traditional” curriculum “Christianized” with Scripture verses. Please read and carefully study the Chart—“Distinctives of American Educational System,” on page 13.

For the committed teacher and parent, this means gaining the mind of Christ in education, searching God’s Word for His standards and principles of education. It means redefining your own philosophy of education—that internal body of knowledge that governs your reasoning and guides decisions regarding education! It means being reeducated and retooled!

Our Challenge

Be what you would have your pupils be!

—Thomas Carlyle

A challenge is “a calling upon one to fight in single combat, an invitation or summons to decide a controversy!” The challenge for today’s Christian educators and parents is to lead in advance of our students in the spiritual, intellectual, and cultural battle for their hearts and minds with an educational program that begins with truth, instructs in Biblical reasoning, and builds a “living curriculum” upon Christian character and conscience. Noah Webster, America’s premier Christian schoolmaster, wrote in the March 1788 American Magazine:

The education of youth [is] an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success.

The ability to reason Biblically is at the heart of individual and civil liberty. America was founded by “people of the Word,” Christian men and women armed with truth, trained to govern themselves privately and publicly, and with a sense of domestic and civil duty. This historic record of excellence in education from our colonial and founding generations documents the Bible as its “first book of instruction” The fruit of such an education was virtuous individuals, loving families (God’s building blocks of nations), and a citizenry trained in the art of Christian self and civil government. The challenge, then, is to revive this standard of education and to arm yourself with the mind of Christ in education.

The Required Commitment

Ezra prepared his heart to study the law of the Lord and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.

Ezra 7:10

A commitment is “a pledge or a decision which cannot be recalled.” The commitment of Ezra to Biblical education provides essential keys for us today in restoring our heritage of classical Christian education. Ezra, whose Hebrew name means help, was the religious and educational reformer who served with Governor Nehemiah in the restoration of Jerusalem after the Jews’ Babylonian captivity. As the high priest and scholar, whom God also employed to compile the Old Testament Canon, Ezra restored true worship in the temple and God’s Law to the people. He personally read the Word of God in the heart of Jerusalem’s marketplace day and Night (Nehemiah 8:8). After a famine of God’s law for nearly one hundred years, the Jews wept when they heard it and responded with repentance and fasting. Ezra led the educational reform tat followed by raising the standard of God’s Word on the battlefield of ignorance and illiteracy. The Jews returned to obeying His commands and restored His principles of education to their lives. From Ezra’s writing we derive the process for his preparation as a high priest, a teacher, and a national reformer:

STEP 1:

Prepare Your Heart and Mind

Do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.

—Romans 12:2

All change begins internally with a renewed mind and a heart commitment. God creates us individual, calls us to Himself individually by name, and operates through His chosen individuals for His purposes and plan here on earth. The power for change in a republic resides in the individual. As an American Christian, it’s up to you to face the challenge with faith, courage, and resolve! Begin with prayer, seeking the help of the Holy Spirit, the One who leads us into all truth, Then search the Scriptures to glean God’s principles for education.

STEP 2:

Study God’s Word

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more unGodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker.

—II Timothy 2:15-17

The Bible is God’s Handbook for His children and contains the foundation of all knowledge. As children of God, it should be our first book of learning, our primer, not only for spiritual instruction, discipline, and nurturing human relationships, but our first book of instruction in every subject.

The Principle Approach® has been called “reflective teaching and learning.” This educational approach requires one to consider and ponder the purpose for everything in God’s universe. Such reflection demands time. It also demands that we study and integrate God’s Truths into our own lives and the lives of our students, as well as into the subjects we teach.

STEP 3:

Practice God’s Principles of Scholarship and Character

A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.

—Luke 6:40

Teachers have no credibility with students if they are not practicing what they teach. Begin to practice the four steps of learning and scholarship—research, reason, relate, and record. Identify and document the Biblical principles gleaned. Meditate upon them and give the Holy Spirit time to teach you what He wants you to learn. Apply these principles to your divine calling and use them as you begin formulating your own educational philosophy.

STEP 4:

Teach Others

Whosever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

—Matthew 5:19

With thorough preparation, thinking and reasoning skills retrained to begin with God’s Word and an understanding of Christian methods for teaching and learning, by God’s grace you are ready to begin your relationship in the classroom with the eternal hearts and minds of children.