Why Christian Education?
Professor Kevin Flatt makes the case at April 9th School Options Event
On Tuesday, April 9th we partnered with the Canadian Christian Education Movement (CCEM) to host another School Options event in a space generously provided by Kitchener Waterloo Christian Fellowship.
We are very grateful to Professor of History Kevin Flatt from Redeemer University for speaking to us about Christian education. As both a product of Ontario public education and an expert in secularization in Western societies, Kevin was able to clearly articulate the ideological drift occurring in Ontario public education in recent decades. He also provided empirical support for Christian education using data from the Cardus Education Survey before ending with some questions to ask a prospective school.
In his talk – titled “Why Christian Education?” – Kevin walked us through five main points to consider: (1) schools are powerful, (2) schools are not neutral, (3) public schools have their own goals, (4) discipling your kids is not optional, and (5) Christian education provides a solution (e.g. empirical evidence shows it works).
1 – Schools Are Powerful
“Formal education is one of the main ways that we turn children into adults in our society.”
This was a recurring message throughout – that our education systems are designed with a vision of what kids need to know to become successful adults in our society. And much of the political disagreement over education revolves around conflicting visions: what information is needed to become a successful adult, what is a successful adult, and what should society look like?
And schools are powerful forces that can be directed towards the outcomes desired by conflicting visions. Principally because few other influences on children can rival the sheer amount of time spent in school – approximately 17,000 hours (not including extracurricular activities) during these formative years.
2 – Schools Are Not Neutral
And because competing visions exist about education, choices have to be made. These choices are reflected not only in the curriculum, but also in how schools approach discipline, extracurricular activities, holidays, and even what the school chooses to put on its public-facing sign. For example, the photo below shows Critical Social Justice messaging from a local, publicly funded, Catholic school in October 2022.
Because schools are one of the ways a culture or civilization reproduces itself across generations, these choices reflect what powerful people think is important for the next generation to know. Therefore, people occupying positions of influence have enormous power to shape the future of society. Revolutionary movements have always understood this as shown by their preoccupation with public education.
3 – Public Schools Are Not Neutral: They Have Their Own Goals
Although called “public” schools, the “public” does not set their priorities. Not even the elected government does this. Instead, the educational vision is set mainly by three actors: (i) teachers unions, (ii) civil servants at the Ministry of Education, and (iii) Faculties of Education. The last may be most important because not only do they train teachers, but the “Ed Schools” also advise education officials and write curricula. This explains why public education doesn’t change much between governments – key actors are almost entirely isolated from elected politicians.
So what is the vision underlying the choices of how to teach the next generation through our public education system?
Over the last few decades, we’ve seen a gradual ‘fade-out’ of traditional Christian values and a corresponding ‘fade-in’ of a new perspective that goes under different names that refer to slightly different things: e.g. EDI (equity, diversity, inclusion), gender theory, critical race theory, anti-racism, decolonization, intersectionality, identity politics, or simply “woke”. But all of these terms share as a common “operating system” a belief that Western societies are made up of interlocking systems of oppression. The new perspective teaches that Western civilization, traditional sex and gender norms, capitalism, the nuclear family, and Christianity are all oppressive forces that must be challenged and ultimately dismantled to make society better.
This critical social justice perspective dominates faculties of education, where they believe students are the best hope for a more just future because they haven’t yet been fully programmed into the Western system of oppression. They must be turned into revolutionaries against repressive Western cultural norms.
Consequently, the public education system increasingly views parents not as partners, but rather as obstacles. Have you noticed feeling more disconnected from your child’s classroom experience in recent years?
4 – Discipling Your Kids Is Not Optional
Christians have a responsibility to raise children to become faithful followers of Christ; or as stated in Ephesians 6:4 (KJV), to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
As schools gradually shifted from being largely suffused with the Christian ethos to a period of apparent neutrality in the 1990s, Christians did not really think much about how discipling might apply to schooling. But now that schools are becoming openly anti-Christian, anti-parents, and anti-God, we need to give this more thought.
Even if schools were neutral, they would have to not talk about God. But this implies that knowledge of God is irrelevant to becoming an adult member of our culture – certainly NOT a neutral statement!
So if schools cannot be neutral with respect to God and Christianity, what is to be done?
5 – Christian Education Provides a Solution
First of all, what is meant by Christian Education? Kevin defines it this way: education explicitly designed to put God front and center, to pass on Christian culture and worldview, and to raise kids to be followers of Christ. Currently, this means either independent (private) schools or homeschooling.
So what do we know about the efficacy of Christian versus public education? And how do we measure it?
To do this, we can consider these different school systems as each oriented towards a different target. That is, what sort of outcomes – i.e. young adults – does each system produce?
While there’s not a lot of data to work with in answering this question, the Hamilton-based Cardus Education Survey, run since 2011, does a pretty good job. Again, it doesn’t look at kids in schools, but rather looks at the young adult products of different school systems. Cardus tries as much as possible to statistically isolate the effects of schools – e.g. for children from comparable family backgrounds, do we see a difference in outcomes depending on what type of school they attended?
The answer is yes, we do see average differences. Cardus found that having attended an independent Protestant school resulted in young adults being significantly more likely to:
have a vibrant and active Christian faith
have a pattern of sexuality and family formation consistent with the book of principles, e.g. no pre-marital sex, higher marriage rates, more children
be socially well-adjusted
more likely to volunteer and give money (including outside of their church)
more likely to feel there’s a lot to be grateful for
less likely to feel overwhelmed
Again, these are average differences and clearly kids can do well in public school and vice versa. But it does reinforce the common sense idea that if schools are pointing kids towards different targets, then they are to some extent going to move kids towards those targets.
So, as a parent, you might want to ask yourself:
what is the target that the school is pointing kids towards?
Questions To Ask Any Prospective School
To figure out a school’s target – or if it has seriously considered this at all – Kevin proposes a series of excellent questions to ask any principal or admissions officer.
What non-negotiable convictions guide your school?
What are your priorities when hiring teachers? E.g. Ontario Certified Teacher
What is your vision for what your students will look like as adults?
Where do your administrators and teachers look for models and inspiration?
How does the curriculum and pedagogical approach in your school compare to the Ontario curriculum?
You should ask a series of questions to gauge the school’s position on the critical social justice ideology currently dominating public schools:
How does your school approach issues of sexuality and gender identity? (This is a very crucial indicator of how they think about a lot of things.)
Is that viewpoint shared among administrators, teachers, and supporting community, or is there a range of views? Does the school have an official policy?
How does the school approach EDI, anti-racism, and indigenous issues? How might this be similar or different from public schools?
Do you think Canada is a racist country?
HOW CAN I HELP? This is an important question; a successful school requires a community of people willing to roll up their sleeves and pitch in. And a school should welcome parents, not exclude them from, actively participating in the school and the classroom.
Parents throughout Waterloo Region are deeply thankful for the enlightening lecture by this POWRful Kitchener father. Professor Flatt, you’ve addressed a crucial need, and for that, we extend our sincere gratitude.