Education as Recreation
I’ve worked with students long enough to know that one of the things we’re currently experiencing in the Brink home is not a guarantee, seems to be rather rare, and could change as we move further into the secondary school years. So, I don’t take for granted that “the Brinklings” truly like going to school. But for a very rare occasion, our children don’t complain as we go through our morning routine. My wife and I recognize that we have played only a small roll in this: making sure the kids have a predictable schedule, get their sleep, and stay on top of homework. Of course, we engage with them about what’s going on in school, and we try to model a general love for learning. Yes, parents play a significant roll in children’s love for learning and their approach to school; that’s why I wouldn’t even remotely suggest to my kids that school is boring or that it’s not enjoyable … or that it’s just something they’ll just have to endure. Beyond the roll we’ve played in shaping this approach and preparation, it’s not lost on us that our kids like going to school because of the schools they attend and the teachers and staff there. They’ve made learning enjoyable, and that’s the way it was always supposed to be.
Sir Ken Robinson famously said that “children like to learn. Unfortunately, they don’t like going to school.” Robinson’s words seem to capture the cultural narrative of our day: most kids hate school. And, I’ll even go beyond that: we have come to accept that they’re supposed to hate school.
Even taking a quick dash through the history of American education, you won’t find it very difficult to figure out how we got where we are today. On the heels of the Industrial Revolution, educational theorists sought to reshape our schools so we could produce a stronger workforce to meet growing consumer demand. Once we started asking what students need to learn so they can go to college and develop necessary career skills, education was directed at fueling a machine. It became another casualty of a society enamored by pragmatism – the highest virtue of twentieth century America. And the more pragmatic-driven education became, the more our theorists reduced the intrinsic value of students; they became cogs in the machine.
One of the Fathers of American education, B.F. Skinner further eliminated student worth when he introduced behavioral conditioning to the educational system. In his foundational work Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Skinner suggests that believing students have freedom and dignity inhibits our inabilities to produce desired student outcomes. Rather, we need to focus more on the conditions that will produce desired results, because students don’t make choices; they only respond to the determined or selected stimuli.
I haven’t heard many twenty-first century educators talk about students as mere cogs in an industrialized, consumer-driven machine. However, the structures we’ve put in place continue to minimize students’ inherent dignity and education’s intrinsic value. We continue to treat education as a necessary part of a process to achieve a desired end. Elementary school is designed to create a foundation for middle school. Middle schools is a transition between elementary school and high school. High schools prepare students to have the required coursework and test scores so they can appease college admissions offices. Colleges funnel students into majors of study so students gain the appropriate knowledge to go on to the next graduate school, internship, or entry-level job. Rather than having value in-and-of itself, education has become a series of necessary stages to get us where we want to go.
So, any specific, school phase is only valuable as long as it gets the students to the next stage. This is often the basis upon which we define a school’s success. What percentage of their students went to four-year college? What was their average score on their ACT/SAT? What is the average salary of their graduates five years after entering the workforce?
The flaws to this approach should be obvious. For starters, it’s incredibly self-serving and temporary. It treats the student as a consumer who engages material for a set period of time, only to dispense of it when it’s no longer necessary. Unless it will be used it in career, geometry is primarily necessary to help a student get a good score on the ACT. But once the test is taken, the knowledge is no longer useful. We teach world languages, because most college admissions offices require it. After college, it’s of little use apart from being able to decipher a few words on a menu at an ethnic restaurant.
Students often ask, “when am I ever going to use this?” … as though our answer to this question will then make the learning somehow valuable. Tragically, the answer we often give furthers this problem. I’m guilty of saying things like, “this will be on your ACT/SAT” or “you’ll be able to put this on your resume.” As a result, learning doesn’t have any eternal value, and our students have learned that it’s fundamentally about them – rather than something higher than them.
In his fabulous book The Best Things in Life, Peter Kreeft pushes on this notion of an educational process that really doesn’t go anywhere apart from continuing a similar cycle for future generations. We study to get good grades. We want good grades so we can graduate and go to college, so we can get a diploma which should help us get a good job. We want a good job so we can make money to buy things and provide for our families. We want to provide for our families so our children can go to good schools and start the cycle for themselves. Seems like a cycle that just keeps repeating itself. To this, Kreeft asks the question, “What’s the whole cycle for?” Of course, many of us would rather just head down the path of a cycle that doesn’t seem to go anywhere than ask the question and be faced with deep introspection about the purpose of it all.
Standing back and looking at cycles that don’t seem to take you anywhere isn’t anything new. The writer of Ecclesiastes asked the same questions. About everything. Throughout the book, he continues to ask what’s gained by all his effort. As we read through the book, we see that he understands that something is gained. But, he wants to find fulfillment that brings lasting (even eternal) gain. Lasting fulfillment. Lasting understanding. Lasting peace and rest. It’s the very same thing we all want, and I believe it’s why Jesus’ words are so compelling in Matthew 11:28-29: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
As C.S. Lewis says, no, job, vacation, or salary will fully satisfy us. We know it. Yet, we keep running toward these things and exhaust ourselves in the process. Americans are more affluent on average than we have ever been. But, people don’t seem happier. In fact, it seems that we’re much more anxious, isolated, overwhelmed, and sad. What Jesus offers, though, isn’t just a good nap: physical rest. He offers rest for my soul … for the “noahness” of me to be at Rest. It’s what we all long for. To find rest. To be whole. Shalom.
But much of the way we talk about education doesn’t point students toward shalom. It points them to the rat race of the world by putting them and their success at the center of their efforts. I can understand why they look at the endless cycle of fruitless self-fulfillment and, like the writer of Ecclesiastes, say “Meaningless.” Why aren’t we surprised that they don’t like school!
Of course, there’s a better way, and it’s not revolutionary. Actually, true education (which is also “Christian”) is a counter-revolution. The revolution against the purpose of education began in Genesis 3 when Adam sought to learn things on his own terms. As a result, the purpose of true education today must (as John Milton said in the seventeenth century) “repair the ruins of our first parents.”
Christian (true) education is fundamentally about repair. Repairing our thinking. Repairing our desires. Repairing structures and institutions. Because it’s a response against the ravages of the Fall, Christian education does a lot of re … fill in the blank. Reform. Reconcile. Restore. Redeem. Renew.
But, my favorite re-word to think about is Re…creation. I know we don’t pronounce the word that way. But, just pause and look at the word. Knit together in that word is an idea of taking creation back to the way it’s supposed to be. Another way to think about the word is the idea of being taken back to our original intent because of our recreation.
What’s the purpose of recreation? Is it not to rest and find joy? For some, recreation is quite active. Some people like going on long walks; it’s life-giving. Other people feel like walking is a chore their doctors make them do. They would never call long walks recreation. Some like to read; recreation. Others are so wounded by what they were forced to read that they no longer find joy in it. Not recreation. We could say this about all sorts of things. But, we know that recreation is fundamentally about joy and rest. And I would argue that joy and rest are echos from the Garden of Eden. They remind us of what we were always supposed to be: people at rest with our world, ourselves, and our God. I love the word. Recreation!
Before he fell from his right standing with God, Adam would have loved learning because every new bit of information he learned would have taught him more about God. That purpose is no less true today, but we just don’t think about learning the same way. But, I can’t imagine that pre-Fall Adam would have ever dreaded learning, exploring, researching, or figuring things out. Nor would he have ever looked back on what he just learned and felt regret or thought that it was a waste of his time. Because Adam would have always made sense of himself and his world in dependence upon and gratitude toward the God who made him (otherwise, he’d be sinning), anything he learned would have brought him joy. I don’t think he would have understood everything immediately; I can conceive of him having to work harder to understand certain things more than others. Though, regardless of what he learned, he would have been God-centered in it.
This is what learning always was meant to be. This is one reason why it’s important to have a “Creation” category as one of the primary frameworks we sift through when we apply a Christian worldview. It’s vitally important to consider original intent. It gives us something to aim toward; it helps us to recognize when things are off. Yes, Adam would have found practical benefits in his learning, but that was never the primary purpose. Similarly, our students will find practical benefits to their educational efforts; but if we allow these to be their primary motivation, it will steal the joy of learning, because we are truncating the purpose of education. Education can only be fully restorative when we approach learning with a God-centered purpose. That liberates us; it restores learning to its right place; it prompts gratitude; it removes anxiety for both the teacher and student; it helps us find lasting meaning in it; it puts us in the proper posture to find joy. Seeking to know more of God through what we learn gets us a little bit closer to the way we were always intended to be, and for that reason, education truly is about recreation.
Let’s be schools that see our tasks of giving students glimmers of the Garden, but not just so we only look to the past and lament what has been lost. When we aim to promote a type of learning that mirrors its original intent, it shapes our longings for the New Jerusalem because clearer images of what we were meant to be points us toward that which we will be for all eternity. So, when St. Jerome said, “Let us learn those things, the knowledge of which continues in Heaven,” I can’t help but believe that St. Jerome knew in his gut that education is recreational.
