The old saying used to be that a good education consisted of the three Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. In our culture, there is a sentiment that if we could only get back to the three Rs, the ills of the modern education system would be expunged. The argument goes, “Be rid of the nonsense. Be rid of the woke. Just teach the basics.” If we could just get back to the three Rs, then we would solve the education problem. The desire is understandable. These are, in fact, foundational academic skills necessary to any serious educational enterprise and if only our culture might make some steps in this direction, so much the better.
However, when they are elevated to the point of the educational enterprise itself, education becomes far less compelling. On their own, reading, writing, and arithmetic cannot explain why they are goods that should be pursued. To say such a thing, like we should teach the three Rs, or we ought to focus more on these things is to employ moral categories and to employ moral categories requires a moral standard by which an argument may be measured. In our cultural milieu, the moral standard is the controversy. It would be hard to find a group of people that believe children should not be taught to read, write, and think properly in number sense. But the question is to what end, according to what moral standard, do these three Rs serve? The debate is not over the proficiency, but over the purpose. In short, reading, writing, and arithmetic are important academic skills that serve a greater purpose of education and are poor substitutes for that purpose if elevated to the end goal.
There is another set of dispositions usually found in Christian schools that function similarly to these three Rs. We may call these the Christian school three Rs of respect, rhythm, and rigor. Respect refers to the category of what is commonly called “good values.” These are proper moral weights and measures exercised in the lives of the students as they learn to respect others and their peers. Rhythm refers to the notion of habit or habit training. The last, rigor, refers to the strenuous nature of the academic experience. In many ways, these function in the Christian school in a similar way that the traditional notion of the three Rs may function in the larger understanding of education; they are indispensable to a true education, but a poor substitute for the purpose of education. School leaders can often feel like they say many of the same things about the purposes and goals of education over and over again. Without this practice, however, we may end up allowing the three Rs of the Christian school to function as the purpose of our program without even realizing it. Instead, we must always relate these three marks of a true education to the true purpose of education, sincere reverence for our God. To do this, we must be comfortable articulating the vision repeatedly as we continue our work in our schools.
When respect is elevated into the purpose of education, the result is moralism. The Christian school should, and usually does, value proper living as a mark of education. If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, then evidence of that knowledge is the fruit of having a true fear of the Lord. In this frame, respect of oneself, one’s elders, one’s neighbor, and one’s world is properly located in a faithful education. However, when respect is disjointed from a proper fear of the Lord and located as the purpose of education, the result is moralism. To have virtue with no gospel is to have soul-killing legalism. So, the question is not are we promoting the right values, but why and how does one uphold what is a good value?
When rhythm is elevated to the purpose of education, the result is traditionalism. Habit training and development are wonderful pursuits in a properly ordered education. As we may be reminded, what we do repeatedly develops into our character. The liturgy of Christian living shapes and molds children in a way that orients them toward the Lord and prepares them to live rightly before him. But standing on its own foundation, rhythm for ritual’s sake breeds a kind of traditionalism. But no one in their right mind would argue that every habit is a good habit. The question is not whether we are habit training, but whether we building the kind of habits that are good and worthy to be incorporated into our character.
When rigor is elevated to the purpose of education, the result is dour nihilism. Hard things for the sake of hard things are a crushing weight to bear. After all, someone will always do something harder and do it better. It results in a rat race that cannot be won. Christian schools should rightly prioritize academic rigor. In an age where education consistently seems to ask less of our students, asking more of them is proper and good. But this can only truly flourish in an environment where rigor is held in proper relation to the free grace of the gospel of Christ. In Christ, doing hard things is a result of the freedom we have in Christ to labor with all diligence and vigor knowing we have been saved with such a gracious salvation. Apart from this foundation, rigor for rigor’s sake produces a nihilism in which students are shown that the material itself is meaningless; the only virtue is the fact it was hard. So, the question is not is our academic experience hard enough, but for what purpose do we pursue a difficult course of study?
All three of these Rs then need something firm on which to rest. The three Rs of the Christian school only make sense when they are properly ordered to the purpose of education. In danger of pressing the whole R thing a bit too far, respect, rhythm, and rigor must always be related to reverence. It is the kind of disposition given to God’s people who have true knowledge of their Savior. In short, as we seek to build faithful Christian schools, everything we do must be related to a proper attitude toward God in light of his good and gracious gifts to us in Christ. Respect, rhythm, rigor, reading, writing, and arithmetic are all wonderful pursuits in an educational paradigm only insofar as the paradigm is undergirded by a true, proper, and joy-producing reverence for God. At this point, each of these disciplines will integrate in a way that allows students to understand the world in which they have been placed, the God who rules over it, their need of a Savior to make them right with their maker, and lawful obedience to their God as they live as his redeemed people.
An education rooted in reverence is the kind of education that can make sense of the three Rs, or six. To that end, school leaders must be able to relate all that they do, from reading to rhythm, to a purpose of education grounded in reverence for God. Without this grounding, education cannot help but become arbitrary.
In principle, most Christian school leaders would agree with the above. Little new ground has been trodden in relation to the purpose of education in the Christian worldview. That said, this should be rather seen as an encouragement to say these things to your people again. The danger to faithful schools exists when stated realities become assumed, then assumed realities become forgotten. Pick examples from your curriculum and demonstrate its relation to reverence. Do your parents know the amount of Christian worldview assumptions that go into diagramming a sentence? Tell them again; it is edifying to hear. Do your students know that getting a proper answer on their physics test demonstrates their ability to truthfully speak about the world God has made? Have your faculty recently heard you encourage them that the greatest gift they may impart to a child is their ability to bring the child through the curriculum in a way that places them face to face with the living God? The way we keep Christian schools from slipping into a disposition that places respect, rhythm, and rigor as the purpose of education is to continue to say what the purpose of education truly is in light of our true reverence for God, and to demonstrate continually how our program is aimed at that high purpose.
