Tag: Education

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Viewpoint Diversity and the Academy

By Jim Spiegel

Generally speaking, we all value—or ought to value—diversity.  Be it ethnic, racial, cultural, linguistic, aesthetic, methodological, culinary, or human developmental (i.e., age), we know—or should know—that human diversity is a good thing for a community and a good thing for us as individuals to experience.  On this much, hopefully, we can agree.  And it is appropriate for any school, business, or organization to cherish and pursue diversity.  But why this is a reasonable value is seldom explained or defended.  What is it exactly that makes diversity a human good?  Why, in particular, is diversity a valuable thing at a university?  And why is this especially true for a Christian university?

As cognitive creatures, humans are inherently doxastic beings, naturally forming beliefs all day every day about all sorts of things.  And for beliefs to be rational they must be adequately informed.  Humans are also social animals, as Aristotle famously noted.  Human societies are inherently plural, so our operation within communal atmospheres is fundamental to our existence.  As doxastic social beings, then, we rely on others within our communities to instruct, challenge, and correct us as we form beliefs about a whole range of subjects.  And if all members within a given community believe the same things about all issues, then there may be instruction, but there won’t be challenges or corrections to our beliefs.  Given that all of us hold some false beliefs that need correction, a lack of doxastic plurality would leave us with little hope for escape from the grip of these falsehoods.  Any further enlightenment would be limited by the confines of the already agreed upon set of beliefs that everyone in our midst already affirms.

If this is true for any community, then it is especially the case in an academic community. Diversity of views is inherent to the original and on-going purpose of the university, as a place where many different perspectives and belief commitments co-exist and integrate in creative, cooperative, and innovative ways.  Of course, it is not enough to have the “versity” without the “uni” of “university.”  Something must unify us in the midst of the plurality of perspectives and convictions.  And this is what distinguishes the Christian university, which regards Christ as the star of the academic solar system.  As the Apostle Paul says, “in Christ all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”  So in the Christian university, Christ is the hub and focal point of everything we learn, teach, and practically implement.  At least that is our goal, even if we constantly fall short of attaining this ideal.  This conviction is rooted even in the creative order itself.  God is the maker of all things, and the universe is inherently diverse, so if we are to properly worship and understand God, we must appreciate the diversity within his creation.  So the good of diversity for the Christian university is grounded both in Christology and divine creation.

But notice that this diversity good is essentially doxastic—it has to do with the variety of beliefs, viewpoints, and perspectives.  Yet when diversity is promoted and celebrated in academic communities these days, it is not the first thing many people think of.  Rather, we often think of racial or gender diversity (and, perhaps, to a lesser extent, diversity of age or physical ability).  This is not to say that these forms of diversity are not themselves valuable, but these biological differences have no communal value in themselves any more than other biological factors, such as eye color, height, or the shape of one’s bicuspids.  We properly value racial and gender diversity only because they are somewhat reliable indicators of the deeper essential value of viewpoint diversity.  But they are not infallible indicators of diverse perspectives.  Biological diversity (plurality of races, genders, etc.) does not guarantee viewpoint diversity.  Nor does the lack of such diversity within an academic community guarantee a lack of viewpoint diversity.

So is the current obsession with biological diversity in the American academy misguided?  To the extent that it ignores or fails to appreciate the deeper value of viewpoint diversity, I think it is.  After all, if the end in view is plurality of perspectives, then racial and gender diversity are, as just noted, not infallible indicators of the achievement of that end.  Of course, one might point out that biological diversity within a community is important for another reason, specifically as an indicator of fair hiring procedures.  But, important as that is, it is a separate issue.  And here, too, biological diversity or the lack thereof is not by itself an infallible indicator of fairness in hiring or the lack thereof.

So, again, diversity of biological attributes such as race and gender within an academic community is valuable, but only secondarily or derivatively.  My contention is that they are not valuable in themselves but valuable because of a deeper good, namely viewpoint diversity, the plurality of perspectives which is so crucial to the advancement and enhancement of learning, which of course is the ultimate good of any academic community.

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Seven Reasons for the Liberal Arts—Part 2

By Jim Spiegel

Here are my four other reasons for studying the liberal arts:

Reason #4:  Studying the liberal arts builds the virtue of self-control.  Admittedly, if you study the liberal arts, you are bound to encounter subjects you don’t like and even find tedious and annoying.  That’s fine.  But then you have the opportunity to grow.  Studying subjects you dislike is a good discipline and builds self-control, which is a fruit of the Spirit (cf. Gal. 5:22-23) and fundamental to godliness.  Athletes intentionally do unpleasant and tedious exercises like wind sprints and weightlifting, yet they know its valuable because it gets them ready to compete.  How much more value does self-control and godliness have?  The Bible says “physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:8).  Studying subjects you dislike is valuable because of how it builds self-control and, thus, makes you more godly.

This is not to say that the life of a liberal arts learner is not pleasurable.  Self-control is not inconsistent with a life of pleasure.  (Just ask Mr. Christian Hedonist, John Piper.)  In fact, the life of broad learning is actually the most pleasurable.  We all find pleasure in participating in and discussing things that interest us.  So those who have more interests have more ways of finding pleasure in life.  On the other hand, the less you know, the fewer interests you’ll have and thus the less fun you can have and the more easily you can be bored.  So whenever I hear someone say, “I’m bored,” I think “Well, that’s probably because you’re boring.  And you’re boring because you don’t have enough interests.  And you don’t have enough interests, because you haven’t learned enough.  What you need is a liberal arts education!”  That’s just what I think to myself.  I rarely say that out loud.  (And I have the self-control to resist saying it because I have a liberal arts education.)

Reason #5:  Studying the liberal arts makes you a more open-minded person.  Open-mindedness is an intellectual virtue.  It is the virtue of being willing to consider new ideas, perspectives, or entire subjects.  The open-minded person is generally willing to give something or someone a fair hearing.  In contrast, the closed-minded person is intellectually foreclosed against new ideas or perspectives.  In the context of education, this vice is displayed by anyone who stubbornly refuses to consider a legitimate idea or perspective.  It is also evident in anyone who begrudges the study of math or biology or art or any other entire field of study.

Closed-mindedness is a vice and intellectually deadly for anyone, but it is especially tragic in young people.  As a person ages—and this includes college professors—they experience what might be called “hardening of the categories” as they close their minds to new things.  People are most imaginative and intellectually fertile in their younger years.  (This is why the most groundbreaking achievements in art, science, and literature tend to be made by those who are relatively young.)  So to be a closed-minded young person is like choosing to be prematurely senile.

Like humility and winsomeness, open-mindedness is the sort of virtue that is not only attractive but tends to inspire the same quality in others.  If we are willing to give others’ ideas and opinions a fair hearing, then they will be more willing to listen to us as well.  So a simple application of the Golden Rule shows us that we should strive for this trait.  And, of course, studying the liberal arts is crucial to doing so.  Exploring a variety of subjects opens the mind to new vistas of insight and understanding.

I should add that as Christians (and who, by the way, are foreclosed on the creedal points—such as the triune reality of God, the divinity and resurrection of Christ, and the need to obey him), we have nothing to fear when it comes to new ideas and innovations.  This is because, as the well-worn dictum goes, all truth really is God’s truth.  So we can be adventurously open-minded in our studies while unwaveringly committed to the verities of our faith.  And that is the essence of a Christian liberal arts education.

Reason #6:  Studying the liberal arts is a biblical duty.   Proverbs 4:7 tells us to “Get wisdom.  Thought it cost all you have, get understanding.”  And in hundreds of other biblical passages we are told to pursue wisdom and understanding.  The biblical writers did not restrict the subjects of “understanding” to your major or just the stuff you’re interested in.  Presumably, they mean any kind of genuine understanding of truth, goodness, and beauty.  So it appears we have a duty to learn in every discipline.  Christian liberal arts colleges like the one where I teach are simply being faithful to this biblical mandate.

Reason #7:  Studying the liberal arts is essential to Christlikeness.  In the Gospel of Mark we read that the people said about Jesus, “he has done everything well” (7:37).  Jesus, it appears, was the ultimate example of the versatile student.  Lest we dismiss this as an automatic consequence of his being divine, don’t forget that the New Testament also tells us that Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52) and that he even “learned obedience” (Heb. 5:8).  Being fully human, Jesus shared these experiences with us, including all of the difficulties and suffering that they entail.  Since we are commended to imitate him in every way, we too must learn obedience, grow in wisdom, and, yes, do everything well.  And, of course, this is precisely the point of a Christian liberal arts education—to make us Christlike learners.

So there you have it—seven reasons, among myriad others I’m sure, to study the liberal arts.  To summarize, if you want to know the wisdom and beauty of God, if you want to be a strong ambassador for Christ, if you want to avoid embarrassing your faith, if you want to display the fruit of the Spirit, if you want to have the virtue of open-mindedness, if you want to fulfill your biblical duty to pursue wisdom and understanding, if you want to be more like Christ; in short, if you want to be a better Christian, then you need to study the liberal arts.

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Seven Reasons for the Liberal Arts—Part 1

By Jim Spiegel

The school where I teach, Taylor University, is a Christian liberal arts college.  Sometimes I am asked for a rationale for the liberal arts and, specifically, why a liberal arts education is important from a Christian point of view.  In this and my next post, I will provide such a rationale.

I considered giving my reasons in the form of a top ten list.  But top ten lists are cliché.  So I’m going to do something completely different.  I’m going to use a top seven list.  I will propose seven good reasons for studying the liberal arts—seven reasons why disciples of Jesus should be intellectually versatile.

By “liberal arts” I mean, of course, that wide range of studies that includes the humanities and sciences, from art to zoology.  So why as Christians should we be committed to liberal arts learning?

Reason #1:  Studying the liberal arts enables you to better appreciate the wisdom and beauty of God.  God is the source of all truths of science, math, history, psychology, theology, and every other discipline.  As the apostle Paul says, in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).  So to study in literally any discipline is to understand Christ better.  Even the most abstract or minute insights about differential equations, mallard migration patterns, or the history of the French Revolution reveal something about the genius of God.  And any insight into the divine is a profound insight.

Also, all of the beauty found in the creative arts, from painting to poetry to music and theater, is ultimately derived from the beauty of God.  As Alain de Botton puts it, “beauty…is a fragment of the divine…  The qualities of beautiful objects are those of a God from whom we live far removed, in a world mired in sin . . . but bittersweet tokens of a goodness to which we still aspire.”[1]  God is the source of all aesthetic excellence wherever it might be found, so to experience beauty in any domain is to indirectly experience God’s beauty.  And liberal arts training gives us the greatest exposure to that beauty.

Reason #2:  Studying the liberal arts helps you to avoid embarrassing your faith.  To explain what I mean, consider these words from St. Augustine that are just as relevant today as they were when he wrote them 1600 years ago:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars an even their size . . . , and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.  Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of the Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn . . . .  If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven . . . ?”[2]

Augustine’s concern here is that fellow Christians in his day were reflecting poorly on Christ by announcing false and uninformed views about various issues—issues that today we would call scientific.  By publicly sharing their ignorance, these Christians undermined any credibility they might have had in proclaiming the Gospel.  For if a person is easily duped about geology and astronomy, then they are just as vulnerable and untrustworthy when it comes to theology.

By giving you a substantive exposure to all of the disciplines, a liberal arts education prevents this sort of thing.  You will be less likely to ignorantly pontificate about a subject because, well, you won’t be ignorant about it.  So liberal arts training helps you to avoid associating the Gospel with ignorance and thus tarnishing the name of Christ.  That’s a big deal.  But now let me expand on this a bit more positively.

Reason #3:  Studying the liberal arts makes you a better ambassador for Christ.  By becoming broadly knowledgeable, you make yourself a more interesting and circumspect person, and thereby you become a more compelling witness for Jesus.  There are a lot of evangelistic “methods” and programs out there, and all of them attempt a shortcut past the best and most biblical way of drawing others to Christ.

The apostle Peter sums it up like this: “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Pet. 2:12).  A Christian liberal arts education doesn’t just equip you for this or that vocation or set of tasks.  Rather, it turns you into a certain kind of person—a person who is a good thinker, imaginative, and intellectually versatile; you will become a person who has more interests and is therefore more interesting.  In short, you will become a person such that people will want to know what your ultimate life commitments are.  And no evangelistic method or program can match the power of that.

[1] Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness (Vintage, 2008), 149.

[2] St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 2 Vols., Ancient Christian Writers, nos. 41-42, trans. John Hammond Taylor (New York: Newman Press, 1982), 1:42-43.

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Confessions of a Home Schooler

By Amy Spiegel

You know that sick, forehead slapping feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when a regrettable discovery makes its way to the forefront of your mind just a little too late, when there is nothing to be done but sigh and live with the consequences? Sometimes those consequences are fairly minor like the brownies being a little flat because you forgot to add the baking soda. Hey, a brownie is just a brownie, right? And sometimes the consequences are more severe like realizing that candy bar does have peanuts in it right after your highly allergic son swallows it. And then, of course, there is the middle ground somewhere between flat brownies and a long night of Benadryl and vomit. This week I have found myself occupying this middle ground of regret.

It all started a few weeks back when a fellow “home educator” recommended a website selling pre-packaged unit studies for homeschoolers. Want to do a study of dolphins? Autumn? Or a wide variety of other topics? This enterprising saint of a woman has taken loads of cut outs, web resources, and reading lists and put them all together. For a small fee, you download all of it and away you and your child go to learn about the selected topic. Normally, this tips go in one ear and out the other, but I actually liked the idea and followed up on it. So this week, I found myself cross-legged on the floor, helping our youngest two do leaf rubbings and mini-books about the pigments found in trees. This may not seem like a particularly revolutionary act, but when I decided to begin homeschooling years ago I erected a mental force field around myself, blocking out any voices that might destroy my peace of mind. It wasn’t that I am unwilling to learn from the experience of others; in fact it was quite the opposite. I seem incapable of refraining from making comparisons. Their six-year-old is reading at a college level? I should read to my children seven hours a day so they don’t fall behind. Their kid is learning Latin while still in the womb? My children will obviously end up as homeless vagrants. It isn’t that I want my kids to be better or brighter than other kids. Like most other moms, I just don’t want to let them down.

So, in order to avoid a complete mental breakdown, for the most part I avoided large gatherings of moms and their above-grade-level learners, fearing the shattering of my ever-fragile mommy ego. I steered clear of homeschooling literature and blogs and would rather have run naked through the streets of Fairmount than attend a homeschooling convention. Granted, this is an overreaction to the natural impulse to compare ourselves to those around us, and the absurdity of my behavior struck me like one of David’s five smooth stones as I watched my kids benefit from my friend’s suggestion. How many other enriching activities had we missed out on due to my insecurities and fear of failure? True, sometimes mommy gatherings can turn ugly, but for the most part it’s just bunch of women like myself, looking for affirmation and support. Who can say what cross-pollinating moments I have missed because I was afraid of being judged and found lacking.

But no more! I am now prepared to go boldly into the world, ready to glean much from the wisdom of others and to try and take myself, and my job, a little less seriously. Just like my brownies, it may not be perfect but it will still taste pretty sweet.

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Orbiting the True Falconer

By Jim Spiegel

Christian author and president of Ligonier Ministries R.C. Sproul tells the story of his experience as a young father visiting his daughter’s school for the first time.  Six weeks into his daughter’s first grade year at a public school in Boston, Mass., Sproul attended an open house for parents in which the principal was to explain the school’s programs and goals.  The principal proceeded to review in rigorous detail how each activity undertaken was based on the latest research in child education and how it contributed to specific aspects of the children’s development.  When they were done, the principal asked the parents if they had any questions, which at first was met with only silence and blank stares.  Finally, Sproul himself spoke up: “Sir,” he said, “I deeply appreciate all that you’ve done here, and I am overwhelmed by the amount of care and precision that has gone into the planning and execution of this curriculum.  But I do have one question.  Could you tell me what is the overarching purpose you are trying to achieve here?  In other words, what kind of child are you trying to produce and why?”  The principal looked at Sproul mutely for a several moments and then said, “I don’t know.  No one has ever asked me that question.”  To which Sproul replied:  “I respect and appreciate your being so open and honest.  But frankly, your reply terrifies me.”

Sproul’s question could, and I think should, be posed to any educator, whether those teaching first-graders or those like me, working with college students.  What kind of person are my colleagues and I (at Taylor University) hoping to produce or at least have a hand in shaping?   If we, like that principal, have no answer to Sproul’s question, then the parents of our students, too, have good reason to be worried, if not terrified.

In an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 4, 2004), Vartan Gregorian argues that American higher education is suffering from a “major failure” to make sense of the unity and value of knowledge, and is degenerating into a mere job-readiness program.  Increasingly, colleges are taking what Gregorian calls the “Home Depot approach to education,” turning themselves into “academic superstores, vast collections of courses, stacked up like sinks and lumber for do-it-yourselfers to try to assemble on their own into a meaningful whole” (p. B12).  Colleges offer a vast array of general education and specialized courses but it is “devoid of…context and coherence” (ibid).  What is critically absent is any sense of what it means to be an educated or cultured person.  So Gregorian issues an urgent call for college professors and administrators to “reconstruct the unity and value of knowledge” (ibid).

Notice that Gregorian’s worry is essentially the same as Sproul’s but just on a higher educational plane.  It is interesting to note that the events recounted in Sproul’s story occurred about forty years ago.  So his daughter’s generation are today’s college professors whose lack of unifying vision Gregorian laments.  There is indeed a crisis in American higher education today, and Gregorian diagnosis it well.  But conspicuously absent from his essay is any sense of the problem’s cure.  His plea for colleges to “reconstruct the unity of knowledge” is futile unless some of us actually know how to go about doing this.

Another curious detail in Gregorian’s essay is his choice of terminology.  He does not call for a construction of the unity of knowledge but a reconstruction, which suggests that American colleges once enjoyed a unified approach to education.  So where did that go?  And how might we bring it back? Could it be that what we need is to rediscover the unifier of knowledge which we somehow lost along the way?

In the first chapter of Colossians the apostle Paul writes that by Jesus Christ “all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  He is before all things and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17).  And a little later Paul says that “in [Christ] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).  If Paul is correct-and I suspect he is-then we have found the true unifier of all knowledge, the remedy to the crisis in higher education described by Gregorian.

Many people still labor under the delusion that a “neutral” education is possible.  Their recipe: Insert soul here; add factual data of diverse kinds; increase ambient social temperature; allow to incubate for three and two-thirds years; and-boom schnitzel!–an Educated Person. As if human beings really could be completely impartial and dispassionate.  As if education was a simple matter of pouring facts into persons.  As if there was such a thing as a view from nowhere.

One of the virtues of postmodernism is its rejection of the myth of neutrality, whether regarding education or any other sphere of human activity.  There is a person-relativity to knowledge, the postmodernists tell us, and even if we cannot agree with their extreme pronouncements about relativism, we Christians should acknowledge this much.  The ultimate reality is a Person, and absolute truth is relative to that Person.  What American higher education has lost is not a “what” or “it” but He who is the source of everything and brings meaning and purpose to all human activities, from learning to laughter to lovemaking.

As regards our current crisis in higher education, as with so many things in life, to discover the cause is also to find the cure.  Once upon a time in this country all our great colleges and universities were founded on Christ.  Harvard’s motto was typical: “veritas in Christi gloriam” (truth for the glory of Christ).  Jesus was the center around which they orbited, but over time they drifted out of that orbit.  The image in Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” comes to mind:  “Turning and turning in the widening gyre; The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”  Jesus Christ is the true Falconer, the launching point of all knowledge and the center from which all wisdom derives.  But less and less our culture hears his call.

The loss of the unity of knowledge in higher education is a consequence of the rejection of a Christian worldview.  The only way this unity can be reconstructed is through Christian education.  The bad news is that higher education has fallen a long way, and the road to cultural redemption will be hard.  But in Christ there is always good news.  A millennium and a half ago things looked really bad for Western civilization.  Radical skepticism had prevailed in a war ravaged and disease stricken culture.  Truth and the unity of knowledge appeared as lifeless corpses.  Who would have thought the best days were yet to come for Western Civilization?

So what reconstructed the West?  What brought us out of the Dark Ages and into the light?  Was it not the gospel?  And how did the Christian worldview survive such difficult, apparently hopeless times?  It was Christian communities, an underground culture of hope, centered on Truth and devoted to the Christ who unifies all knowledge.  In short, Christianity saved Western Civilization.  I don’t know if we are heading into another dark age, as some have suggested.  But whether or not that’s so, the West needs to be redeemed again.  And if Christianity saved Western civilization once, it can happen again.  It can happen through the same underground culture of hope that pulled it off the first time.  And Christian colleges can be as pivotal as they were the first time.  The founding of the universities of Paris, Bologna, and Salerno were decisive for the advance of Christian thought in the 13th century and beyond.  Christian higher education must play a similar role in the years to come if we are to see a true redemption of Western culture.

Now, to return to Sproul’s question, my colleagues at Taylor and other Christian colleges do have an overarching purpose.  We do know the kind of person we are trying to produce-a person whose Christian worldview permeates the whole of his or her life.  By God’s grace we can still hear the falconer, and it is our job to enable our students to do so as well.  Whatever our specialties, research projects, disciplinary paradigms, or technological preoccupations, we must not forget whom we orbit.  It is he who holds all things together and “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”