Rooted Instruction Foundations
Rooted Instruction's View of Education
Defining Education
When people talk about a child receiving an education, there is always the underlying assumption of preparing that child for life. This really is an accurate definition of what it means to give an education. Preparing someone for life... But that leads to another question - a deeper question. What does it mean to prepare someone for life? To answer that question is to truly strike at the heart of education. So, what does it mean to prepare someone for life?
At Rooted instruction we understand that preparing someone for life is nothing less than seeking to shape the affections of a human that is created in the image of God. This is the heart of education. Education is not mere data, truth, learning, and skills, but seeking to implant a framework of thinking that will determine how one understands that data, that truth, that learning, and those skills. Through this framework, they will decide what to love and what to hate; what to draw towards and what to resist. This framework is what determines their affections. I say again, to educate is to shape the affections of the pupil.
Defining Affections
Perhaps it would be best to define what I means by, "Affections."
Most people almost immediately equate affections with emotions, and rightfully so, for the meaning of the word has altered over time. But, I am using the word in what would now be considered an archaic sense. It does involve emotion, but cannot be reduced to emotions. Let's use three facets of this archaic meaning to settle on a definition.
Mind - Webster 1828 describes affections as a, "bent of mind towards a particular object..." I think this is very important because affections are never separate from the mind and will. This means that affections are predominately taught. Anyone can be stirred emotionally by music, or severe weather without being taught, but affections are determined through mental discernment, which then informs the will to be disposed accordingly.
Disposition - unlike emotions, affections produce a disposition of the will towards the world around it, and this disposition does not change unless through mental discernment one determines to change them. This means that objects are viewed continually in the same way even in differing circumstances. An example of this may be a parent's disposition towards their child. Their disposition does not change even though that same child is the cause of many passing emotions within the parent. Another example would be bigotry. If we understand another human to be less than human, that disposition does not change unless in the mind one determines that the objects should be understood differently, and thus the affections are altered. This is clearly seen in Nazism's disposition toward the Jewish people, and in all sorts of other prejudice humans have chosen throughout history.
Permanence - Websters 1828 dictionary also categorizes affections as, "attributes, qualities or property which is inseparable from the object; as, love, fear, and hope are affections of the mind..." Emotions may ebb and flow out of the affections, but the affections never go away. For instance, humans will always fear something. The question is not, "will we fear" but, "what will we fear?" The objects of our affections can be altered, but not the affections because it is a property of what it means to be human. Thus one may fear God or Man, but they will fear something.
Summing it up
So when I use the term affection, I mean a reality of what it means to be human that determines the dispositions that we will have towards all of life. Our affections determine, in a permanent way, what we will love and what we will hate, what we will draw near to and what we will resist.
This may have been a surprising conclusion, but stick with me, I am in no way the first to assert this truth. Aristotle noted that
Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. (Aristotle)
He understood that mere data and tools are not what shape a human. C.S. Lewis in the Abolition of Man says much the same, with a little more complexity.
“For every one pupil who needs to be guarded against 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.” -C.S. Lewis,
C.S. Lewis is acknowledging that people, by nature, are not machines, but are creatures of affection that have sentiment (a disposition) towards everything they encounter, and **the answer is not to deny this reality but to intentionally cultivate their affections so their sentiments (Dispositions) are honoring to God. (I would encourage you to read all of Lewis's lectures on this subject)
A Biblical Truth -What it means to be human
But, I do not confidently assert this because others have always understood this to be the case. Much more importantly, God has revealed to us in His Word that to be a creature of affection is simply what it means to be human. It would follow then that to prepare someone for life is to establish a proper framework of affections; which curates their dispositions, which then determines their actions.
You see, to be human is to be created in the image of God. (Gen 1:28) And at its core, this means that we have been given the extraordinary ability to receive of the revelation of God and intentionally - From our affections - respond to that revelation. This is a primary distinction between Adam and Eve and the other creatures.
Picture this scene. Adam and Even sprawled deep in Eden's grass, gazing up at an awe inspiring sunset. Animals are lying in the same grass, feeling the same cool evening breeze and gazing at the same sunset. There are a couple lions, a smattering of elephants and other animals. Do you think that one of those lions, enjoying the same evening, looking at the same sunset, will ever walk over to the elephants and declare, "Look at all God has done, let's bend our knees and sing a song of gratitude and worship.?" Not in a million years. Only Adam and Eve - people created in God's image- can do that.
Consider the following passages and think about what it means to be human - A being that has affections.
37 And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." [Mat 22:37-40 ESV]
Jesus declares this because at the heart of what it means to be human is to be a creatures of affections. If love can fulfill all the law and the prophets, then our affections are more primary than our actions. They determine not only our actions, but the disposition that causes us to seek those actions.
In this same vein of thinking Paul will assert that what we do has no substance at all, if it is not motivated by Biblical love.
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. [1Co 13:1-3 ESV]
Our affections are so at the heart of what it means to be human that Paul says, In God's eyes, our actions are substance-less if not done in love.
But for me, the argument is conclusive when we realize that the chief evidence of being regenerated is a comprehensive list of new affections.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. [Gal 5:22-23 ESV]
The very heart of what it means to be human is to be a being of affection. It simply follows that this is the non-negotiable reality of what it means to prepare someone for life. It does not matter if a teacher is simply wanting to help students learn. They necessarily will also curate the student's affections.
Bringing it back to Education
Let's bring it back to education. all of one's life and actions are changed when their affections are changed. Education is so much more than the transfer of knowledge, it is the establishing of a framework of affections that determines how the student understands life and the world around them. The following quotes are proof positive of this truth.
- All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. (Aristotle)
- “The youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still un-perverted and therefore unspoiled. … This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.” (Adolf Hitler 1937)
- *Give me four years to teach the children _and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted. *(Vladimir Lenin)
Let's Get Practical
It is impossible to instruct someone in basic language arts, without shaping their affections. I do not necessarily mean that instructing them in how to use a comma correctly will implant a framework of affections. But, in framing: why we use commas, why language matters, and for what ends it aught to be pursued will inform the student's affections. That framework will necessarily begin to be built and solidified. Do you see how the student's whole disposition towards the glorious gift of communication is being shaped in their education?
Another simple example is your elementary life science class. If a child is taught that people are not created in the image of God, they necessarily have developed more than a position on data, but affections concerning what it means to be human. They must value and devalue people accordingly. Their affections have been established, and their dispositions are being solidified, and their actions will follow. They are receiving an education.
At Rooted Instruction we view education, its parts and the whole, as the systematic shaping of a human's affections. And no, we are not just defining Christian education, but all forms academic education. So let me finish with a more specific definition.
Education is the systematic training in which the educator seeks to establish and develop predetermined affections in the student; These affections will curate their dispositions, which will in turn produces their actions. The conclusion of this is a worldview through which the student will interpret all of life.
Where to Begin
At Rooted Instruction, we are committed to three core theological pillars that frame how we rightly begin to inform a student's affections.
- A wholehearted confidence in the sufficiency of Scripture to give us a foundation upon which we can boldly build every area of our life upon.
- An accurate understanding of who God is. Our understanding of everything is built upon our understanding of who God is.
- An accurate understanding of What it means to be human and the gospel that redeems us to the glorious ends for which God created us.
Each of these we will treat in more detail in future blog posts.
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