Education Philosophies

[Ian]

by the same token, is it ever a good idea to have a state or local government-mandated standard for everyone? maybe this was inevitable. public schools used to be run locally. then state governments got involved. now the federal government is involved. as government involvement has expanded, so has miseducation.

[Steve]

So when does the Interplanetary Federation get involved? I've heard the Glac'tok tribe in the Nabolzzt system is kicking our trash on standardized tests...

[Tuly]

I was about to post a general conference quote and noticed this post. Oddly enough I believe that there are some parents that find security in federal standardized education. Some parents are afraid that their children will miss out something out there in education land that will hinder their children from getting into good colleges, and therefore not get good jobs in this "dog eat dog world".

[Tuly]

Grea BYU website on being life long learners - http://entertolearn.byu.edu/content/bec ... ng-learner

[Tuly]

This is a website about common core from a homeschooling point.

http://www.hslda.org/commoncore/default.aspx

This is a common core glossary

Common Core Glossary

Achieve—An organization founded in 1996 by a group of governors and corporate leaders to work for standards-based education reform across the states. Achieve helped evaluate and promote the initial Common Core State Standards after they were drafted by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officials.

CC—Common Core State Standards.

CCSSO—Council of Chief State School Officials, coauthored—with the National Governors Association—the Common Core State Standards.

Common Core—Common Core State Standards, released in 2010.

FERPA—Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law that protects the privacy of student educational records. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Education amended FERPA to allow any government or private entity that the Department says is evaluating an education program access to student's personally identifiable information without parental notification.

Gates Foundation—the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a nonprofit that has provided millions of dollars in funding since 2007 to help develop and advance Common Core State Standards and student data systems.

inBloom—a nonprofit founded in 2012 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to build a $100 million database to track students from kindergarten through college.

NAEP—National Assessment of Education Progress, a federal program to provide a national “snapshot” of United States students’ achievement at grades 4, 8, and 12. NAEP began holding national assessments in 1969 and continues through the present day.

NCLB—No Child Left Behind, a federal education initiative passed under the Bush Administration.

NGA—National Governors Association, coauthors—along with the Council of Chief State School Officials—of the Common Core State Standards.

P–20 longitudinal data system—preschool through workforce student tracking database.

PARCC—Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, a consortium of 26 members states that has received $170 million in federal education dollars to craft standardized assessments that align with the Common Core State Standards.

PISA—Programme for International Student Assessment.

SBAC—SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, a group of 31 member states that has received $160 million from the U.S. Department of Education to develop standardized assessments that align with the Common Core State Standards.

RTTT—Race to the Top, a program which provided states an opportunity to compete for a share of $4.35 billion reserved for state education incentives by the American Recovery and Restoration Act.

[John]

[Steve]

President Ezra Taft Benson:

There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution which authorized the federal government to enter into the field of education. Furthermore, the Tenth Amendment says: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Nothing could be more clear. It is unconstitutional for the federal government to exercise any powers over education (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson).

[Ian]

Link

[Tuly]

Thank you Ian for posting this. I'm looking forward to the full length movie.

[Angela]

By far the most compelling argument for preschool.

Link

[Ian]

elder jay jensen: "learn to put more of the burden of the learning on the student."

[Tuly]

With bilingual/immersion programs education in my mind, I got this quote from a footnote in Elder Quentin Cook's General Conference talk in April 2015 - The Lord Is My Light - https://www.lds.org/general-conference/ ... t?lang=eng

21. This is one of the reasons the Church teaches the gospel in 50 languages and translates the Book of Mormon into 110 languages. However, one of the challenges across the world is to learn the language of the country in which you live. As parents we need to sacrifice to help the rising generation learn the language of the country where they now live. Help them make that language the language of their heart.

[Steve]

From a 1997 BYU devotional address by A. LeGrand Richards:

The world teaches that we will find our life’s fulfillment through our jobs. This is a lie, but it is a lie taught in the most subtle ways. When we ask, “Who is he?” or “What does she do?” we typically expect some answer regarding the person’s chosen career, the social role they play (doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc.), how much money they have, or the amount of property they own.

Of course, it is wonderful to find meaningful employment, and we do have obligations to provide for our families, but a career is different from your life’s mission. In all the generations of mankind, very few have even had the luxury to consider or choose careers. (Ask Adam or Noah how they chose their careers!) But I do understand the pressure you feel to decide a major and a career. The biggest danger I see in yielding to this pressure is the tendency to belittle the family. When I was in fourth grade, if you had asked the children in my class “What do you want to be when you grow up?” a few of the boys may have said, “I want to be a dad,” but nearly all of the girls would have said they wanted to be a mom. If you were to ask the same question today of a typical fourth-grade class, it is likely that none of the boys would think that fatherhood is even a possible response. And if perhaps one or two of the girls said, “I want to be a mom,” they would probably be met with the question “And what else?” I believe that my role of father is a far more important part of my life’s mission than my career can ever be, and if I allow my job to dominate my perspective, no matter how important I think my job is, I will shortchange that which is more important.

President David O. McKay reminded us that education is far more than mere job training: “The paramount ideal permeating all education in the grades, the high school, through college and the university, should be more spiritual than economic” (GI, p. 430).

President McKay also reminded us that “no success in life can compensate for failure in the home” (see CR, April 1935, p. 116; quoting James Edward McCulloch, ed., Home: The Savior of Civilization [Washington, D.C.: Southern Co-operative League, 1924], p. 42). May I add the corollary that no other success in life can compete with success in the home. When you reach the age of retirement, not many of you will wish that you had published one more article, sold one more commodity, or spent more time in business meetings. The most treasured moments in my life are very simple. I think of my daughter’s tiny hand holding onto her daddy’s finger while we climbed down from the front porch to watch ants crawl across the sidewalk, while we rushed to the train tracks to catch a glimpse of a passing train, or while we fed dandelions to the neighbor’s chickens. I think of the dance concerts in my living room to “The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room” or “Ease on Down the Road” and of late nights sewing a costume or dress. I remember the gentle touch of a hand twirling the hair on the back of my neck while I heard the excitement or trauma of a school day. I think of priesthood blessings, minidates for ice cream, and tickle fights. I watched each of my children take their very first breath. These are the treasures of my life! What professional honor would be worth trading for these memories? The love of a family takes quality time—and a great quantity of it. Don’t limit your concept of mission to the notion of a career.

...can you imagine someone seriously asking, “What’s the least I can do to make it into the celestial kingdom?” Wouldn’t it seem strange to try to think up strategies to help you compete better in the final judgment or to practice techniques for making a better impression at the judgment bar? This type of thinking may work well for schooling as a game, but it isn’t celestial thinking—and these aren’t celestial questions.

I’ve heard it said that education is the only area that Americans pay for and almost hope to be cheated—to be asked to do as little as possible for the credit. I’m afraid I was guilty. In the world’s education one can get A’s in theology without even believing in God, and one can receive top honors in the “Marriage and Family Living” course while contributing to a painful divorce or abusing family members. But an education for the Lord’s errand requires a focused mind, a pure heart, and a life of integrity.

As an undergraduate, I wish I had believed that my professors were nothing more and nothing less than my brothers and sisters. Jesus condemned the professional teachers of his day who loved to walk in long robes, to sit at the head tables in the schools, and “to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.” He declared: “But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren” (Matthew 23:5–8). I wish we believed this today. I once proposed a column in the Daily Universe entitled “Verses I Wish We Believed.” If we believed this verse, it would profoundly affect the relationships between teachers and students.

The typical teacher-student relationship is a hierarchical and secular one—like the king to his subjects. To illustrate this, I sometimes ask my students for a week or two to address me as “Your Royal Highness”—just to show them how embarrassingly well it fits. “Oh, Your Royal Highness, I tried to get my assignment to you on time, but I was hit by a train on my way to campus and I’ve been crawling for three days. Won’t you please, please, accept it a little late?”

Do you realize how I could respond? “Well, my lowly subject, first you must run 12 laps around the McKay Building and kiss my ring. And then I have to decide whether it is fair to the other subjects in my kingdom who got their assignments in on time!”

You may love your kings or hate them, but the hierarchical relationship of secular power is typical of the world’s education. Given the secular model on which universities are built, even teachers who see themselves as brothers and sisters may, almost unwittingly, slip into patterns that are not consistent with the Lord’s way.

As long as I viewed my teachers as classroom kings, the roles we played were part of the game—there was no need to admit that I was a brother nor that they were. As brothers and sisters, most teachers sincerely want to be helpful. Nearly all are passionate about their subjects and are delighted to assist anyone who is truly curious or even slightly interested in some aspect of their specialty. Most sincerely feel the responsibility to provide only the best possible learning experiences, but as role players in the game, we look very different. When we, as teachers, are not acting as brothers and sisters, we often act like petty tyrants, making demands and judgments of you that are anything but familial. Can you imagine how your spouse or your family would react if you demanded to be treated as their king or queen? Few situations better illustrate the problem of unrighteous dominion than those of teachers who forget their relationship to their students when they acquire “a little authority, as they suppose” (D&C 121:39).

At first I did not see my teachers as brothers and sisters—they were potentates of power. They held the goodies of their kingdoms, which I could acquire only by pleasing them. I’ve seen students become so competitive, bickering over the most trivial issues for an extra point or the chance to move ahead of another. Seldom are we as concerned about the truth as we are about the score. I’ve seen students who sit passively and seem to dare their professors to prove that their subjects have any value or relevance. I suppose I used to do this. I never considered that if a class was boring it might be my fault. I don’t think I prayed very often that my professors would speak with the power of the Holy Ghost or that I would listen with that same power. I didn’t then, but I wish I would have. I doubt I expressed genuine gratitude for the efforts of my professors, even for those who seemed to play the game with me.

I don’t think I recognized what a great teacher the Lord is. I’m embarrassed that too often I spent so much effort attempting to impress my mortal teachers that I neglected to ask what the Lord wanted me to know. As a student, too often my prayers were limited to asking for help in guessing the correct answers to some mortal’s exam questions.

In 1914 Joseph F. Smith offered the Church a prophetic warning. He told us:

There are at least three dangers that threaten the Church within, and the authorities need to awaken to the fact that the people should be warned unceasingly against them. . . . They are the flattery of prominent men in the world, false educational ideas, and sexual impurity. [“Editors’ Table: Three Threatening Dangers,” Improvement Era 17, no. 5 (March 1914): 476–77]

With the perspective of time, we see how prophetic this warning was and is. I was serving a mission when Elder Ezra Taft Benson built on this theme, declaring, “As a watchman on the tower, I feel to warn you that one of the chief means of misleading our youth and destroying the family unit is our educational institutions” (“Strengthening the Family,” Improvement Era 73, no. 12 [December 1970]: 46).

If BYU is to heed these warnings, we must build on a different foundation than the world’s. In his “Second Century” address, President Spencer W. Kimball reminded us that “this university is not of the world any more than the Church is of the world, and it must not be made over in the image of the world” (“The Second Century of Brigham Young University,” BYU Founders Day address, 10 October 1975, in Classic Speeches, vol. 1 [Provo: Brigham Young University, 1994], p. 139).

We could not build the Mount Timpanogos Temple on a foundation designed for the state capitol building. It wouldn’t fit, and the compromises necessary to make the attempt would severely affect the purpose of the structure. Likewise, an education built upon the world’s foundation will not adequately serve the purposes of Zion.

The world’s education is built upon pride. If pride were removed from the normal concept of a university, I’m not sure what would be left. President Benson taught that “pride is essentially competitive in nature” (“Beware of Pride,” Ensign, May 1989, p. 4). Quoting C. S. Lewis, he declared:

Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. . . . It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. [Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952), pp. 109–10]

An education built on pride is more concerned with comparison than with truth; it is more interested in its ranking than its virtue.

President Benson also taught that “the proud cannot accept the authority of God giving direction to their lives” (“Beware of Pride,” p. 4). Have you ever considered how unwilling the world’s educational institutions are to give any legitimate place to Jesus Christ? But this position has developed only relatively recently, almost as if it were a response to the Restoration. Typical of nearly all other early universities in this country, one of Harvard’s founding documents from 1643 states:

Let every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, John 17:3, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. [“New England’s First Fruits,” in Samuel Eliot Morison, The Founding of Harvard College (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935), p. 434; text modernized]

Does that sound like the foundation of a modern university? Today, like Korihor of old, the world teaches that “no deity will save us; we must save ourselves” (“Humanist Manifesto II,” in Humanist Manifestos I and II, ed. Paul Kurtz [New York: Prometheus Books, 1973], p. 16). Students are taught to rely upon the arm of flesh in the form of science, technology, or even laws and principles for the solutions to all the world’s problems. It has become academic heresy to believe and practice that Jesus Christ is the only “name given under heaven whereby man can be saved” (2 Nephi 31:21).

As social problems are identified, we turn more and more to the schools to solve them: from racial prejudice to AIDS, from malnutrition to drug abuse, from teenage pregnancy to gang warfare. At the same time, any reference to God, the Ten Commandments, or Jesus Christ is being carefully purged from the schools under the pretense that the Constitution requires it. Our students are allowed to read and write profanity but may not offer prayers. They can listen to music with the vilest of lyrics but are not even exposed to George Washington’s inaugural address or to excerpts from Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin because they are “too religious.”

Today’s teachers receive more training and have better facilities and quicker access to the latest curricular materials. They are trained in the latest practices, newest theories, and most current information. For the most part, they are remarkably dedicated and sincere. In spite of this, the moral decline of our society in nearly every category is more dramatic than ever. Literacy rates are decreasing; gang activity and drug traffic are at an all-time high; violent crime, illegitimate births, and teenage suicide rates are appalling; and divorce has reached epidemic proportions. The rich are richer and the poor are poorer, even though the average years of schooling are steadily increasing.

Too often professional educators, fully aware of this moral slide, spend their “labor for that which cannot satisfy” (2 Nephi 9:51). We argue about methods and measurements while our children are starving for real substance. We search out publishable results to questions that are for the most part beside the point.

What could make a real difference to our moral decline? Will our society be saved by a new reading program or by requiring greater proficiency in mathematics? Will a new sex education program taught in a secular context solve the problems of infidelity, pornography, or illegitimate births?

I fear that most of what is published in education wouldn’t make much difference even if it were used at the grandest scale, because it doesn’t address the most important issues. Moroni saw our day and warned us plainly that we must “serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ” or we will ripen in iniquity, and when we are fully ripe, we will be “swept off” (see Ether 2:8–12).

Whether or not it wants to hear it, the world is crying out for what we often take for granted. It most needs faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and though it may seem to want anything but this, there are yet many “who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it” (D&C 123:12). If the world needed bread, would we give it a stone? (See Matthew 7:9.) Whatever else we may offer the people of the world, if it doesn’t ultimately lead them to Christ, how good can it be?

In a world obsessed with appearances, it should be no surprise that many of us suffer from academic bulimia. I used to. Toward the end of the semester or just before a test I would binge on information, cramming as much as possible into my brain. Then I would walk carefully and quickly to the Testing Center, hoping that I didn’t spill too much before I arrived, only to purge my system into categories of A, B, C, D, or “none of the above.”

Grades seemed to dominate my life. But whatever else grades can measure, they cannot measure what is most important. A GPA is not an average of that which matters most. Even with the most conscientious effort to be fair and equitable in how grades are given, they are often used to justify assigning people into a society divided into “ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning” (3 Nephi 6:12). And whatever Christian justification might be given for grades, I do know that if we allow our learning to be primarily motivated and dominated by them, we will be serving the wrong master. If any of us were to die at the end of the semester, I doubt that Saint Peter would ask to see our transcripts. We might, however, be asked, “You’ve just had a semester at BYU (or two or 12). How well have you used your time, talents, and energy to prepare yourself to serve the Lord?”

“But, Brother Richards,” some may say, “you aren’t being realistic! Grades do matter. I have to play the game. Unless I focus on grades, I won’t be able to keep my scholarship; I won’t be admitted into the most prestigious graduate program; I may not get the best job.” The reality is, however, that you are not on this earth to maintain a scholarship, enter prestigious graduate schools, or beat someone else in the marketplace. You have a much higher standard. You need to please the Lord God Omnipotent. I promise you that if you please him, with an eye single to his glory, your life will not be without great opportunities. The Lord doesn’t want you to shortchange your educational preparations. Your scholarship won’t be less if you consecrate these preparations to him as an offering. I doubt your GPA will even decrease when you seek to serve the real Master. And, as with Daniel of old, others will see your good works and because of them “glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). True accountability is to him to whom someday we must all give an accounting. No mortal standard, no matter how rigorous, is high enough.

Let me conclude with a parable: Once there was an army. It was strong, handsome, and fairly well trained. The soldiers knew their duty. They were assigned to be watchmen on the towers. They were to sound the alarm to warn the people when the enemy approached. In times of relative peace, however, it isn’t always easy to remain alert in such an assignment. To help spend the time, the soldiers often invented games to amuse themselves; some of these games required great skill. One game was particularly engrossing, and many soldiers became quite proficient at it. Someone suggested that they start a tournament to determine who in all of the army was the best player. The tournament became the talk of the whole village and even beyond. In fact, game players from all over the land actually began to join the army simply so they could compete in the tournament. Each year great honors were given to the champions, parades were held in tribute to their achievements, and children dreamed of the day when they, too, could join the army to participate in the tournament. Of course the enemy was not disappointed by the tournament’s acquired popularity; it was one of the enemy, in fact, who proposed the competition in the first place.