“Education, education, education” were the words Tony Blair used to describe his priorities when he was in government. They could also be the three words that describe the dominant themes of our family’s summer: it began with exams, built up to results and now concludes with the exodus of children back to school and two off to university. Our culture values education extremely highly not just for academic achievement but also in the words of Mr Mitchell from Educating Yorkshire ‘as the means to turn kids into decent human beings’. He has a good point and as Mr Mitchell fan I don’t like to disagree but …
This summer we remembered the 100th anniversary of ‘The Great War’. It was great only in its destruction and horror. We still live within its aftermath. Yet Germany in 1914 was an incredible nation: it had gifted writers, composers, musicians, and scientists. Its literature, art and music were exceptional and it was a highly developed industrialised nation. Never before had a nation been so educated! None of this changed the course of history.
Hideous acts of violence still occur; even as I write news has come in of the murder of a British hostage. It is an act that seems to be from the dark ages. The treatment of Christians, and other minorities by ISIS has been beyond words in its ugliness. Women and young girls abused, and kept in sexual slavery. Our society struggles to understand it – words are thrown around, ‘evil’ seems to be the most popular. But it is a complex evil, an evil that is based on ideology; an evil embraced by educated people some of whom have been through our schools and our universities. Our education has not prevented or resolved the continued horrors of the twenty-first century after the appalling record of violence in the twentieth century. It is the humanist dream but education is not the answer to every human evil.
I am not against giving everyone the best education possible. I am a school governor, and I teach in a school every week, I am passionate about it – just like Mr Mitchell. But I want to challenge the belief that it is the means to transform our society. I have to remind myself of this because it is easy to get caught up in the aspirations of the academic rat race as though that is the be all and end all for my family; education has a place but it cannot be not the ultimate goal for my children. Knowing Jesus really is more important than GCSE’s, A-Levels and degrees despite their all-consuming presence in our lives!
There is only one who can truly transform us; we need to sit at His feet and listen to Him. As we begin a new term with all the challenges and rewards education brings lets keep in mind what is more important than anything – the gospel which is the power for salvation for all who believe and the only hope for our suffering world.