You may know that I am very passionate about preparing the next generation for the global marketplace. This includes my kids. I am excited about their opportunities, yet deeply concerned about the world that they are inheriting. As parents, employers, educators, and church leaders, we need to wake up to the fact that the world is changing in startling ways and we are failing to prepare the next generation for the global marketplace that they will step into in a few short years.
A recent incident involving my youngest child (in seventh grade) heightened my concern. She attends what many consider one of the top ten Christian schools in the nation. After she had asked a question in Bible class, the teacher, rather than engage the question, gave her a pat answer, implying that she needed to just take what he had said as the truth. To me this smacked of indoctrination rather than true learning. And if there is anything that my kids need to learn, it is the truth in the Scriptures and how to thoughtfully apply it. Indoctrination doesn’t do this. It creates mindlessness. And as I can see from many of the kids, it is turning them off to the wonder of God’s truth.
Indoctrination creates mindlessness. It is turning our kids off to the wonder of God’s truth
The teacher then earnestly proceeded, with great pride in achievement, to say that the Bible and the science curriculum had not changed one bit over the last 16 years! What? 16 years? I could only sputter in unbelief, then outrage when I heard that.
Now I don’t believe that the truth of Scripture changes, but how people best learn does change. And the issues that they have to face have changed dramatically. The teacher was essentially telling me that the school was not preparing the students to thoughtfully and skillfully engage with the world they are facing.
And surely science has come up with some new stuff in the last 16 years that our kids might need to know.
We’ll be taking Annie out of this school next year. It was becoming increasingly apparent that this school had no clue what was going on in the world. Our attempts to make these points at the school have bounced off a Teflon culture. I think the best thing that could be done is for the entire faculty and administration to rotate through two year sabbaticals where the assignment is to try and get a job in one of the increasingly globalized industries and see what it takes to be productive professionally and spiritually.
Christ calls each generation of those who follow Him to live out His purposes in that generation.
Our purpose as parents is to prepare our children for this responsibility
I deeply feel that Christ calls each generation of those who follow Him to live out His purposes in that generation. Our purpose as parents is to prepare our children for this responsibility. My wife and I have worked hard to build into our children a biblical worldview and character that can dynamically engage the world. We’ve worked hard to help our kids get a global perspective, to be able to traverse the globe and work in a flat world. We’ve worked to give them the life and work skills that will enable them to be innovative and to create value wherever and whatever they do.
As parents we need to be concerned for the welfare of our children. As business people we need to be concerned about the quality of the work force as it faces relentless global competition. And as educators we need to wake up and be appalled by the fact that we have NOT been preparing our kids educationally or biblically for the world they are facing.
This all brings me to a glimmer of hope I received this week when I received this video clip produced by Karl Fisch, a high school teacher at Arapahoe High School in Littleton, CO. His little clip is becoming viral inside the education community. Karl is more than a teacher. He is a revolutionary of the best kind. He’ll make his enemies, but I also think he’ll make his mark.
Take the time today to view this. It is for his fellow teachers, for sure. But it is also for any of us who are involved in hiring and developing people. Think about the consequences of this clip. Let it shake you and wake you.
Click on the image below to watch the video
