In Seth Godin’s best selling book Linchpin: Are you Indispensable?, he writes that “Classrooms have become fear based and test-based battlefields.”[1] Godin goes on to list of what I’m going to call predictable education. Here are just a few:
Not all of these items I believe to necessarily be a bad thing however Godin?s solution has only two things on a list:
Thats it!
I didn’t start this blog to make a book review on a Seth Godin book, but from a secular mindset I found that he was on to something when it came to the topic of education, maybe even true education. What is true education? What is aim of it? Is our aim in education too low? Often we might use the words true education as a trendy nebulous phrase showing that we are doing something right in our Christian walk, but maybe we don’t really understand the rich layered concepts that come from it. If we understand that education is more than mass producing cogs to fill the work force, that there is a purpose to obtaining knowledge and intellectual expansion of our mind, body and soul, then we might be heading in the right direction.
The moment man fell from perfection a chain of events went into action that would ultimately restore the image of God in man. [Jesus] who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, again the will of God being that he made [Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. [Galatians 1:4; 2 Corinthians 5:21] The plan of redemption was set forth to fulfill this restoration process. This is the object of education. [2]
Redemption, the act of saving, truly can only be done in love. Therefore ?Love, the basis of creation and of redemption, is the basis of true education. [3]
Redemption is the vessel, love is the golden thread that holds the vessel together, and the vessel is transporting the restoration of the image of God in man; man?s character. All of this is the aim of True Education.
Being created in the image of God [Genesis 1:26,27] we were given a power similar to that of our Creator, the power to think and make logical decisions for ourselves. Entrepreneurial geniuses Tony Hsieh [Zappos.com] and Jack Dorsey [Twitter & Square] have exercised this power through leadership, innovation and the ability to influence people’s character. This same power is the work of the true education.
Instead of educated weaklings, institutions of learning may send forth men strong to think and to act, men who are masters and not slaves of circumstances, men who possess breadth of mind, clearness of thought, and the courage of their convictions. [4]
The incredible thing about true education, while it is working to develop a mature and logical thinker, its motive is not for selfish gain. The end goal is not to have a seven figure income and retire at age 40. The goal of true education I propose is two fold.
I love to study the methods of the innovative leaders, the Ben Silbermanns or Jeff Bezos or Padmasree Warriors of the world; the people that have thought outside the box and created a paradigm shift in the way industry is done. Do you want to know what I love even more than that? The idea of young people taught in the vein of true education to love and serve God first, then unselfishly serve mankind. I love the idea of young people trained not be bought or sold, [youth] who in their inmost souls are true and honest, [youth] who do not fear to call sin by its right name, [youth] whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, [youth] who will stand for the right though the heavens fall. [5]
