Is “Higher” Education really Higher? It seems to me we have growing pools of educated fools. They know their jargon and have learned the art of pulling wool over eyes but they are totally parochial. We have people who have lots of degrees and have been marinated in the herbs of ignorance. (Can you marinate in herbs? I must admit my ignorance.) You would think it would be an inverse proportion but it is direct: The more classes, the greater the ignorance. This is a result of having a greater respect for “education” and a secret embarrassment at the truth.
We have become a “literate” society if you define literate carefully. The reason you must define carefully is that I have classes full of students who can pick up a book and read the text letter perfect, but they don’t have any idea of what it means. The Muslim world is full of people who can read the Koran but don’t understand the Arabic. Unfortunately the Christian world is full of the same kind of people in regard to the Bible. We have had to get more specific. Now we call these people “functionally illiterate.”
If we are failing in our basic education, higher education is a disaster. In California we have this item called the CBEST. I think it stands for California Basic Educational Skills Test. You are required to pass it to become a teacher. It is an insult to “higher education.” It has some reading comprehension, you write an essay, you answer a few math questions with simple algebra the highest level. I think it is about 10th grade level. Twenty percent of the college graduates fail. Did you get that? After four or more years of college and a college diploma, these people can’t pass a 10th grade test. I knew one man who had taken it five times and failed five times before he was removed from his teaching position.
What is the difference between education, knowledge and wisdom? I did a word search on “educate” and “education” in the KJV and NASB. I came up with nothing. The church needs to get back to the Biblical words and the Biblical meanings. The church needs to influence society instead of conforming to society. Maybe then someone will listen.
homo unius libri
I have a bachelar degree and I am embarrassed to admit that I have learned most that I know after graduation. I don't know exactly what is wrong with our education system but the problem I feel modern day Christians have can be summed up by the following analogy.......A Baseball player pops out to center field and later is asked if he didn't see the coach giving him the bunt sign. The batter said yeah I saw you give the sign I just didn't know you really meant it.. I think modern Christians can read the Bible they just don't think God really meant it!
ReplyDeleteYou got that right.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of our Christian Colleges are also like that center fielder.
Thanks for the input.
Grace and peace
That is really a great royal essays post, I really want to know more about Opus 2011-132. Hope you can provide more for me.
ReplyDeleteI can respond but there are so many areas. Are you asking about education in general, Christian colleges, grade inflation, cultural ignorance.
DeleteGrace and peace