God Schooling: How God Intended Children to Learn

Product Information

A second, less common but influential account of schooling frames it in economic terms: schools allocate public and private goods, generate society-wide human capital, and individual social mobility. The economic framing of schooling also sidelines racism, however. The classical economic way of seeing schooling might partially explain why those nine children (and their parents) were putting themselves in harm's way (although they had other motivations too), but I don't see how the economic framing accounts for the mob, who are not there for their individual private interests or to support the economic development of Arkansas. God is the source of all wisdom and the Biblical definition of wisdom simply put is to fear the Lord. True wisdom is only found in being completely obedient to God as He has commanded in His Word, and in fearing Him. During and after Reconstruction, however, white people adapted to these changes, applying exclusion to new groups (notably Mexican and Chinese in the West), expanding boarding schools for Native children, and developing the interrelated practices of spatial and bureaucratic segregation in ways that ensured white advantage. Footnote 62 In its Plessy decision of 1896, the Supreme Court gave federal legal cover to segregation as a strategy of white supremacy, arguing, illogically, that providing services separately according to categories of domination (races) was legally permissible as long as the allocation of services was equal. Footnote 63 People of any religion can demonstrate religious intensity. But the research in my book “ God, Grades, and Graduation: Religion’s Surprising Impact on Academic Success” centers on Christian denominations because they are the most prevalent in the U.S., with about 63% of Americans identifying as Christian. Also, surveys about religion tend to reflect a Christian-centric view, such as by emphasizing prayer and faith over other kinds of religious observance. Therefore, Christian respondents are more likely to appear as highly religious, simply based on the wording of the questions.

Today, schooling is a social practice that launders white social advantage (inherited and updated) in the name of merit. Yes, schooling can be beneficial for everyone, and yes, many non-whites can succeed brilliantly while many whites can fail. And also, non-white people have generated their own goods as acts of self-determination and resistance within the schools designed for the good of people who are white. But resistance adds cost and risk, and not having to resist is an advantage conferred on children who identify, and were allowed to identify, as white. Footnote 46 So far my argument begs the question: How did white Americans maintain their advantages in schooling, when people of color have put up so much resistance?In America, the demographic circumstances of a child’s birth substantially shape academic success. Sociologists have spent decades studying how factors beyond students’ control – including the race, wealth and ZIP code of their parents – affect their educational opportunities and achievement. Timothy 3:15 “And that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” First, I ended the body of my argument on the theme of violence because it's critically important to recognize that the little white schoolhouse, that so-called laboratory of democracy on the endless Western frontier, rested on non-white harms. The worst harms. It's problematic in our work as historians to view schooling as a white good with romantic nostalgia, unless we are recovering stories of resistance, empowerment, and justice. Whose history are we writing?

Well, my friends, I will leave you with this important question. What is God’s will for your family? During the 1970s, racially naive economic frameworks that were developed in the 1950s and 1960s entered the mainstream of public policy. As they entered the mainstream of educational policy specifically, left- as well as right-leaning educational researchers began speaking of the politics and function of schooling through classical economic theories of production and consumption, including efficiency, markets, and public goods/private goods. Footnote 18 According to this “goods” model, public schooling in the United States served two competing kinds of goals: allocating public goods such as political socialization and human capital development, both of which benefited society as a whole, and the allocation of the private good of mobility—individual competitive advantage in a capitalist economy achieved primarily through credentialing. Footnote 19 The role of whiteness in these accounts was secondary and exceptional. Moreover, this same public goods/private goods framing soon captured the heart of federal and state school policy and jurisprudence as well, driving efforts toward privatization and toward “school choice” policy solutions such as vouchers for private schools or quasi-private “charter schools,” tuition tax credits, and other approaches. Footnote 20 My analysis of the interview data revealed that many abiders, especially girls from middle-upper-class families, were less likely to consider selective colleges. In interviews, religious teens over and over mention life goals of parenthood, altruism and serving God – priorities that I argue make them less intent on attending as highly selective a college as they could. This aligns with previous research showing that conservative Protestant women attend colleges that less selective than other women do because they do not tend to view college’s main purpose as career advancement. Grades without God She also goes into experiential learning in that chapter. Children learn much better when they can experience that which they are trying to learn. She gives multiple examples from field trips and nature walks to living books and hands on crafts. These have been a vital part of our educational experience and I appreciated the encouragement to continue with this type of learning even as my children get older. Proverbs 1:7 “Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.”Scholars talk about schooling and the public good in two ways. The first is to engage the idea of “ the public good.” It is a conversation as old as philosophy. The second is the idea of a public good, in an economic sense, and is of recent vintage. Both are problematic for describing the history of schooling in the United States. Colossians 1:28 “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.” Colossians 3:17 “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Within a short time, God revealed a need for something different. And at the time, Christian unschooling was a “dirty” word. Yet, Julie felt like the Lord was leading their family toward a Christian unschooling approach, in a sense, it is child-directed learning.

Based on a 2019 Pew survey and other studies, I estimate that about one-quarter of American teenagers are intensely religious. This number also accounts for people’s tendency to say they attend religious services more than they actually do. The abider advantage Secular Unschooling allows the child to learn what they want when they want, how they want, and if they want. It often looks hands-off. l Calling schooling a white good is a small—and I hope, logical—step from the remarkable work that many historians, legal scholars, social scientists, and others have done in the last thirty years excavating and explaining the way in which schooling in the United States is a fundamentally racial project. It also accounts for and corrects racially naive political and economic framings that have been such powerful drivers of school policy. Finally, calling schooling a white good helps explain how it can be something that seems to be good for everyone while also doing the harm of recreating racial inequality. As my kids approach an older stage of middle and upper elementary age, my kids do need more life skills than academic knowledge. I’d rather have my kids understand how to solve a problem using logic than memorize facts. FINAL THOUGHTS

UNSCHOOLING EXAMPLES

Ecclesiastes 1:16 “I said in my heart, ‘I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had a great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” Julie has four children and has recently completed her eighteenth year of homeschooling. As children, she and her husband were both bullied and she didn’t want her children to have the same experiences, and the idea of homeschool resonated with them. James 3:17 “ But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”