Modern Education and Sinking Ships

The Great Antithesis Engaging with Secular Humanism

We blogged previously on the inevitable outcome when secular humanism--the dominant religion of our age--tries to construct and maintain an education system.  You get more spluttering bubbles than a Rotorua mudpool.

Here is an example of the torment and ceaseless quarrelling about education that results when a nation has no settled epistemic foundations.  It ends up arguing about everything.  Every view is equally meritorious, which is to say that none are.  There truly is no rest for the wicked.  It is a terrible place to be--something we must never forget.

Michael Gove hits out at Downton Abbey-style education

Poor teenagers are being failed by a Downton Abbey-style education system in which academic subjects are reserved for privileged pupils, Michael Gove warned today. 

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

The Telegraph

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds risk being left behind after missing out on the chance to study rigorous disciplines and proceed on to the best universities, according to the Education Secretary. In a speech, he accused Labour and the left-wing establishment of constructing a two-tier education system that effectively blocked access to core subjects such as foreign languages, history and geography for many pupils.

Mr Gove also warned that a relentless rise in GCSE results under the last Government had been an illusion and masked a significant gulf between rich and poor. The comments come just days before the publication of a new National Curriculum which is expected to emphasise the importance of promoting core academic knowledge at each key stage of children’s education. It also follows controversy over the Coalition’s controversial English Baccalaureate school performance measure.

The “EBacc” was added to official league tables two years ago to reward pupils who gain at least a C grade in five core academic subjects – English, maths, science, foreign languages and either history or geography. These subjects are often cited by employers and academics as vital to enable pupils to proceed into the workplace and further study.

The move has been heavily criticised by Labour and major teaching unions who claim that it marginalises subjects such art, drama and sport. But in a speech to the Social Market Foundation think-tank, Mr Gove said the EBacc had exposed “how poorly served so many state students were” under the last Government.
Headline GCSE results soared between 1997 and 2010 but good grades were often achieved with a focus on easier subjects at the expense of core disciplines, figures suggest.

Fewer than one-in-10 students in 33 local council areas gained at least five C grade passes in EBacc subjects in 2011, it emerged.  Mr Gove likened the education system to Downton Abbey – the ITV drama depicting the lives of servants and their masters in post-Edwardian Britain.

He claimed many key figures on the Labour frontbench opposed a focus on traditional academic subjects while studying them during their own childhood to get into Oxford.  “The current leadership of the Labour Party react to the idea that working class students might study the subjects they studied with the same horror that the Earl of Grantham showed when a chauffeur wanted to marry his daughter,” he said.

“Labour, under their current leadership, want to be the Downton Abbey party when it comes to educational opportunity. They think working class children should stick to the station in life they were born into – they should be happy to be recognised for being good with their hands and not presume to get above themselves.”  He added: “The comforting story we had been told about rapid and relentless educational improvement – based on GCSE results – was shown up as a far more complex narrative of inequality and untapped potential.

“But instead of using this information to demand that poorer children at last enjoy the education expected by the privileged, far too many on the left attacked the very idea that poor children might aspire to such an entitlement.” Stephen Twigg, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said Mr Gove was “clearly rattled by the widespread opposition to his EBacc exams”.

“Instead of lecturing others, he should listen to business leaders, entrepreneurs, head teachers and parents who think his plans are backward looking and narrow,” he said. “We need to get young people ready for a challenging and competitive world of work, not just dwell on the past.”

Note how the debate over education, curricula, standards, content has devolved down to quasi-Marxist arguments over social class--which are ultimately ad hominem.   There is no way of discussing and debating the question on a common ground of truth and worldview.  The secular humanist worldview itself destroys such a possibility. 

Once some sections of Christendom used to say, "Don't polish brass on a sinking ship".  They withdrew from engagement with the culture into Christian ghettoes.  We do not advocate such a position.  But, in our involvement in education, in schools, and in teaching we must not destroy ourselves by tacitly accepting the assumptions and epistemology of secular humanism.  It is a death culture, ultimately destructive of all it touches. 

We need to be skilled in doing two things: we must remind people of the great antithesis between Belief and Unbelief, Christ and secular humanism, on the one hand, whilst arguing for Biblical common sense.  One of the most disarming things is to preface remarks with something like, "I know most of you folk will not agree with this, because I am speaking as a Christian, from a Christian perspective.  But I believe reading, writing, and mathematics are the key to all other knowledge and they are the essential subjects which all children must become competent in--above all other subjects." 

That is how we should polish brass on a sinking ship.