Who Is a Teacher?
Who is responsible for teaching our children?
Who is the teacher in Adventist education? Is it someone with a degree in teaching? A certified classroom teacher in an Adventist school? Someone with the gift of teaching? A researcher? An intellectual? A professional?
In regard to Adventist education Ellen White said, "Our ideas of education take too narrow and too low a range" (Education, p. 13). Is that still true? How could it be so? Are we not following the most enlightened educational curricula and teaching methods used in the secular educational world today? Are we not acquainted with the ancient Greek philosophies, scientific learning theories and modern innovative teaching strategies that have combined to form some of the best educational programs of our time? Are we not doing all we can to keep in step with the education of the world?
How could it be then, that our ideas of education are too narrow and too low? Do we need to reflect again upon this familiar statement of education to Adventists? Are we still coming up short of God's ideal? Could it be that in our quest to keep in step with the world, we have fallen out of step with God, and hence dropped behind in demonstrating the ideals of education in which God would have had us take the lead? Have we formed stereotypes of education and teaching that we must rid ourselves of—worldly stereotypes that have held us back from the broader, liberating ideals of education and teaching found in Scripture?
Adventist education has adopted more or less the secular curriculum of the day. We have limited ourselves to traditional education, composed primarily of the basic subjects of learning, taught in a structured school environment during a set time period each day. While this type of education does present a methodical, organized and in many cases a successful avenue of learning, we must not be content with a traditional approach to learning only.
"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child."
As Adventist Christians, our calling is higher than merely mastering the basic educational curriculum plus a Bible class. Teaching involves more than transmitting information and ideals from teacher to student. A Christian teacher is an agent of salvation. And learning is not limited to certain subjects, to certain time periods, to certain places. A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.
Adventists carry an urgent mission. We are an end-time generation, a body of believers expecting the soon return of Christ. Education is not for the purpose of achieving success, professionalism, or intellectualism. These are worldly ambitions. Adventist education must lead away from mere knowledge of facts toward understanding and compassion, from empty theories to a way of life—from the present to the eternal.
But how do we achieve such ideals? How can Adventist education be distinct from any other form of education? How do we break away from the mores of modern, worldly educational thought to the all-encompassing ideals of spiritual wisdom and insight? What does Scripture tell us in regard to teaching and learning? Who will be the teachers to implement an education after the Lord's plan?
God, the First Teacher
In Deuteronomy 6, God commanded that the children of Israel were to learn from Him of His great principles of life. The parents were taught of God to fear and respect Him, to keep His commandments, to love Him with all their heart and to keep His words in their hearts. God was their teacher, just as He had been the teacher of the world's first parents, Adam and Eve in the garden. And He is our teacher, too. He speaks to us through His revelations in His Word, through His Holy Spirit as the still small voice in our hearts, and through His Son Jesus who is the manifestation of the character and personage of God.
Jesus showed us first-hand some of the best teaching methods known to man, because they were not from man but from God. His methods were simple, His manner sincere. He believed that all people are teachable: the rich and poor, the scholars and the ignorant. His methods were bound to be misunderstood, for they were counter to the thoughts of man. His lessons were not isolated to time and place but were interwoven into life experiences. His textbook was the universe, his schoolroom the open field and the marketplace. His quest was for man to know the essence of the universe and the purpose of life. He taught that life itself was a miracle and human beings the expressions of divine creativity; that God is everywhere and that He can be worshiped everywhere. So God still speaks to us today through Jesus His Son. He is our first Teacher.
Parents as Teachers
After God had been the Instructor and Teacher of the parents of Israel, then, and only then, were they in turn commanded to do the following with the knowledge they had just acquired from the hand of God Himself: "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates" (Deut 6:7-9).*
"The Christian family is to be a school of Christ, where parents are to be the visible teachers, but Christ Himself the great invisible Teacher. The lessons which Christ imparts to the parents they are to repeat to their children, line upon line and precept upon precept" (Signs of the Times, May 14, 1894). We know from Scripture that the truest and deepest, the most profound education takes place in the home, in the family, with one generation transmitting to another the laws and love of the Lord and living them out in practical life.
"In order to be teachers, parents must be learners, gathering light constantly from the oracles of God and by precept and example bringing this precious light into the education of their children" (The Adventist Home, p. 184).
Education "has to do with the whole being, and with the whole period of existence possible to man" (Education, p. 13). Spiritual principles of education are not confined to secular stereotypes of learning, but take a much broader, deeper and far-reaching view of education for this life and the next. "In His wisdom the Lord has decreed that the family shall be the greatest of all educational agencies" (Counsels to Parents, Teachers and Students, p. 107).
"Every parent is a teacher and every parent has been commanded of God to teach his child the principles of God's law and love."
Whether Adventist children are schooled at home, in an Adventist school or a public school, one thing is certain: every parent is a teacher and every parent has been commanded of God to teach his child the principles of God's law and love.
"In the laws committed to Israel, explicit instruction was given concerning education. To Moses at Sinai God had revealed Himself as 'merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.' These principles, embodied in His law, the fathers and mothers in Israel were to teach their children" (Education, p. 40).
In our modern, intellectual society where schools provide the education from the earliest years of a child, will we so easily let our children slip from our grasp into the hands of others to be their teachers in our place? "Do not send your little ones away to school too early. The mother should be careful how she trusts the molding of the infant mind to other hands" (Fundamentals of Christian Education, pp. 156-157).
Even Adventist education with Bible classes and spiritual, dedicated Adventist teachers cannot take the place nor fulfill the command of the Lord for parents to teach their children. There is or should be a sacred trust between parents and children, a strong and tender relationship between them that will make the transmitting of instruction from parent to child a more powerful medium of instruction than classroom teaching.
"A knowledge of God, fellowship with Him in study and in labor, likeness to Him in character, were to be the source, the means, and the aim of Israel's education—the education imparted by God to the parents, and by them to be given to their children" (Education, p. 44).
Nothing can release parents from their responsibility to teach their children, according to the Lord's command as found in Deuteronomy 6. "Too much importance cannot be placed upon the early training of children. The lessons learned, the habits formed, during the years of infancy and childhood, have more to do with the formation of the character and the direction of the life than have all the instruction and training of after years" (The Ministry of Healing, p. 380). This teaching is instinctive and mysterious, much like early "imprinting" on baby animals by their parents in the natural world.
"The education centering in the family was that which prevailed in the days of the patriarchs" (Education, p. 33). But did the children of Israel continue to fulfill the commands of God regarding the education of their children? They did not. Therefore they were unable to remain a "holy nation," for they exchanged their divinely appointed calling for the ways of the heathen nations around them. They sought the acceptance of man rather than obedience to God. "In the rejection of the ways of God for the ways of men, the downfall of Israel began" (Education, p. 50).
We are to stand today as the modern Israel of God, "a holy nation," separate from the world and led by God. Are we fulfilling the commands given us regarding the teaching of our children, the passing on of the laws and love of God—are we faithfully teaching our children, not only in word but in life? Are we standing apart from the world, or are we compromising and imitating the worldly pattern, and like Israel of old experiencing a downfall in our schools, churches, and homes?
Nature as a Teacher
God's educational system began in Eden. It centered in the family with God as the teacher, Adam and Eve the students, nature the lesson book, and the Garden the classroom. "The Garden of Eden was a representation of what God desired the whole earth to become, and it was His purpose that, as the human family increased in numbers, they should establish other homes and schools like the one He had given" (Education, p. 22). Nature in its beauty and perfection was ever to reveal to future generations the love and goodness of God.
But sin's entrance and its effects upon the earth distorted the revelation of God in nature. Thorn and thistle blighted the once-perfect lesson book, the first school's curriculum. Still, God ordained that "Although the earth was blighted with the curse, nature was still to be man's lesson book. It could not now represent goodness only; for evil was everywhere present, marring earth and sea and air with its defiling touch.... From nature, which now revealed the knowledge of good and evil, man was continually to receive warning as to the results of sin" (Education, p. 26).
So in a very real way, nature was and continues to be a teacher. "Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee" (Job 12:8). Can we not now look to the progressive evil, decay and pollution of our world today and with spiritual insight point out to our children the results of sin? Are we allowing the earth to speak to us and to our children?
In our efforts to find acceptance with the world, have we left off the simplicity of nature as a teacher, in order to pursue higher intellectual levels of instruction? Have we missed a tremendous educational tool? "Their (the children's) schoolroom should be the open air, amid the flowers and birds, and their textbook the treasure of nature. As fast as their minds can comprehend it, the parents should open before them God's great book of nature. These lessons, given amid such surroundings, will not soon be forgotten" (Fundamentals of Christian Education, p. 157).
Even now, public schools across America are beginning to discover the benefits of blending nature with education as a new, innovative idea to improve instruction. Schools are creating "wildlife habitat gardens," and finding that nature affords a unique opportunity for gaining hands-on, practical learning experience (see "Wild Ideas," National Wildlife, April/May, 1989, pp. 23-27). Nature is being incorporated into across-the-curriculum studies. Have we neglected the instruction of Job 12:8: to "speak to the earth and it shall teach thee"? Must we wait for the world to discover something we have known all along and kept in hiding? Shall we embrace it only after the world has finally discovered it and it has come into vogue? When will we learn to follow God and not man? When will we accept the earth as a teacher?
Grandparents as Teachers
In our modern society, individualism has replaced the extended family. In fact, the family today is truly an endangered species! Society has neglected and largely forgotten the role of grandparent as counselor and teacher to parents and grandchildren. The secular idea of grandparenting today is to spoil the grandchildren and then send them home with their parents! Here Adventists must part ways with the world again. Spoiling and indulging grandchildren is not only irresponsible, but also unchristian.
Scripture makes it clear that even grandparents have an obligation, a responsibility, a calling, to their grandchildren. They have a spiritual command to pass on the faith of the older generation to the younger generation. Deuteronomy 6 speaks of God teaching the parents, and the parents teaching the children, but it also speaks of grandparents teaching their grandchildren: "That you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life" (Deut 6:2).
We also see in Scripture the example of a Christian grandmother as teacher, transmitting her Christian ideals to her children and her children's children: "When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also" (2 Tim 1:5).
"How badly we need such grandparents as teachers today!"
God has a special work, a ministry, for grandparents to be teachers of their grandchildren. How like God to give special honor to the older generation in making them teachers for the young instead of casting them off as unimportant in their later years, as the world often does! How vital to the health and stability of the disintegrating family, to the encouragement of the parents, to the security of the children, and to the propagation of the gospel is the work of grandparents to pass on their own Christian legacy by word and life to their grandchildren! How badly we need such grandparents as teachers today!
The Christian as Teacher
At the moment one becomes a believer in Christ, he also becomes a teacher. We need not acquire a teaching degree to be effective teachers. Adventist education is not limited to a classroom of young students. Education is a lifelong pursuit. It takes many forms and happens at many times and in different places. In this wider sense, the Adventist Church and the world today sorely need Christians as teachers. A sincere, converted Christian who is willing to share the hope that is within him is just as surely an effective teacher as the certified graduate standing before a classroom. The Spirit is eager and willing to pour Himself out upon those who would be used of God. In this type of teaching we are each to transmit the principles of God to each other as a form of edification and encouragement for the upbuilding of the church.
Women especially have a teaching ministry that the Lord has called them to: ministering to other women. This field has been largely neglected, yet any and all women may participate freely. "The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things—that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers..." (Titus 2:3-5).
Oh, for more Mothers in Israel, older women who will make it their calling to strengthen and encourage the young, burdened women, wives and mothers of the church! How greatly such women are needed in the Adventist church today when families are teetering on the edge of collapse—when young women and mothers are in need of a spiritual mother who will give them a word in due season; women who will set the example of what true womanhood with its far-reaching results really is. What a work these women could do if they would only be willing!
So we as Christians are all teachers. It is our responsibility to take the gospel first to our families, to our church brethren and sisters, and then to the world. The Lord has commanded us: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you..." (Matt 28:19-20). Our world may be large or small, our classroom near or far. We may be called to teach in a remote faraway land, or to teach around our kitchen table, but we are all commissioned to go and teach.
"At the moment one becomes a believer in Christ, he also becomes a teacher."
A Call to Biblical Education
Adventist education then is not merely a classroom experience. The Adventist teacher is not just a college graduate with a degree in teaching. We Adventist Christians must choose to throw off the world's stereotypes of teaching and education and embrace the broader, loftier ideals as taught in Scripture and the writings of Ellen White—for we must approach education and teaching with a sense of urgency and intensity if we are indeed Adventists awaiting our Lord's return.
Who then are teachers? You and I in cooperation with the triune God and the world of nature are to be teachers of our children and each other. Ours is a unique task. Let us be prepared to be peculiar. As Christ's methods and teachings were misunderstood, so ours will be, by a world that does not seek what we are seeking nor appreciate what we desire—a fitness for citizenship in Heaven. Let us "teach them (the principles of God's kingdom) diligently" for that is, after all, the Lord's command.