The Aspen Grove

Lutheran Education - Literacy over Content

Properties1
tags📝essay, 🙂agree, 🟢conviction

11 min read

The Big Idea

It seems to me that a lot of teaching in the church and educational systems around us have slowly devolved into concern about people having encountered “content.” Almost as if the right content flashed before our eyes and consciousness will make us know and be the right kind of person. In contrast to this, we need to reclaim an idea of literacy as actual competency in an area of study. This kind of deep formation is much harder to teach. Yet at the end of the day, we want to raise up people who are biblically literate, gospel literate specifically, and confessionally literate to boot.

Opening Thoughts on Learning and School Ministry

I believe that a Christian school environment is an undertaking that should not exist near a church, but be deeply integrated with God’s people and her Pastors. Raising up the next generation in a healthy and Christ centered school environment is a blessing that seems to be disappearing in many parts of America. I believe that it is a pastoral and congregational responsibility to fight for, work alongside, reimagine, and support our schools in as many ways as possible.

The Purpose of Lutheran Education

In many ways, we are returning to a similar educational environment in which Luther and the Reformers had to fight to teach the next generation. As the editor in Luther’s works notes:

“Education was generally held in contempt and derision by the masses during the early decades of the sixteenth century. To a large extent this negative attitude was fostered by a spirt of materialism which went hand-in-hand with the rapid expansion of trade and commerce. Unless a youth was destined for a learned profession in law, medicine, or theology, parents and children saw little if any value in learning which was not obviously and directly related to the world and work of commerce.” - Luther’s Works Volume 41, from Introduction to Luther’s Sermon on Keeping Children in School 1530, p. 209.

Luther’s rather fiery warning is just as true today as it was during his time:

“This seems to me to be a real masterpiece of the devil’s art. He sees that in our time he cannot do what he would like to do; therefore, he intends to have his own way with our offspring. Before our very eyes he is preparing them so they they will learn nothing and know nothing. Then when we are dead, he will have before him a naked, bare, defenseless people with whom he can do as he pleases. For if the Scriptures and learning disappear, what will remain in the German lands but a disorderly and wild crowd” Luther’s Works Volume 41, from Introduction to Luther’s Sermon on Keeping Children in School 1530, p. 217

It is our job to equip the next generation not just with “content” but the actual tools they need to continue learning, thinking, reading, writing, and communicating effectively. It is not enough for Pastors and Churches to allow our people to drift without these most basic tools. Luther’s admired ancient educator Quintilian lays out a persuasive explanation for how deeply connected reading, writing and speaking are for deep learning:

He will require that assured facility which the Greeks call ἕξις. I know that many have raised the question as to whether this is best acquired by writing, reading or speaking, and it would indeed be a question calling for serious consideration, if we could rest content with any one of the three. But they are so intimately and inseparably connected, that if one of them be neglected, we shall but waste the labour which we have devoted to the others. For eloquence will never attain to its full development or robust health, unless it acquires strength by frequent practice in writing, while such practice without the models supplied by reading will be like a ship drifting aimlessly without a steersman. Again, he who knows what he ought to say and how he should say it, will be like a miser brooding over his hoarded treasure, unless he has the weapons of his eloquence ready for battle and prepared to deal with every emergency. - Quintilion, Institutio Oratoria Book X, p. 482

Lutheran education at its core is concerned with teaching the whole person. Luther pictures this as maintaining and preserving the “offices” (pastor, teacher, governor, etc.) by training capable and godly people. God has established all of these offices for the good order of the church and the world as a whole. Training for them does not start off somewhere else, but at home and in the local church. Therefore, the goal of education is not to give individuals some kind of ability to “get ahead.” It should be about preparing our people to have the skills they need to serve and love our neighbors. Luther puts this in his classical two kingdoms distinction to think about how this helps to fortify the church with skilled pastors and church workers, as well as sustain the basic function of society as a whole. He puts this in even more stark terms when thinking about how important it is to teach language literacy:
“Hence it is certain that unless the languages remain the Gospel must finally perish.” - From Luther’s To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany that they Establish and Maintain Christian Schools

All this to say, Lutheran education is not a side consideration of the church. It is the foundation that keeps the church alive and works to create healthy local communities.

A Play Based and Classical Lutheran Educational Philosophy

I am still deep in the weeds wrapping my head around a coherent understanding of Classical education from a Lutheran perspective.

But for the sake of getting us started, here are some key points to consider:

  1. The basic definition of classical education breaks the foundation of learning down into seven core liberal arts:
    • The first three offer the basis for how to learn and use language known as the Trivium:
    1. Grammar focuses on more than just the core function of sentences and language structure. It is aimed at learning the basic vocabulary and pieces of knowledge you need to get around in any particular discipline.
    2. Logic (Dialectic) focuses on thinking clearly by putting ideas and thoughts together coherently.
    3. Rhetoric focuses on communicating what we know eloquently and persuasively.
    • The last four aim to understand the physical world:
    1. Arithmetic focuses on exploration of the idea, concept, and meaning of number.
    2. Geometry focuses on learning the ideas of figures, shapes and angles as a series of spatial relationships and ratios.
    3. Music in this approach is the study of harmonic proportions and numbers. Making music essentially heard geometry played out over time.
    4. Astronomy (Cosmology) takes the number and ratio and time learned in the other three arts and adds the element of space and movement by thinking about how the stars and planets move.
      From a more modern perspective all these subjects would seem very unrelated. But from within this classical approach, the seven liberal arts are carefully designed to help students orient themselves to using language well and possess a coherent understanding of the physical world.

Luther lays out how this kind of classical education can and should be paired with a fun and play-based approach:

“But the training which is undertaken at home, apart from such schools, attempts to make us wise through our own experience. Before that comes to pass we shall be dead a hundred times over, and shall have acted inconsiderately all our life; for much time is needed to acquire one’s own experience. Now since the young must romp and leap or at least have something to do that gives them pleasure, and since this should not be forbidden (nor would it be well to forbid them everything), why should we not furnish them such schools and lay before them such studies? By the grace of God it has now become possible for children to study with pleasure and in play languages, the other arts, or history. The kind of schools we attended are a thing of the past — that hell and purgatory in which we were tormented with cases and tenses, and yet learned less than nothing with all the flogging, trembling, anguish and misery. If we take so much time and trouble to teach children card-playing, singing and dancing, why do we not take as much time and trouble to teach them reading and other branches, while they are young and have the time, and are apt and eager to learn? For my part, if I had children and could accomplish it, they should study not only the languages and history, but singing, instrumental music, and all of mathematics. For what is all this but mere child’s play? In these branches the Greeks in former times trained their children, who grew up into men and women of wondrous ability, skilled in every pursuit. How I regret now that I did not read more poets and historians, and that no one taught me them! I was obliged instead to read, with great cost, labor and injury, that devil’s filth, the philosophers and sophists, from which I have all I can do to get myself clean.” - From Luther’s To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany that they Establish and Maintain Christian Schools

Quintilian also mentions the importance of play based learning all the way back in 95 AC!

Let’s not waste the earliest years. This is especially unforgivable since the basics of literary training rely solely on memory, which is present even in very young children and is especially keen at that age.
However, I am not so oblivious to age differences as to believe that very young children should be pushed ahead prematurely or given serious tasks. Above all, we must ensure that the child, not yet old enough to love his studies, does not come to detest them and dread the bitterness he has once tasted, even when infancy is over. His studies must be made a form of amusement. He should be questioned, praised, and taught to rejoice when he has done well. Occasionally, when he is reluctant, instruction should be given to someone else to spark his envy. At times, he should also be engaged in competition and allowed to believe he is successful more often than not. His efforts should be rewarded in ways that appeal to his tender age. - Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria Book I, p. 10.

All of this foundational learning accomplished in a playful and age appropriate form treats sharing the Gospel with the gravity and weight it deserves. By looking at human learning holistically, we can identify the core abilities that make it possible to learn and share the Gospel.

Let us play this out briefly:

  • If one does not know how to relate healthily to other people. How will you meet them to share the Gospel?
  • If one cannot communicate well. How will you share the Gospel in a way that can be heard and accepted?
  • If one does not know how to remember things well. How will you remember the Gospel to share it in the first place?
  • If one cannot listen well. How will you learn the Gospel from your teachers?
  • If one cannot read well. How will you encounter the Gospel in Scripture?

All of these skills, and many others, are continually learned and developed over our lifetime and directly affect our ability to share the good news of Jesus effectively. Therefore, Lutheran education is not a small subject. It is indeed concerned with the survival of the church and continued access to the word of God! It is a task we must undertake for the sake of our children and the untold generations of God’s people who will come after us.

Primary Sources for Continued Consideration:

Modern thinking on the Liberal Arts

Luther and Melanchthon on Education:

Ancient Greco-Roman Texts on Education

  • Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria. Written circa 95 AC- Directly recommended in a letter from Luther.
  • Cicero’s De Oratore. Written in 55 BC - Long considered the gold standard of education in antiquity.
  • Rhetorica ad Herennium (Anonymous Author). Written circa 80 BC - Falsely attributed as Cicero’s second work on education in the middle ages. Making it a highly valued text for many centuries.

Graph View

Backlinks