Education - How much, what kind, and by what time?

[ohio jones]

I certainly didn't intend to make anyone feel bad. I saw it on a car site, and about laughed my head off (so to speak).

Well, if you do end up having to replace the head gasket, please post a video.

[appleman2006]

HA! My husband says I had a mechanical bypass....... I watched Neto's video partway through then scrolled down to read comments and they were laughing and saying what a good joke it was. So I watched the rest and tried to figure out what was fake. It looked like it was so easy to do.... that's one thing that isn't like real life!

The blinker fluid and tail light bearings are ones I've heard before!

Our boys watch his stuff to learn how to fix their vehicles.

This guy went all out. Faked the Owner's Manual, the trouble shooting device, made up fake parts boxes, etc. But the deal with the springs was the only fake thing in the video - I mean there is no such thing. But he really did repair the engine. All it needed was a new head gasket, and he DID point out the spot where it was blown. But honestly, it would take a person with some degree of mechanics experience to catch this one. The other deals, like blinker fluid, muffler belts, etc., are just dumb tricks to play of an unsuspecting friend, usually a person whose expertise is in a totally different area. This one is different, because it DOES look almost plausible.

I certainly didn't intend to make anyone feel bad. I saw it on a car site, and about laughed my head off (so to speak). So I looked for a spot to drop it in on MennoNet, and this is the thread that came up in my search. I should have put it in the "I think this is Funny" thread (or whatever it is called), so it would be more apparent that it was a joke.

I have also learned a lot from watching how-to videos. I replaced the transmission in our washer - couldn't have done it w/o a video on youtube, or at least it would have been much more difficult. (I always say that "I'll try anything once." Tried to repair an automobile transmission once, way back before the internet and all of that. I even had a repair manual. It said what diameter line punch should be used to drive back a certain shaft in the transmission. I didn't have one like that, but had one smaller. Couldn't see why that wouldn't work just as well. Well, as soon as I drove the shaft back out of the case, I found out why. A slew of very small pin bearings fell out all over the place inside the transmission - still with lots of heavy oil in it. I fiddled around, trying to get everything back in place, and it only got worse & worse, with one thing after another falling out of place. That transmission was a casualty - it was the end of it. (Fortunately we had an extra one.)

You did not make me feel bad. I am pretty good at laughing at myself. It would be a lonely life if I knew everything about everything.

[appleman2006]

I certainly didn't intend to make anyone feel bad. I saw it on a car site, and about laughed my head off (so to speak).

Well, if you do end up having to replace the head gasket, please post a video.

[Bootstrap]

I want my children to learn history from a pilgrim church perspective, not from an Evangelical or secular perspective.
My "core knowledge" list includes knowing something about people like Conrad Grebel, Menno Simons, Christopher Dock, Skippack School, Martyrs Mirror, etc. and does not include

Your message did not include what you do not want to include. What do you want to leave out?

I would like my children to know history from more than one perspective so they know that history is interpretive, but also so they know the relationship between verifiable fact and interpretation. Even if we teach history from a Mennonite perspective, there may be disagreements about how to understand the early church or even some aspects of the radical reformation. I want my children to know that is not because everyone who disagrees with me is stupid or deceived or deceitful.

I would like my children to know that no interpretation of history is authoritative in the way that the Bible is authoritative. I would like my children to be trained in the difference between fact and opinion. I would like my children to know how to recognize propaganda techniques.

I would like my children to know that the early church wrestled with a lot of questions and had real disagreements too. And so did Mennonites and Anabaptists in the Radical Reformation. That wrestling with things is part of living out authentic faith. That we can trust God enough that we are OK with not being sure of some things.

I would like my children to know how to recognize when Christian love is real and trustworthy.

Right now, I would like my children to know how to know which medical experts to listen to.

Years ago my dad floated a model in which children would at age 14 would begin working 3 days a week and doing book learning three days a week. This work and apprenticing would happen under the oversight of trusted role models. The idea is that it would prepare teens for industry and responsibility while continuing to stimulate their minds.
Such a model would mean that "formal education" (as understood by the western world) might be extended to age 20.
I actually like this model and would like to see it attempted somewhere. There is much education that children miss in the traditional K-12 model.
And should it stop at age 17 or age 20.

Sure. But this is different from the stuff we were talking about in the first section - job skills, work ethic, good work habits, adult responsibility, etc.

Should the Christian community be advocating continued education until the point at which they can no longer benefit from it? Would this contribute to less fossilization in Christian communities?

At what point does someone stop benefiting from education? Doesn't it depend on the person, gifts and callings, what they do for a living, what ministries they have, how they use their education?

So if I could rephrase the quoted sentence above, I would say something like,
"I really would like to see all children get whatever education they need, that will allow them to accomplish the purpose for which they were created."

Hard to argue with that.

But sometimes people may be called to different things, and God's plan may require different kinds of education for different purposes.

[Neto]

... sometimes people may be called to different things, and God's plan may require different kinds of education for different purposes.

And (at least in my understanding, and experience) God's plan is not static. He sometimes moves people around, to a new place, and a new vocation. In many such cases, a well-rounded education sure comes in handy.

[MaxPC]

And (at least in my understanding, and experience) God's plan is not static. He sometimes moves people around, to a new place, and a new vocation. In many such cases, a well-rounded education sure comes in handy.

I agree. Well rounded education is good for humility too.

The one danger I see around me is society’s “caste system” view of “status” infiltrating educational perceptions. A degree or even a skill is not something to elevate personal status. It should instead be viewed as a gift from God and therefore to be put in service to the Will of God. I think the Apostle Paul emphasizes that point well:

[bible]1 Corinthians 13, 1-13[/bible]

[Neto]

And (at least in my understanding, and experience) God's plan is not static. He sometimes moves people around, to a new place, and a new vocation. In many such cases, a well-rounded education sure comes in handy.

I agree. Well rounded education is good for humility too.

The one danger I see around me is society’s “caste system” view of “status” infiltrating educational perceptions. A degree or even a skill is not something to elevate personal status. It should instead be viewed as a gift from God and therefore to be put in service to the Will of God. I think the Apostle Paul emphasizes that point well [in I Cor 13].

As you will probably remember from my previous comments here on the forum, our missionary/Bible translation training & work involved both field linguist and field anthropologist duties and responsibilities. (In addition to medical work, for which neither of us had received any formal training whatsoever.) But your point regarding "status" of degreed persons is something we experienced, especially in linguistics. (I did have linguistics education both on the under=grad & graduate levels, although I did not complete a Masters degree.) A world-renowned linguist came to do research in the language family in which we worked. I could show you the spot along the road on the mission center where I told him how I was describing the two verb classes in the language, and he said "Oh, don't use labels like that - just call it Class A & Class B." Then later he published his own work, using my labels (and without any credit). Also, because the passive construction in that language is used somewhat differently than it is in other languages, he also came up with a completely novel (read as here-to-fore unknown & uncited) grammatical description to handle what are actually passive & active constructions. I spoke with another missionary who also worked in the same language family (and who DOES have a doctorate degree in linguistics) about this, and he agreed that if a linguist who (like myself) had no doctorate, such a description would be laughed out of the room.

Because this is just written text here, I may sound bitter about this, but I'm not. Our priorities were (and are) in giving the Scriptures to the people. Linguistic research and descriptive articles are just a by-product of that work. But it IS an illustration of what you said.

[A linguistic side note, in case you or anyone else is interested: In regards to the Banawa passive, it is used differently than in English (which basically defines the classical description of the passive). In English we use the passive to either avoid mentioning who the Agent of the verbal action is (or you might simply say, the Actor), or to report an event where the Actor is unknown. Or, the Agent is 'demoted' in focus by putting such mention into a prepositional phrase, such as "The dog was brutally kicked by the man."
In contrast to this, Banawa uses the passive in order to keep the main character of the narrative as the topic - IN focus. The main character is known, so it is not necessary to continually name him or her, even by means of a pronoun in an active construction. An example from Luke will demonstrate this, in addition to the linguistic device of using a body part to denote the topic participant. Where English says that "They (the soldiers) beat him (Jesus) on the head and spit in his face" the Banawa construction communicates this w/o moving Jesus from the Subject slot by use of the passive. "Head was hit by them; face was spit on by them." (These are not prepositional phrases in Banawa, but it cannot be represented in English exactly as it is conveyed in Banawa.) Even though this use of the Banawa passive construction does have this marked difference in purpose, it is still the best description of the grammar. But our description of this is rejected, even though we, unlike the linguist with the doctorate, are speakers of the language, and have many years of interaction with the people, hearing their stories, and understanding their use of these different constructions in live situations, not just on paper. One further comment, regarding this use of body parts as representing the whole person. Linguistically, these words are described as "inalienably possessed nouns", something else we do not have in English, and are also marked for gender. So for example a male's face is 'noko', and a female's face is 'noki'. Then when you get to things like "the palm of his hand" there is a complex grammatical rule for gender assignment within the larger phrase. But even things like a 'trail' or 'water drops' can be communicated as inalienably possessed nouns - like the trail that a person travels regularly, or the drops of water on a person's skin after a bath. I'm getting carried away here, because it is a rich and beautiful language....

Edit: Back to add this little bit. So we "walk Jesus' trail". But this 'trail' is so closely tied to Jesus that it is as if it is a part of him, an actual body part.]

[MaxPC]

Neto, I agree (and I don’t see you as bitter.) You shared an excellent example of the False status of the “ivory tower”. Linguistics would have never existed as a field of study had it not been for the missionaries doing the hard work. The work of missionaries will be rewarded appropriately by God for eternity. No one will remember the linguist’s name unless he is converted and works for Christ. The sad part is the linguist probably doesn’t even know/understand the eternal Truth. His world is a world of human laurel leaves/rewards which will disappear into history. You do know that Truth and the work with helping souls will be remembered forever.

Your anecdote about the Banawa is enlightening for me. Our priorities and culture are expressed through our language, syntax vocabulary, etc etc. Their emphasis remains on the person and how that person is affected: am I correct in my understanding of this?

I quite like their expression “walk Jesus’ trail”. It adds a richness to “ I AM THE WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE”. We are His body.

It seems to me that the more technology a culture has, the more it dehumanizes the very personal experience of Christ.

[ohio jones]

Just in case anyone is confused by Neto's discourse on the passive sentence structure, I offer this clarification:

[Ernie]

I want my children to learn history from a pilgrim church perspective, not from an Evangelical or secular perspective.
My "core knowledge" list includes knowing something about people like Conrad Grebel, Menno Simons, Christopher Dock, Skippack School, Martyrs Mirror, etc. and does not include

Your message did not include what you do not want to include. What do you want to leave out?

Recently we spent about two or three weeks studying WWII and the Holocaust. One student expressed surprise that we have been studying history for four years and this is the first time we talked about the World Wars. Even then we didn't spend time talking about the war strategies, etc. We focused on those who got hauled to prison camps and how some tried to help the prisoners.
You've got to cut content somewhere if you are going to spend time introducing students to Conrad Grebel, Menno Simons, Christopher Dock, Skippack School, and Martyrs Mirror.
In many ways, the different approaches to teaching history and content are pictured in the OT vs. the NT.