Legislated Obedience?

Legislated obedience is shallow obedience.  It is inadequate in our public schools!

In Galatians 3:24 it says: “…the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.”  In the verse, the Greek word, paedagogos, translated schoolmaster, referred originally to a slave or freeman, to whose care boys were committed and who accompanied them to public schooling. According to the Expositor’s Greek Testament there is really no exact English translation equivalent to this word.  It does not refer to the instructor,” but rather to one who was a teacher’s aide and also instilled moral direction. The Christian message is that the law saves no one, but it brings us to the One who opens up to us the true knowledge of God.  The law is concerned with outward habits, dealing with the surface, while grace and faith change the inner being.

There is a parallel I feel between the Jewish focus on legalism and its deadening effect compared with positive liberty with that instilled by the message of Christ in the spiritual and with legislated obedience to free responsible student behavior in the educational.  Jesus proclaimed in John 8:36, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”  Here can be responsible freedom!

I read that, “One of the little-noticed aspects of Obama’s presidency is how much his approach to education mirrors Bush’s – heavy on testing and data-collection, with support for charter schools, teacher evaluations and merit pay.” This is legalism!

Obama said: “The government can build the best school, with the best teachers, but we can’t run the PTA.”   The speech was not addressed to the PTA, but this statement suggests the PTA is a major influence in determining the learning and behavior. The PTA does many valuable things, but no PTA can take the place of parents cultivating positive values in their children.  Proverbs 22:6 states: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  Educational achievement and positive behavior are not achieved from the top down, but from within the students, which is strongly influenced by proper parenting, and Christian influence helps vitally!

“No Child Left Behind” was Bush’s approach, and it seems the “Race to the Top,” is to be the Obama’s, as he has allotted five billion dollars toward it. It seems these programs move from legalism to legalism, rather than freeing teachers up to where they can teach and administrators to where they can use common sense in their management of the schools. Legislated obedience is shallow as is legislated learning.  The educators are tied in knots, finding their hands tied to where they can’t assist in the real molding of our youth, as they must spend all their time documenting whatever they have done, so much so they little time for feeling the pulse of learning in their students. It is all about conforming to the standards!

One case in point is the zero tolerance policy.  We have problems in the schools with anti-social, negative behavior and a lack of focus on learning, and the zero tolerance policy is an attempt to address this.  No weapons in school! Our children need to be safe in school, but when does poor judgment by a child become a crime?

Six-year-old Cub Scout Zachary Christie faced 45 days in the district’s reform school for bringing a scout utensil to school, which was a utensil that served as a knife (as well as a fork and spoon).  School officials decided Christie violated the zero-tolerance policy on weapons.  But almost anything can become a weapon, even a sharpened pencil.  What matters is the intent. Although the first grader said he wanted to use the knife for lunch, he was suspended, which they have later sought to soften.

When I taught public school, a boy called across the playground to come to him and pulled a pistol on me, saying he was going to shoot me.  I just walked over and took it from him and took him to the principal.  It turned out it was toy gun, but the principal just put him in solitary confinement in his office for two weeks, whether as a reward or punishment, I don’t know.  I felt it was a little weak in punishment.  But nevertheless the boy was not branded as a criminal, and he was able to see his mistake and go on with his life. Each situation is different, and legislated obedience is inadequate!

Many examples across the country show zero-tolerance measures don’t work. Real-life robberies have been committed with fake weapons, and some innocent victims have been shot for boasting real-looking squirt guns at the wrong time in the wrong place. A sharp mess kit can be a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. But removing careless-yet-harmless children from schools works to no one’s benefit.

Back in the forties almost all of the boys at school each had pocketknives, and we often marveled how sharp some boys could get their knives as they whittled on pieces of wood at recess.  No teacher or administrator ever searched us or took up our knives. But times have changed, sad to say.  Much of this I feel has been our neglect of the religious influences in our public education.

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by Joe Renfro, Ed.D., Radio Evangelist, Retired Teacher and Pastor, Box 751, Lavonia, Georgia 30553, 706-356-4173, joerenfro@windstream.net

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