Education Sunday Sermon 2006 (12 February 2006)

 

Lindsay Collins

 

Since moving out of parish work and into school chaplaincy I am often asked by other clergy what it is I do. I like to use the example of Socrates who was condemned to death for ‘corrupting the young.’ In Plato’s Apology of Socrates, Socrates begins a dialogue with Meletus who argues that it is the whole community which educates the young. He suggests that Socrates by encouraging the young to think outside the constraints of the whole community is therefore corrupting them.

 

But Socrates defence is that the people in the community whose task it is to educate are not thinking well about ‘intelligence and truth and the soul’ therefore it is his responsibility to help them think outside the box.

 

In today’s post modern society I would tend to agree with Socrates that we are not thinking well enough about ‘intelligence, and truth and the soul.’ I don’t want my pupils or my own children to be educated by the society in which I live. In our post modern society we have relativised everything to such an extent that young people are often paralysed by apathy. If everything is equal and valid if everyone is entitled to their own individual subjective idea of truth, and if I have tolerate all of them, why should it move me to believe in, act on, respect anything?

 

We live in a society where the ‘what’s in it for me’ approach rules. We have abused Descartes philosophy ‘I think therefore I am’ which has contributed to our lack of morals and values and care for our neighbour. If my existence, my purpose, my entire identity is about me, my values, my beliefs, my experience, then I don’t need to consider anyone else in making my decisions or the way I behave.

 

In today’s society , rights are closely guarded. I have a right to free speech - topical! I have a right to have my views and beliefs respected; I have a right to do what I want with my body. Much talk of rights, much less talk of responsibility. Why? In speaking of my rights, I need only think about me as an individual, whereas responsibility involves me considering the needs of others.

 

We live in a society where people are valued according to their utilitarian and economic value. Look at the case of West Sussex health trust who have said they will refuse to treat people who are smokers or obese. An expedient, pragmatic decision, maybe. But this is not a value free judgement, yet there was comparatively little out cry about it – what is it saying to our young people about the worth of a human life – what is it teaching them about the extent to which economics is determining the worth of a human being?

 

JK Rowling explores this utilitarian nature of society in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  Inspector Umbridge is sent into Hogwarts to determine which staff are fulfilling their utility value and which can be dispensed with. She immediately gets her teeth into Hagrid who in terms of measurable utility value is failing to make the grade. So many young people in my school who have read the book, have told me how upset they were in reading of her attempts to dismiss Hagrid. They felt that what Hagrid offers to Hogwarts in terms of moral guidance, love, friendship, loyalty were worth keeping. They warmed to Hagrid, they would want a Hagrid in their school.

 

 

 

 

This government have given beacon status to schools which have excelled in a particular area of the curriculum, or where their academic results have dramatically improved. They are schools which the government holds up as shining examples of how things could and should be.

 

I want all schools to be beacon schools, but not based purely on their academic or indeed financial success. Education should be about enabling our young people to reach their full potential, to help them discover what in life will make them, to quote Aristotle, ‘more fully human’. This is not restrained to measurable results. Becoming more fully human includes understanding the way in which we relate to each other and to our world. It involves us learning to discern between truth and falsehood, it encourages us to challenge the young, or in Socrates terms to corrupt the young by enabling them to have the tools by which they can look critically at their society, at the values and beliefs that are being offered to them.

 

Education today is all too often being driven by science. Whilst science is able to offer us many positive things, it should not be taken to be the only or most credible word on all subjects. We are employing scientific methods to determine the value of something; subtly we are teaching our students that unless something can be empirically proven or tested or given a material worth, then it is valueless. The values often taught are about those things which make our communities financially stable, or that keep our schools at the top of league tables or that keep our parents happy. Where is Socrates talk of ‘truth and the soul’? In our sex education we teach them how to put on condoms or where to go to get an abortion, but we don’t teach about sex in the context of marriage or of committed loving relationships. We don’t go into the damaging psychological and emotional consequences some women suffer after having an abortion. Is this true education?  

 

I am aware that I am a chaplain in what is largely a secular institution. Contrary to the fears of some of my colleagues, I am not trying to convert all my students to Christianity. As a Christian, I do believe that there are values and teachings in my religion which are worthy of discussion and examination, and may teach my students something more about what it means to be fully human. I would like to offer my students the opportunity to consider the possibility of God; to consider the possibility that they are unique and valuable because of who they are, and who created them, not because of the number of A* grades they get.

 

There is a great Honda advert where we are told that Honda designers only ever ask the question ‘What If?’  never ,’have we got there yet’.

 I want my pupils my children to challenge and be challenged, to push boundaries to say ‘what if?’

What if there is a God? What if there is an ultimate truth? What if I am inextricably linked to the rest of creation?

Suddenly the possibilities become endless – it becomes possible to dream, to change, to revolutionise, to be redeemed.

 

In our Gospel reading we have the children in the market place being let down by those around them. ‘We played and you did not dance’, they accuse. ‘we weeped and you did not wail.’ They needed their community to engage with them, they needed the heart of the community to be there for them.

 

 

In our schools, I believe Christians are being called to corrupt the young. Christians need to encourage our young people to think about the values and ideals of the community of the kingdom of God; our young people need the space and the opportunity to consider it a possibility. I want our young people not to be content with what our post modern culture is offering. I want our young people to have the vision and the courage to seek something more. But Christians like me in education need the help of the church. If I am calling my school to be a beacon I need my church to be a beacon, showing what it is to live by Gospel values, giving a lead in challenging society when it threatens to undermine or destroy the worth or value of another human being.

 

St Paul tells us not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds’. This is what Socrates was accused of doing. This is what we as Christians should be accused of doing.

 

Let our community be one that can educate our young people in the ways of Christ because we are reflective, open to criticism, willing to change, humble enough to admit that we don’t always get it right. Let us not be accused as Socrates accused his society of failing to think well enough about intelligence, truth and the soul’. In the words of St Paul, let us together in love and humility ‘discern what is the will of God- what is good and acceptable and perfect.’

 

Amen.