by Patricia D. Orris, MBA
As part of my Doctorate in Education study, we are
required to participate in a residency program each summer for a
week. It consists of group meetings with those that have already
been through the program and the professors who teach/oversee the doctoral
courses. The only written assignment requirement for the current
session was a commentary by the student on the book The Oxford
Tutorial: Thanks, You Taught Me How to Think1. This
book centers on how the Oxford Tutorial Method (the Oxford University teaching
method focusing on regular meetings of small groups of two or three students
with their expert tutor) has influenced the contributing authors as well as
their opinions on higher education. Included in this panel of
authors are well known atheist and evolutionist
Richard Dawkins and the Director of the Oxford Center for Higher Education
Policy Studies, David Palfreyman. The below
is my commentary on the reading.
Commentary
As
I began to read The Oxford Tutorial: Thanks, You Taught Me How to Think,
I was skeptical about what I would take away from this reading. I do
not agree with Richard Dawkins, but I was curious as to what the other authors
would add to the idea of a “liberal education.” I attended a liberal
arts college for my undergraduate and master's degrees and noticed that every
facet of higher learning, even though it was a “Catholic” college, denounced
Jesus and Christianity. David Palfreyman brings up an interesting
question to focus the reader by asking, “What is higher about ‘higher
education’?” He tries to make the point that a higher education is
where a student’s life begins. It is where the student learns new
communication skills, where the university prepares them for life, and where
the teaching helps to set them on their career path. While I agree
with Palfreyman on all three, he, along with the other authors, misses the
driving force that should be central throughout all of life; that is, Christ
must be incorporated into every area of our lives, including our institutions of
higher learning. It quickly became clear that these leaders of
higher education understand the importance of education for the student, but
their views are extremely secular and empty. The love of science,
the love of art, the love of education has all replaced the love of
Christ. For the Christian educator, there should be a love of
science, a love of art, and a love of education, but it is through the love of
Christ that our understanding of higher education should be shaped.
Dawkins is a perfect example of how a liberal higher
education can take a young Christian man and turn him into one of the leading
atheists of the world. Through his loss of faith as he went further
into his educational career, he has influenced countless people to lose their
faith in God and embrace the idea that we are not made in the image of Christ,
but rather are animals with no souls. Was his embrace of higher
education/liberal education good for him? I would argue it was
not. Unfortunately, higher education has been filled with men and
women such as Dawkins who only believe in the tangible. Yes, there
are still places of higher learning that are Christ centered, but too often as
Christians we have abandoned the fight to keep Christ in our schools and our
universities—even our Christian universities. I walked away
from The Oxford Tutorial: Thanks, You Taught Me How to Think with
a hollow feeling but also a renewed sense of just how important it is to
complete my Doctorate in Education and strive to be a Christian Steward for the
next generation. “Give me four years to teach the children and the
seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” Vladimir Lenin’s quote has stayed with me through my 18+ years of
education. Most students are indoctrinated with a secular education
by teachers that have been influenced by many of the authors in the Oxford
Tutorial book. All Lenin said he needed was four years, and our
students are subjected to at least twelve. Higher education is
necessary for our careers to be prosperous and adds a deeper layer of
understanding to our chosen fields. But just as Palfreyman pondered
what is higher about higher education, we must ponder at what cost we sacrifice
our souls for that higher education. “For what will it profit a man
if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).
1 Palfreyman,
D. (2001). The Oxford Tutorial: 'Thanks, you taught me how
to think'.