Robert Pazmino in Foundational Issues in Christian Education references the following quote attributed to an English woman and Christian educator and education reformer named Charlotte Mason in a book entitled Home School Education (1953).
“As a stream can rise no higher than its source, so it is probably that no educational effort can rise above the whole scheme of thought which gives it birth.” (Pazmino, 85)
This got me thinking a lot and the more I reflected on it the more energized I got – because it explains so much and offers such great wisdom in terms of how to think about any educational effort of any kind.
Whether it’s organizational training, basic discipleship, evangelism, or other kinds of education and training in any arena – I often run into walls where some of what I encounter seems less than satisfying and some just seems less than thorough and some seems downright irresponsible.
As one who has had seasons of designing various educational or training efforts I understand the temptations to just go with current wisdom, the bottom line ideas, and get after it with the goals in mind. As I see it, all educational efforts typically have a clear set of goals or objectives. We generate “stuff” and methods to accomplish what we want to accomplish. But it’s much more rare that the “stuff” and methods out there is anchored in a very well thought out framework, worldview, and philosophy.
I think this is a deeper manifestation of the “tyranny of the urgent” and much less obvious because we can spend months and years designing stuff and being patient in implementation, but we might still have never really wrestled with some of the deeper issues and the core presuppositions behind perception and decision making.
The pragmatic can overrun values, conviction, and integrity – even if you’re not in a hurry. If your source is shallow and inadequate, your streams will have some impact, but ultimately they will end up running dry.So what I’m suggesting is that we need to think just as much about our source (the ways in which we are seeing, perceiving, and engaging reality) as we do about the objectives and goals we are seeing to accomplish and our chosen methods (the streams)….and as an addendum, just saying your source is the Bible or Jesus isn’t good enough. I’m not saying anything regarding the supremacy of Christ or the authority of the Scriptures. We’re talking presuppositions here that shape how you engage and see everything and that influences greatly how you see, interpret, and apply the truths of the Scriptures.
If you’re up to it, do you have examples that show the fruit of attending to your “source” behind any of your teaching, training, and leadership? How often do you think about your presuppositions?
What would help more people think not just about what they are doing, but about why they are doing what they are doing and how they are going about doing those things?
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