rMag

Character and Academics: Polar Opposites or Mutually Compatible?

Bethany Sanderson

Education is a hot topic in today’s society. How can we best educate students and prepare them for life? What does a good education entail, anyway? Many people think academics is the key to a good education and focus on it exclusively. However, considering the latest statistics that are always floating around concerning the illiteracy and lack of problem-solving skills in youth today, this approach does not seem to be delivering well-balanced and educated students.

On the flip-side, however, those families who home educate their children sometimes take a different approach to education, one that is not often heard about in other circles. These homeschool families emphasize character development as the most important component of their children’s education. While this is a wonderful and much-needed approach, it is sometimes carried out at the expense of academic excellence. In fact, some of these families purposefully emphasize character over academics, leaving their children with an equally imbalanced education that hinders their capabilities and lessens their credibility in a world that holds academics in such high esteem.

But what would an education that emphasized both character and academics look like? And why can’t we have both?

The Debate

Thus begins a seemingly never-ending debate in homeschooling circles: character vs. academics. Which do you choose? Coming from a homeschool family that strongly emphasized academic pursuit, I sometimes felt as though we lived under the disapproving gaze of those families who claimed to favor character in their schooling. Must it really be such a choice? I often wondered. Some would say, yes, it must. As one homeschooling parent commented:

Some children may have a special calling and gifting from the Lord to pursue academic disciplines as a vocation. But even in such exceptional cases, I suspect teaching diligence in non-scholarly, real-life pursuits will more likely instill the character more effectively. I am very doubtful that frustrating yourself and your child regarding artificial academic pursuits…will produce diligence in either academics or in real life.¹

This parent seems to be saying academic excellence and character development are two entirely different, unrelated pursuits. If you choose to pursue academics, you do so at the expense of building character.

Such an attitude puzzled me all throughout high school. If character training and academic learning were so unrelated, why did they seem so connected in my own schooling? My parents mapped out a rigorous academic program for my high school years, but neither they, nor I, abandoned attention to character development. On the contrary, we found that such a rigorous academic schedule actually proved to be a venue to further character development.

What Does Scripture Say?

How could such an experience as mine contradict the views of so many around me, especially when I found no such struggle over the matter in Scripture? There are numerous examples in the Bible where we are commanded to develop godliness or Christ-likeness. Leviticus 11:44 commands us to “be holy for I [the Lord] am holy.” In Galatians we are admonished to develop the fruit of the Spirit. Commands like these must take a priority in our lives; they are not optional. Striving to obey them is the fruit of our salvation and should not, indeed even cannot, be suppressed if we are truly born again. Likewise, however, is the command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind”(Matt. 22:37, emphasis added). This commandment cannot be ignored either. We cannot pick and choose the passages and principles of Scripture we want to apply to our lives. We are commanded to love God with our minds. We then have the responsibility to challenge our minds and stimulate the intellects that God gave us to their fullest potential. When we do this, we love God with our minds.

Why, then, is there this debate, if Scripture calls us to both develop godly character and stimulate our minds?

Defining Our Terms

It seems to me that part of the grounds for disagreement in this character vs. academics debate in homeschooling circles is due to a misunderstanding of terms. Perhaps a clear definition of what is meant by such words as “character,” “academics,” and “education,” would yield more agreement as to what a real education entails.

What do we mean when we speak of character? The dictionary terms it as “moral or ethical strength.” For Christians, however, character should entail much more than that. It involves realizing Who those morals and ethics come from. True godly character cannot but stem out of a biblical understanding of the infinite, absolute God and His holy standards after which we must strive. Academics, however, could be described as formal study. It is the obtaining of facts and information, some of which may, at the time, appear useless. Some dictionaries even describe academics as focusing on reading and liberal or classical study as opposed to vocational or practical study.

Education, on the other hand, is a very ambiguous word in today’s world. Our society tends to think of education solely in terms of academics. It is considered the instruction a person formally receives at public schools and universities, consisting predominately of the facts that you learn and the knowledge you obtain. But such a view of education is useless, indeed, even dangerous. Education should involve not just what is put into the mind, but how a person applies what is put into the mind. It is the attaining of knowledge (academics) and the proper use or application of that knowledge (character with wisdom).

What’s the Relationship?

For example, an “education” that focused only on academics might appear useful to the world, but without character and an understanding of how to apply those facts to life, it is essentially pointless. As one homeschool mom advocating an emphasis on character development said, “Getting the answers right on a test is meaningless unless a child knows how to apply those truths to everyday life. Non-applicable knowledge is worthless.”² Her statement is absolutely true. Knowledge without application is of little value. Studying history is pointless if you only memorize dates. Classic literature serves no purpose without looking at its worldview and how it impacted society in its time. Academics without application is indeed worthless.

It is likewise my belief, however, that an “education” that focuses on character development to the detriment of academic study would be incomplete as well. In fact, I believe such an approach would actually be damaging to character development, for the discipline of diligent academic pursuit is itself a matter of character. What message is being sent to students when they are allowed to be lazy in their studies, while at the same time being encouraged to develop diligence and perseverance in a setting that is more like “real life?” Character cannot be compartmentalized like that. Students need to learn that they must apply themselves in ways that don’t always pay off immediately, and one of these areas is academic study. Furthermore, what kind of leaders will we be if we have exemplary character, but no knowledge of how the world works? How can we lead our society and our nation if we cannot identify and discuss cultural issues, an important part of which is academic subjects like history and literature?

What, then, is the proper ratio of character and academics for students? Like everything else, there is no magic “formula” to ensure a good education. However, a complete education does indeed involve emphases on both character and academics. From a Christian standpoint, academics, along with everything else, rests under the umbrella of godliness and is useless until character, with the understanding of God and morals that come with it, is applied to it. Thus, developing character and godliness must be our first priority in education, but it cannot be legitimately used as an excuse to slack in academic study. Part of being well educated necessitates academic pursuit. Academics is a venue to character development, while character attainment activates or validates academic knowledge. The two of them can, in fact, be one and the same pursuit.

An education like this, combining the strength of character with the power of academic knowledge, will provide students with the “big picture” on life. It will bring together character and academics to produce an understanding of our world and our time that neither could produce on its own. Such an education will provide us with a solid foundation to step into the world and be successful. We may not always be deemed a success by the world’s standards, but we will certainly catch the world’s eye. And, more importantly, we will leave a mark on society for God’s kingdom. Our society is in need of a rising generation of people who have both godly character and academic competence. These two things working together is not a common thing in today’s society – but together they can accomplish great things.

¹  http://localhs.com/methods/motivation.asp

² http://www.christianhomeschooling.us/articles/israelwayne.html