The Humble Student
The Humble Student
I was not one of those academic wallflowers. You remember these kids. They never looked up from their notebooks as they furiously took down every word of the teacher. And when test time came, they spewed all those words right back at the teacher who gratefully lapped it up. I wasn't one to clap erasers, or one to always have a sharpened pencil ready. Instead I came to every class with a sharpened tongue. All the way from junior high school though seminary, I tended to come to class as a warrior, ready to battle for the truth at all costs. If my teacher were like minded, it didn't matter. I would find a way to ask a question that would lead us down a rabbit hole, where I would turn on him like a weasel. If the teacher were not like-minded, I wanted him to fear me. I wanted him to view the raising of my hand as he would view the raising of the guillotine blade. Even in algebra class I would argue with my teachers over the nature of infinity, insisting that there are not more whole numbers than natural numbers (a conviction I still hold.)
Like a cat bringing a dead mouse to the stoop as a present to its owners, I would often report back to my father about the battles I had fought. I was proud of the blood on my sword, and wanted him to be proud as well. And he would respond by being torn. At least I hope so. I like to believe that deep down, in his heart of hearts, he was proud of his son. I like to believe that he secretly rejoiced in my one-liners that exposed the folly of the other guy's position. I like to believe even that as I entered his classroom for the first time in seminary, that he was at least on guard. He never showed it. Instead, as I explained how I had sliced up my teachers, he tried to teach me something. He tried to teach me to respect and honor my teachers, even if some of them were fools.
My father told me that the teaching profession was an honorable one, and that honor was due to anyone who filled that role. In the military they call this saluting the uniform. He told me that no matter how silly a teacher might be, that there was something that could be learned. He told me not to attack, but to ask questions innocently, and respectfully. "You'll still win the argument," he'd say, "and you might win the teacher." He was trying to teach a proud young man the proper way to be a humble student.
The wallflowers have it wrong as well. It's not humility that makes a student a human sponge, but laziness. A refusal to wrestle with material, a willingness to roll over and play dead is prideful, for it refuses to bow the knee to truth. Humility in the classroom requires that we be bold in our pursuit of the truth, that we take nothing for granted. A humble student is one who recognizes that we are required to bow before the truth, that we in fact must serve it. A humble student will submit to God's reality, no matter how much he might like it to be different.
But a humble student also recognizes his role. We do not come to the classroom to teach, but to learn. The function of discussion in the classroom is first to help the student understand and apply what the teacher says. Second it is to foster that pursuit of truth that comes from the clash of ideas. But it is never for the purpose of encouraging kids to pontificate.
Our homeschools are not any different. We are prideful as parents if we do not encourage our children to check the sources to see if what we say is true. And such will never teach a student humility. We ought to encourage the back and forth of the discussion, to help the children to own our convictions, and perhaps from time to time, correct them.
How much more important is it for our children to recognize the authority of the teacher when the teacher is Mom or Dad? We bear two honorable roles when we sit down to teach our children, and so are worthy of a double honor. We must teach our children that they are to honor teachers and parents, even when they are one and the same. That means they come to the discussion still in the posture of a student. They are not seizing the podium, and switching places with us. It means that sarcasm, even when our flawed arguments call for it, is set aside. It means that when Dr. John Gerstner, your hero, your mentor, and your hero's mentor argue that Eve chose evil of her own free will, you don't call him a "creeping Arminian" as I did.
Remember the wisdom that says more is caught than taught. Your children will learn what kind of students to be by watching what kind of student you are. Do you thank God for the insights of your teachers? Do you honor those who have gone before you? Do you come to your pastor, or Calvin or Luther looking for a fight, or for wisdom? Do you honor the fathers of the church? And do you still treat them as the Bereans treated Paul? If you do, so will your children.
This is not merely academic, so to speak. Our children will, by God's grace, probably be smarter than your average bear. And they may run into foolish teachers along the way, including us. We ought to expect our children to surpass us in knowledge first, and then in wisdom. Our goal is not to keep them down, but to lift them up. But as we do so, we need to remember that knowledge puffeth up, not hiding from knowledge, but adding to it wisdom. And we need to teach them this bit of wisdom, that however much wisdom they have, they have it because God gave it to them.