Academic Discipline

Should students enjoy themselves, or enjoy the work?

One of the few comforts we find through a thoughtful survey of the modern world is the realization that stupidity doesn’t work. Those who rebel against God must also, of necessity, rebel against the world he made. The consequence of this is that all who so rebel, lose.

One of the central follies of modern educational assumptions is that learning should be “fun.” This dictum, unfortunately, is derived as much from our television sets as it is from departments of education. Consequently, many Christian parents take this assumption with them into their homeschooling, or when they enroll their children in the Christian school.

As a consequence, we tend to evaluate educational progress by the wrong criteria. Instead of evaluating the work to be done, and then working to bring our children to the point where they can do it, we go the other way. We ask, “How much work can my children do while still enjoying themselves?”

The Bible teaches that he who is slothful in his work is a brother to him who is a great destroyer (Prov. 18:9). Those who substitute anything for work in education are enemies and destroyers of education. The motives may be “good,” but the consequences are always the same. Now of course this is not a call for grim faces in education. But we must stop trying to get our children to enjoy themselves, and begin teaching them to enjoy their work. If we permit, for whatever reason, slothfulness in education, we are destroying education. And because we are destroying the education of our children, we are in fact attacking our children. 

For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load (Gal. 6:3-5). We must teach our children to guard against self-deception as they consider the academic work they do. In contrast to this, our government’s educational establishment has set up, as one of their primary objectives, the inculcation of such self-deception. “We want all the kids to feel good about themselves regardless of performance.” So they abolish grades, distinctions, and standards, all in the name of maintaining the students’ self-esteem. In other words, we want the students to think they are something when they are nothing. The charade may continue (possibly) until graduation, when the hapless graduate discovers that stupidity doesn’t work, and that he can’t either. The unkind world will only let him manage the kind of cash register manufactured by Fischer-Price. 

But if a thoughtful student is taught to examine his own work, it is right that he rejoice in it. A job well done is truly satisfying. Christian educators must strive to give their students this kind of satisfaction. And this means work.

The fruit of hard work is a great blessing. Moreover, it is a blessing thoughtful parents will want their children to enjoy. Do you see a man who excels in this work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before unknown men (Prov. 22:29). But in order to enjoy the fruit of outstanding work, we can’t start instilling good work habits after college. It must start twenty years earlier, and parents ought to impose it.

Still, we should notice an important distinction. Good honest toil, which is hard because it is hard, differs from aimless toil, which is hard because it is boring. We should seek the former, but the latter is worthless. All hard work is difficult, but not everything that is difficult is hard work.

But having established the fact that work is good, and that it is also good to teach our children to love honest work, we still must address some practical questions. How much is too much? What should the “work load” be?

First, we must not assume that the work load is too great just because some of our students are struggling. Egalitarianism is pervasive in our culture, and we must not bend to it in any way. Some students will always cruise through the material without much difficulty, and others will have to sweat bullets to get a B minus. This is the way God made the world, and we should rejoice in it. What is easy for one is hard for another. Educators must not establish a course of study which levels or minimizes those differences.  

Second, at the opposite extreme, some people pile on the work, in the name of “high standards,” and then all the students crumple. If this happens, the problem is almost certainly with the teacher, level of materials, or both. The solution here to back off. If, in a class of twenty-one, seven got A’s on the test while three got F’s, nothing may be wrong in the way the classroom is being run. If all twenty-one fail however, it is the teacher’s failure.

Third, we shouldn’t determine the appropriate level of work by listening to students grumbling. In the first place, grumbling is sin and should not be encouraged in any way; in the second place, grumbling as a wildly inaccurate indicator. Lazy students can grumble when they never had it so good, and diligent students may suffer silently as they try to make your stupid bricks without any straw. But if the students grumble, a good way to respond is to give an extra assignment. The student obviously needs practice in doing work cheerfully.

In short, learning how to teach your students to love hard work involves a great deal of . . . work

First printed in Credenda Vol. 6, No. 2