By Jim Nichols

The scene has been replayed throughout history probably. The family sits around whatever they use as a supper table, and one of the children states with seriousness an opinion on a topic that is generally not considered in this family. 

Stunned, a parent asks with some sharpness of voice, “Where did you ever hear that?”

The child responds, “At school.”

Whether this is a college student or younger, the parents now remember an educational truth—when children learn new things, they begin to incorporate that information into their lives. That information may come from student colleagues, school activities, and teachers. 

A speaker once stated, “Education is subversive.” I felt that was hyperbole for a semi-shock effect, but it certainly rings true that learning new information changes the recipient. It is alarming to me that there is widespread surprise of this fact. It is as if parents have totally forgotten how, during their own educational growth, they themselves changed and adapted pieces of information; that is how they got to be the adults they are now. 

I have witnessed this growth phenomenon in my own children and have certainly observed (and promoted) it as a university professor for decades. More than once, I have asked my university students, “Do your parents know everything about what you believe?” Never has a student replied, “Yes.” Usually, they glance around at their friends and smile.

This is not a healthy time for professional education in our country. Elementary and secondary teachers often feel that neither their training nor experience is valued and that their care and compassion for their students is ignored. They hear parents, sometimes angrily, questioning their judgment and expertise by challenging books in the classrooms and libraries, assignments in class, and rigor in expectations.

University instructors face the same challenges because they receive students with limited abilities to process unexpected information, formulate coherent arguments, and, frankly, even read with understanding. Charges of “indoctrination not education” are made because their students are allowed to see additional pieces of historic and scientific information and re-think their stances and beliefs.

One of my professor mentors compassionately said, “Parents are looking to this campus with tears in their eyes because we now have responsibility for their most precious possessions—their children.” This is an absolute truth and the university faculty members I have known during my career perform their academic roles with this foremost in their minds. That does not mean, however, that these students/children stay the same during their university years. Besides being young and inexperienced, they also have free will and are learning to make choices themselves.

The role of the rubric plays here. A rubric can be used as an education pattern. Although not limited to education, rubrics are helpful as scoring guides used to identify expectations for a given assignment. They can aid students in seeking main points and forcing them to address them. They are an aid to instructors allowing them to sharpen their sense of what students are wrestling with. For example, if many students seem to misunderstand an important point, the instructor can reconsider and clarify it.

As helpful and straightforward as rubrics are, they cause education to be (as one writer stated) “atomized.” Students learn to see material in terms of it appearing on a future standardized text; they are schooled in short reading passages with straightforward points and encouraged to develop specific skills. Students rightly use rubrics as guides.

When those same students arrive in college, however, the reading challenges are broader and less predictable. Furthermore, although college faculty members have some influence about what their students feel and believe, those students face simultaneous influences of social pressures, financial realities, world events, dating, and unexpected personal tragedies. These are no longer high school students. They may even choose not to attend classes or skip the readings altogether. Accusing college professors of being indoctrinators is far-fetched, at best.

The storyline for growth as a person is not one that strives to erase all other lines. It does not attempt to narrow options but to broaden them. It does not work to limit opportunities for others, but to engage and enlarge them.

Education should cause us to stop and wonder. As followers of God, we rethink the story and stand open to an ending that is consistent with God’s will spiritually and, hopefully, better from a human standpoint. We learn to hold tension and to live sometimes without resolution. 

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain