Review of Marion Maddox Taking God to School: The End of Australia's Egalitarian Education? Sydney, Allen and Unwin. 2014. 272 pages. $29.99 paperback. E-book available.
It would be easy to dismiss Marion Maddox’ book as just what you expect from an inner city late-sipping Uniting Church member on the government payroll. However this fails to do her justice, as Marion writes as a Christian sister who has studied deeply the history and contemporary practise of Australian Christianity. It would also miss an opportunity to reflect on an approach to schooling, and indeed to engagement with society that is influential in the Pentecostal movement.
There are some things in the book to be unhappy about – she has picked examples to support her argument and I don’t think she would claim to be offering a balanced account. Some of the examples should cause anyone to squirm. Like the stupidity, deception, and mistreatment of the Scriptures involved in the teaching of creationism as science in some of our schools described in Chapter 4. Like the embarrassing Access Ministries materials supplied for Victorian SRI that she dissects in Chapter 5, which alternate between inanity and misplaced zeal in their treatment of the Scriptures. Like the rewarding of a confessional position in the VET courses she describes later in Chapter 5. Marion does not give us much of the good story of Christian SRI and chaplaincy in our schools- it is certainly not a balanced account. However, like stories of misunderstanding and hostility and exclusion of Christians in our society, Marion’s examples need to be heard.
More important than the horror stories however is the position she takes on Christian engagement with schooling. It is well documented and rests on a number of assumptions. She seems to have great faith in our system of electoral politics to deliver governments that are well informed and basically benevolent. She favours centralisation and uniformity in the discharge of government functions, with a distrust of outsourcing. She believes that those delivering education and pastoral care of student should be properly educated professionals, and seems to distrusts volunteers. She wants churches to join with and support the government in these things. There is a strong political as well as a theological vision behind Marion’s arguments about schooling.
Many in the Pentecostal movement would not share these assumptions. They are suspicious of a political system that they hear has been captured by atheists, socialists, homosexuals and the like. They want to withdraw and fight rather than join with the government, except perhaps opportunistically. They see the Spirit working in enthusiastic volunteers regardless of training, much to be preferred to the dead hand of bureaucracy. It is a very different political vision arising from different theological commitments. Marion Maddox comments on the different eschatologies, but one might add different assessments of human capacities and the effects of sin, different views of divine providence, and different ecclesiologies.
One of her interesting observations is that while many Christians advocated in the nineteenth century for schooling that was compulsory, free and secular, it is now often atheists who seek church schools for values or discipline, and who have politically advocated funding of private schools (Chapter 7). We need to better understand the contemporary resacralisation of schooling in Australia.
Let’s endorse her argument that it is “high time we started a religion conversation” (pxxiii).
One thing that needs to be part of this conservation is what to do about the decline of our public school system. The decline matters because of its implications for social cohesion, and because education is more and more the route to rewarding work in a global economy where those without skills and connections end up at the bottom. Australian Christians cannot stand by and watch this happen. It is an affront to the call throughout the Scriptures - from the prophets to Jesus and beyond – for justice and care for the vulnerable in society. I don’t share her view that the basic issue is funding (Chapter 3). I don’t share her suspicion of decentralisation of power to local communities. But I don’t know the answers. I received a very good public school education, and our children have attended both public, and now private schools. So I feel a hypocrite to suggest we all send our children to public schools. I’d love to see more theologically well informed and committed Christians teaching in public schools, and fewer retreating to safe Christian enclaves. Let’s hear more religious voices calling for a renewal of universal access to excellent schooling.
Another thing that needs to be part of the conversation is improving what is on offer in SRI in public schools and in Christian studies programs in private schools. I’m dubious about much of the Christianity on offer in private schools – along with the parent who comments that it would be hard to design a program more effective in putting kids off Christianity (p135). Aspiring teachers are welcome to come and take our postgrad primary education degree at Alphacrucis, or the secondary teaching degree that is being designed at the moment. Or one of Alphacrucis’ theology qualifications if you are a teacher. Or the new Master of Leadership which combines theology, business skills and educational electives. Of course we are not the only place where good things are on offer.
Finally we need a better public conversation about Christianity in Australia. The separation between theological colleges and our universities undermines the quality of this public conversation. So does the effective exclusion of theology from the Australian Research Council grants system. So does a research training system that denies funding for PhDs to many of the institutions that train teachers and chaplains for Christian schools (absurdly even if such institutions are accredited by TEQSA to offer such degrees). With academic research identifying teacher quality as the most important driver of educational outcomes that is under the control of the government, and the proportion of secondary students in private schools nudging 50%, almost all of these having Christian roots, it is hard to think of a better educational investment that improving scholarship in the mostly private higher education institutions that train teachers for Christian schools. The last thing we need to improve the conversation is heavy handed government involvement in the sector, which would in any case spark a backlash from some of those we most need in the conversation.
Marion Maddox book is a thought (and hopefully action) provoking book on Christian engagement with schooling and the future of our School system. To be recommended especially to those likely to disagree with her. And for those cheering with her should next read something on Christian schooling – for example the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff.