As a preschool substitute assistant, my task for the day was monitoring the art activity center. The center was set up with two chairs, one for me and another for a student, in front of a table. On the table were white cardstock oval cutouts and various sizes and shapes of colored paper along with glue sticks.
The assignment for each four-year-old student was to make a face by placing eyes, ears, nose and mouth onto one of the large ovals. My task was to glue the shapes where the student placed them. Perhaps distracted by other children or activities, my first student randomly threw a few cutouts onto her oval and was ready to move on.
Because there had been no instructions from the head teacher, I asked the student to look at my face. “Where is my nose on my face?” She touched my nose with a giggle. I covered my face with the oval paper and asked if she could still find my nose. She pointed to the center of the oval. I laid the paper down on the table and she accurately placed the nose in the center of the paper. “Good job!” I praised her.
The student smiled and was eager to find my eyes when another teacher came over and whispered to me, “You aren’t to give the student instructions. They are to use this activity to ‘express themselves.’”
Seriously? Was I really being told to let the students use their “creativity” to establish what a face should look like? How will a child learn to “express themselves” if they don’t know what the ground rules of facial feature placement are in the first place? Should loving, caring adults, who should be responsible for helping them learn, offer no guidance?
We could complain about schools (public or private), offer our opinions, or help where we can. Yet, it is better to first explore the questions, “What is the major problem here?” and “What kind of education is most effective for growing inquisitive and responsible minds?”
Educating a child could be compared to building a house, where two very important tools are necessary: a level and a plumb line. Both are crucial in construction and carpentry for structural integrity and outcome. The plumb line works according to the law of gravity – a law, by the way, as old as the earth itself. You could even say, “the law of gravity is a Truth you can’t get away from.”
Let’s compare raising a roof to raising (training) a child. To ask a child to express themselves without a standard for truth is like asking a construction engineer to build a house without a level and plumb line. In both cases the outcome invites failure. To neglect teaching a young child the basics of human anatomy before asking them to place a nose on an oval may seem trite, but eventually the child’s lack of knowledge will be tested.
In essence, I was being told to let that child do “what was right in their own eyes.” You can’t do that if you understand the biblical truth: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
That Scripture offers a plumb line and a level on which the child can stand as they grow into a conscientious and accountable adult.