What to Care About

Rob Smith commented on a recent post:

"I care what you care about."

Should teachers, such as myself, be more interested in "caring about kids" than making sure they are "culturally literate" as E.D. Hirsch or Bill Bennett would advocate?

That is a huge dilemma as they are not mutually exclusive, but sometimes the culturally literate stuff seems so irrelevant when dealing with problem kids.

My wife teaches Freshmen geometry in a public school. What I want her to teach is mathematics. Rob teaches Social Sciences. Now I'm ignorant here, but here's a stab -- I want Rob to teach culture.

Culture is truth for us. For instance, we may say we believe this or that, but our lives speak the truth of what we believe. Kids need to know how to read culture for what truth that culture is built upon. But most importantly kids need to know how to create culture. This may be the most important life skill of the 21st century.

If a person can create a culture that envelopes the truth of their life and invite others into that culture, their life will be a much healthier and more enjoyable life than the those who are sucked into the cultures in general. See Romans 12:1-2.