written collaboratively with Rev. Lydia Sullinger
In the 1970s, a series of animated and educational musical shorts was aired on Saturday morning televisions across the country. These songs started off focusing on mathematics but soon spread to language and even American history. Schoolhouse Rock! produced songs such as “The Preamble” and “The Great American Melting Pot” These songs helped children throughout the following years and decades learn important information in an easy to remember way. Pastor Lydia can still remember her fourth grade social studies teacher wheeling in the old tube television cart and popping in the Schoolhouse Rock! tape with its familiar intro, “As your bodies grow bigger, your mind must flower. It’s great to learn ‘cause knowledge is power!” Knowledge is power.
American Methodists shared this power by supporting and helping to create the public school system in America, but this power seems to be becoming more and more elusive. At the end of the 2024 school year, public school leaders estimated that 32% of their students were behind their grade level in at least one subject. That is roughly one in three students falling behind and losing the power of knowledge. Furthermore, the mental health of students is closely related to their academic performance. At an age when children are supposed to be care free, over half of schools are reporting an increase in students seeking mental health resources. When these resources were available, schools reported that almost one in five students used them.
We recognize that there are many different questions surrounding education, the majority of which are rooted in the following questions: who should be taught, what should be taught, and how it should be taught. If we are willing to take a humble look back at the experiences of humankind around the world, we will find that these questions are not new ones. They have been broadly debated, and various educational models have been implemented with a wide range of often mixed results. As such, questions continue to be asked, and this should come as no surprise for the sole fact that education is important.
During the Methodist revival of the eighteenth century, John Wesley put a high value on education for all. He established schools for children whose parents were too poor to send them to school. The Methodist Conference of 1748 “spent considerable time settling the rules and curriculum of the school, which was designed to instruct children ‘in every branch of useful learning,’ from the alphabet to those qualifications that would fit one for ‘the work of the ministry.’ The list of subjects is imposing: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Rhetoric, Geography, Algebra, Music. For the English classes and the five other languages, Wesley [himself] wrote and published grammars” (Heitzenrater, 187). Wesley also did not limit education as an experience of childhood and adolescence: instead, he believed and modeled a practice of lifelong learning. Alongside publishing his own writings, he republished or edited new editions of great Christian writings which came before him, all published and priced so that the poorest in the community could have access to these resources.
In §4213 of The Book of Resolutions of The United Methodist Church 2020/2024 we read that “Wesley believed that persons develop their full God-given potential when they educate their mind as well as their spirit.” That same resolution goes on to state that “United Methodists have a moral concern to take initiatives to support and create alliances involving educators, community leaders, and students to address the challenges of contemporary education and to work to resolve the threats to quality education.” If we assert this aspect of our Wesleyan heritage, I suggest that we may find the following answers to the core questions about education listed above:
- Who should be taught? Everyone.
- What should be taught? “Every branch of useful learning.”
- How should it be taught? In ways that are contextually appropriate, that stimulate curiosity and resist indoctrination.
Supplemental Resources
“Adolescent Mental Health and Academic Performance: Determining Evidence-based Associations and Informing Approaches to Support in Educational Settings” in Pediatric Research 95 by X. Lee et al.
The Book of Resolutions of The United Methodist Church 2020/2024
- §4100. Church-Government Relations. A. Statement Concerning Church-Government Relations and Education
- §4213. Education: The Gift of Hope
- §4214. The Right of All to Quality Education
SchoolHouse Rock!
To Know As We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey by Parker J. Palmer
Wesley & The People Called Methodists, 2nd ed., by Richard P. Heitzenrater
