AdAgrA 2018: Something Better

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Intensive: Implementing True Education

Eleida Feliciano

1. Implementing True Education: What is the Purpose

Okay, so I get the privilege to talk about true education, something I am very passionate about.

Unfortunately, 10 of those years were in public schools.

I was raised in the public school system.

So it wasn't until recent years that I learned about true education.

And in the last 5 years I've had the privilege to be teaching at the Wildwood Elementary School where I'm able to learn and implement true education.

So this has been a precious experience for me.

So we're gonna start first by looking at what the purpose of true education is.

Because to know how to do something right, you need to have a goal.

You need to know what it is that you're trying to accomplish.

If you don't know what you're trying to accomplish, you might just do it all wrong.

So we're going to look at what does God has as purpose for education.

Because the worldly kind of education has its purpose.

But God has a purpose for his education, and if we're gonna do his system of education, we need to know what his purposes are.

This is counsels to teachers, parents, and students and it says, by a misconception of the true nature and object of education, many have been led into serious and even fatal errors.

So a misconception or a lack of understanding what the true purpose of education can lead, not just some, not just a few, but many, to be led to serious and even fatal errors.

So this is why it's so important that we understand the purpose of education.

And we begin with this quote from the book of education.

Now this is a book I think every person, whether you're a teacher, whether you're a parent, whether you have children, ever intend to teach, should read.

If you're a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, you should read the book, True Education.

All of us are constantly being educated, and we need to know how to be educated by God.

And so this is a book you should all read.

This quote is found in the very first paragraph on the book and says, our ideas of education take too narrow and too low at range.

There's need of a broader scope, a higher aim.

True education means more than the pursuit of a certain course of study.

It means more than a preparation for the life that now is.

It has to do with the whole being and with the whole period of existence possible to men.

It is the harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers.

It prepares the student for the joy of service in this world and for the higher joy of service in the world to come.

The book of education page 30 and you'll find that many of the quotes here from the book of education.

In the highest sense, the work of education and the work of redemption are 1.

I mean, this is part of the way that God is giving us an opportunity for redemption.

So it is a work of redemption and so we need to take it seriously.

Acts of the Apostles page 530 says, having received the faith of the gospel, The next work of the believer is to add to his character virtue and thus cleanse the heart and prepare the mind for the reception of the knowledge of God.

This knowledge, the knowledge of God, is the foundation of all true education and all true service.

So as we are seeking to educate children we need to know that the knowledge of God is the foundation of all.

It's not the knowledge of sciences and other things, it's the knowledge of God through all these things.

So if what we're teaching is not leading people to have a greater, deeper knowledge of God, then we are failing at our goal.

Child Guidance, page 293 says, true education means more than taking a certain course of study.

It includes the harmonious development of all the physical powers and the mental faculties.

It teaches the love and the fear of God and is a preparation for the faithful discharge of life's duties.

Page 293 of the same book, Child Guidance, proper education includes not only mental discipline but that training which will secure sound moral and correct deportment.

Child guidance again and the next paragraph says the first great lesson in all education is to know and understand the will of God.

So as we are thinking about what to do with our children, whether it's our children or like mine, I call my children, but they're not my children.

If we are working with children or adults, if we are teaching, the main thing that we need to be thinking about is how to lead them to know the will of God, to know God and His will.

In the book Ministry of Healing, it says, true education is missionary training.

Every son and daughter of God is called to be a missionary.

We are called to the service of God and our fellow man, and to fit us for this service should be the object of all our education.

Imagine what would have happened if we had taken this counsel seriously from when it was given and had not departed from it.

The work would have been done, but the work of God is languishing for lack of labors.

And I can tell you in the time that I have been working in the work of God, it breaks my heart because I see that God has given the talents that are needed for everything that is needed in the work of God, but people are not using it for God.

Many times, we have not been able to offer all the grades because we don't have a teacher.

And I know that God has given the talent to many people among his people and yet we go without workers because we have trained the children from youth all the way to university to be successful in this world.

They go out to seek for a job and be successful in this world.

But if we have taken this object in mind and have done this since they were youth and prepare them for that, Yes, there will be some that will choose not to be workers for God.

But the majority will, because they have been trained for that purpose.

We can't blame our young people for going out and doing what we trained them to do.

And so we need to remember what education is for.

It's not so that our children can have a better education and do better in this world.

I mean, we definitely want them to have success in this world.

But the success that God wants them to have in this world is very different from what we usually think of success.

We need to consider God's way and we need to be sure that this is our goal in mind in everything that we do in education.

This quote is found in Education, pages 17 and 18.

It says, every human being created in the image of God is endowed with a power akin to the creator, individuality, power to think and to do.

The men in whom this power is developed are the men who bear responsibilities, who are leaders in enterprise, and who influence character.

It is the work of true education to develop this power.

To train the youth to be thinkers and not mere reflectors of other men's thoughts.

Instead of confining their study to that which men have said or written, let students be directed to the sources of truth, to the vast fields open for research in nature and revelation.

Let them contemplate the great facts of duty and destiny, and the mind will expand and strengthen.

Instead of a decaded weakling, Institutions of learning may send forth men strong to think and act.

Men who are masters and not slaves of circumstances.

Men who possess breadth of mind, clearness of thought, and the courage of their convictions.

So the right kind of education will lead our young people to think for themselves so that they are able to be courageous enough to hold on to their convictions.

The worldly system of education is preparing our minds to just do what the crowd does, to just follow what the majority does.

And when the majority are going to go in the wrong direction, and we know this, We know when the end comes and the marco de vis come, the majority are gonna go that direction.

And we think that we are not, but we are trained that way.

And the possibility that we will, it's great unless we learn God's way of education.

And so we need to train the children in a way that they think for themselves, that they are able to live in accordance to their convictions and not to what everybody else is telling them to do.

So, eternal education provides more than mental discipline.

So the true kind of education will strengthen the character.

So that truth and uprightness are not sacrificed to selfish desire or worldly ambition.

2. Implementing True Education: Practical Principles

So what I'm going to share with you now is the true education model.

Now whether you're teaching at home or at school, these principles are the same.

Sometimes we think that because we're teaching at home, we're now doing true education.

But you can bring the worldly system of education in the home and you're still not following God's system of education.

And so we're just gonna present some principles, some basic principles.

And basically what I was asked was to share practically how these principles can be done in a school setting.

And so at the same time I'm sharing the principles, I'm gonna share with you some of the things that we do at our school.

Like I told you before, I don't know everything about true education.

The little bit that I know, we've been applying, we're learning what we do.

We are required to have a teacher meeting every week.

And we spend an hour in this teacher meeting, 45 minutes of that hour, we are reading the inspired writings.

In the last 15 minutes, we discuss issues of the school.

Because we realize that we cannot be doing, there is a system of education, if we're not constantly learning from what God has given us.

We read, we think we know, we go on and then we forget.

Sometimes we start something and we forget why we were doing it and some great idea comes and it looks good.

It looks like a nice thing, has good purposes in it and we adapt this idea Without thinking through the principles again because we've forgotten we we easily forget This is why the people of Israel had to tell and retell the stories over and over and over to the children because they need to remember and so I believe we need to do the same thing with these counselors.

We need to read them and read them again and read them again and so we started reading the book of education when we finished we started reading fundamentals of Christian education.

This year we're reading councils to teach to parents and students.

I'm personally reading child guidance and when we read all of them, we're gonna start again with education.

But there's no time when you know it all.

So we have purpose to do this instead of reading all these professional books that are there because they are created by people who were trained and taught in the system of education, of the world system of education.

Now I'm not saying that there's no place to read other books.

I'm just saying this is what we've chosen for our school.

And sometimes I'm sitting there with my teachers and we're learning together.

We're reading these things and we're questioning how do we make this practical?

And so what I'm going to share with you is what we've done.

And as I look back, my first year, there was a lot of things I was doing that I'm not doing anymore.

But if you're faithful to do what the Lord has given you and faithful to learn, not say, well, I already, this is what I know, this is what I'm gonna do, but to continue to seek for his light, he will be faithful to bring the results, even through our mistakes.

Okay, so I'm going to start with a quote we shared in the last session, but that it is very important because this is essential in the right system of education.

In the book of Education, page 17, says, every human being created in the image of God is endowed with a power akin to that of the creator, individuality, power to think and to do.

The men in whom this power is developed are the men who bear responsibilities, who are leaders in enterprises and who influence character.

It is the work of true education to develop this power, To train the youth to be thinkers and not mere reflectors of other man's thought.

Instead of confining their study to that which men have said or written, let students be directed to the sources of truth, To the vast fields open for research and nature and revelation, let them contemplate the great facts of duty and destiny, and the mind will expand and strengthen.

Instead of educated weaklings, institutions of learning may send forth men strong to think and to act.

Now if you look at the young people that are coming out of the school systems nowadays, that's not the kind of men and women that we see.

The worldly system of education is not teaching them to think.

The system is based on learning to spit out the information we've given you.

Don't think, just learn it, memorize it, spit it out.

And not only is this not going to help them to learn these things to the maximum of how they could, but it is hindering their ability to understand and accept spiritual concepts.

It will affect their experience with God.

It's not just a system of education that doesn't work.

It is destroying the ability for the children to be able to be true thinkers, to think through that they may have their own convictions, make their own decisions, and not follow the crowd, not follow what the governments will tell them.

At some point, they will be pressing laws against our convictions.

If they don't think for themselves and know for themselves, they will fall.

And so this is important for them and it is important for us.

In my time teaching, I can tell you that we do a lot of different things.

And I worked with wonderful people who love children and who are doing what they believe is best.

I mean, they truly think all these things is what is best.

And we are doing all these wonderful things to help the children, but these children, the more that we're doing these things, the less that they're able to be thinkers.

You ask them to do something that is outside of the little formula that they learn and they can't do it.

And so this is very important that we understand this the importance of them to think, to be thinkers.

In page 230 of the book of education says, the education that consists in the training of the memory, tending to discourage independent thought has a moral bearing which is too little appreciated.

As the student sacrifices the power to reason and judge for himself, he becomes incapable of discriminating between truth and error and falls an easy prey to deception.

He's easily led to follow traditions and customs." Right?

So if we do not teach him to think, they will easily follow the traditions and the customs of this world.

Okay, so I'm going to start by teaching you principles.

This principle is 1 we don't think about, but it's very important.

The more quiet and simple the life of a child, the more favorable it will be to both physical and mental development.

You know, we see children, They do something, they jump to something else, and they jump to something else, and we, in our minds, have created this idea that this is normal.

But God did not create the children to be that way.

This is not supposed to be normal, right?

This overstimulation encourages superficial thinking.

And it comes because they have too many things.

Too many toys, too many activities, even good activities.

Going from piano lessons to this, going to the playground with the friends and this and whatever, whatever.

We have all these things in the schedule.

The children do not have time and the way that the mind of the children work, they need time to process and think.

And because we're not allowing to do this, they now become nervous, they're jumping from thing to thing, And this is not best.

God, if you let a child be, they can be forever just looking at the ends, going like this, for hours, and they won't get bored.

So why do we think that It is normal for children to get bored with something so easily and move to things.

This little girl in the picture, I don't know if you can tell, this right here is a little house that she made with sticks propping up this leaf.

She spent the whole recess hour working with this and she was by herself.

And you, I mean, she lost all track of time.

She's just working with little sticks and little stones.

And it's just precious to be able to observe that and see this.

This is what God wants it for our children.

He did not want our children running off and there and there and it's a hard thing to do.

I have a hard time sometimes getting the parents to understand that.

You know we take him out sometimes to field trips and the kids want to run from this to that to that.

They miss half of it because they're not even looking.

3. Implementing True Education: The Agriculture Aspect

Dear Lord and Heavenly Father, we're thankful for this privilege that we have to read and study your counsels.

We're thankful because you've loved us so much, that you have given us all that we need, that we may be able to stay in the faithful path and be able to keep our children in that path.

Help us to have the faith to believe in your words and to stay in the right path always in Jesus name, amen.

Okay, so The children also worked helping out.

We were talking about the agriculture aspect and the importance of growing food as part of agriculture, right?

These are flowers that are beautifying the Lifestyle Center where we are.

Our school is part of our Lifestyle Center.

And so the children have the power to do this as well.

Now the most important thing about agriculture is the spiritual lessons that they get.

What we were doing that day, this is a field that we have cleared out that's close to our school so we can do even a bigger garden.

And there used to be a house there that burned down, so there was a lot of debris.

So that day we were just clearing out all the debris.

So at the end of every practical skills we do, whether it's agriculture, whether it's just chores, whatever it is that we do, we ask them, what did you learn?

And so she was sharing how It was like taking the bad things out of our hearts so that we can have the soil ready to receive.

The word of God is the seed that we need to have in our hearts.

Another important part of a true education is to teach their children physiology.

Okay, so here, this is Councils on Health, page 38.

It says, a practical knowledge of the science of human life is necessary in order to glorify God in our bodies.

It is therefore of the highest importance that among the studies selected for childhood, physiology should occupy the first place.

Okay, so this is very important that the children are learning how their bodies work and so that they know how to take good care of it.

Since the mind and the soul find expression through the body, both mental and spiritual vigor are in great degree dependent upon physical strength and activity.

Whatever promotes physical health promotes the development of a strong mind and a well-balanced character.

Without health, no 1 can as distinctly understand or as completely fulfill his obligation to himself, to his fellow beings, or to his Creator.

Therefore, the health should be as faithfully guarded as the character.

A knowledge of physiology and hygiene should be the basis of all educational effort.

So a lot of times we think, you know, in public schools they teach the children health and it's good for their health and for their physical health and we want them to do well, but why is it so important in true education that they know physiology of the body, how it works, so that they can take good care of their bodies because it will affect their spiritual life.

You cannot sacrifice 1 without affecting the other.

And so it has something to do with their salvation.

It has something to do with their salvation.

It has something to do with their character and so it has to be just as guarded.

We trace their bodies and then we taught them the skeleton system and then we did the organs and with each organ we learned what kinds of foods we eat that improve the health of that organ.

What kind of foods we eat that will destroy the health of this organ.

It's easier for them than just to tell them, this is not healthy for you.

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Series

Intensive: Implementing True Education

2. Implementing True Education: Practical Principles

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

Parts

1. Implementing True Education: What is the Purpose

33m

2. Implementing True Education: Practical Principles

1h 5m

3. Implementing True Education: The Agriculture Aspect

51m

Sound Doctrine