GYC 2013: Before Men and Angels

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

GYC 2013 Seminar: Don't Get Schooled, Get Educated

Randy Siebold

01-Don’t Get Schooled, Get Educated, Part 1

This message was presented at the DYC 2013 conference, Before Man and Angels, in Orlando, Florida.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.dycweb.org.

Lord, Father in Heaven, we want to come before you and we want to pray that you be with us.

And Lord, there's been a lot of preparation for this for a lot of people this event and We are doing all of this in front of men and of angels And other worlds and Lord we we want to be faithful to you.

You've been so faithful to us We're gonna open up our hearts, and we would like to gain a deeper sense of how much you love us, how your plan for us is so much better than our plan for ourselves.

And Lord, I pray that you would just use me as your instrument and your mouthpiece.

And Lord, you know how feeble I am, but I pray that you would be more powerful than any other source.

And that the ears and the minds of those listening the distractions would be subdued and your message would become strong and we ask this if with faith in Jesus Amen okay so did you have a chance to take a look at the title of this?

I was doing a presentation that I do sometimes get an opportunity to visit some of our evangelistic schools and do a presentation on education.

And so it just came out of my mouth once and I said, Lord, that is so good.

Because that really gets to the crux of the matter is that we have this idea of schooling and then we have this idea of education and we in our minds we really haven't separated them very well at all.

Our culture has really seen schooling is our way to be educated.

And so I want to give you first of all to start through this I want to start with just by giving an overview of the sessions.

Here's the session titles, which didn't make it into the brochure for GYC.

Give an overview, but I'll start with that.

And then we want to talk about what really went wrong.

How did we get this mix up between education and schooling?

And then I want to talk specifically about a school that is 1 of our model schools.

How many think that would be a great school to model from, right?

All right, and then why the world is actually right now looking at the way they do schooling, and they are convinced that we need to change what they're doing.

They need to change what they're doing, and this is happening all over.

We're going to get into the details about that.

And then the fifth 1, then, is true education.

We'll take a look and try to unpack that.

And then Sabbath afternoon, the future of Adventist education and where we see it going, where God wants it to go with technology and our culture, where does it all merge, and what does it look like, the future need to look like for Adventist education.

So I wanted to start by giving you a bit of an overview of the sessions and start this session by giving you a little bit of mostly about my schooling, because I've been in the schooling thing.

I haven't always enjoyed the schooling thing.

I haven't been the kind of guy who has been the straight A student typically in my younger years.

In fact, I think I got an F in math in fifth grade or something.

Anyway, elementary school was public school.

And then I went to Broadview Academy just outside of Chicago and then I went to Andrews University and finished with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Education.

I started out in engineering and then switched over to industrial education with a photography minor.

And then I later, after I was married, went back for a master's in art with a photography concentration.

And That's where some of the design things like the illustrations.

I use lots of illustrations and graphics and things And by the way there should be where is it at there should be a sheet running around somewhere with names in okay?

It's back here, So with your name and email address.

And I will send you a copy of the presentation, of all the presentations.

And also, by the way, just there are pens over here and water.

And if you want to write notes, that'll be good.

But you won't have to write down all the quotes because I'll send those to you through email.

And then later on, I really felt impressed.

The Lord pushing me over ended up going to Indiana University for my PhD in instructional systems technology.

And this was really a fascinating thing because I wasn't an academic type.

And I guess now because I spent, people consider me an academic type.

And it really is sort of interesting to me because I don't see myself as an academic.

Anyway, I do a lot of studying of the book Education, a lot of Spirit of Prophecy, a lot of writings of other people about education, and that's kind of my education side rather than my schooling side.

And then We've done a lot of homeschooling as a family.

I went back to be principal at Broadview Academy.

And then I worked for a while in Michigan Conference as an associate superintendent visiting schools and worked at Andrews University for about 13 years teaching and some administration there.

And now I'm at Weimar Institute, the chancellor there.

In fact, over at my experience at Broadview, this was elementary school, was in public school, and when I went to Broadview Academy, I really didn't have a deep desire for the Lord in my heart, and it was there that I first found the Lord.

And so I knew that Adventist education, for me, made a really huge difference.

And I know a lot of other people have had lots of other experiences.

There have been people who have actually went through Adventist education that have walked away from the church.

And probably many of us in this room know many who have fallen in that situation.

That being said, for me it was an experience that introduced me to the Lord in a way that I didn't have.

And so what I have felt impressed by God is to study education and to reveal God's true education and how do we implement that true education into our schools so that we can improve how young people really see God in a more true way.

And wouldn't that be amazing just to see that happen to all of the students in Seventh-day Adventist schools?

And then that would just inspire churches, and then that would inspire a world, and we'd go home.

I mean, you know, we can, you know, my family cooks great food and I'm so very happy for that.

And In fact, I break out in spontaneous applause sometimes, and it's like, Dad, quit clapping, stop, okay.

That being said, I can't wait to get home.

When we get home and we set the banquet table, even the amazing stuff my family prepares is going to pale in comparison to what the Lord has for us.

So next I want to tell you about my approach in how I present.

Now what I don't do, which I think I wrestle in my mind sometimes, maybe I should do this, maybe I shouldn't.

I don't present everything in a deeply organized fashion.

What I like to do is there is an idea in the middle that I want you to get, and I start talking here, and then here, and then here, and then here, and here, and here.

And so it's not, I think more in, have you guys seen like concept maps?

02-Don’t Get Schooled, Get Educated, Part 2

Okay, let me start off by kind of giving a quick summary of my first presentation.

And that is school is not equal to education.

Now, to clarify, I'm not suggesting that we should not have academics.

Our academics should be of a higher quality than those of the schools around us.

Because when you focus purely on academics, you actually are reducing the quality of what you get.

When you focus on the whole person, you build the capacity of higher quality intellectual experience.

And yet beyond that, beyond academics, there is the physical, the mental development, the whole person development as it shows up here, whole person, whole life with a purpose to help others rather than just for yourself.

So in short, we have this dichotomy that we use far too often as synonyms and We come to the spot where we say well, are you finished with your education yet and The answer should always be no I'm still alive Right because we're always should be learning.

You know, like picking up a good book, or maybe get onto AudioVerse and get a great sermon, right?

You know, I go on to look for all the education sermons, so I'm getting through all of those, right?

And so, or maybe a TED Talk or something on something really interesting and kind of expand your mind a little bit and see things in a little different perspective.

I just think education always continues to happen.

I think that we, meaning the world, the United States, and even the Seventh-day Adventist church, specifically the Seventh-day Adventist education system, is by and large an Adventist schooling system.

That I think what we have done, and I say this inclusively because I'm in it, not that I'm outside going, they messed it up, I'm saying we.

We have a Adventist schooling system by and large, not exclusively, but far too much, and that we focus on academics and we have neglected much of the instruction of what God has already revealed to us and how we structure our schools.

I'm not superior in any sense for others, yet we also need to be faithful to the things God has revealed to us and we need to share them.

And I hope that by doing this, it will actually affect many, many people.

1, the church triumphs which breaks the yoke of worldly education and which develops and practices the principles of Christian education.

So what he's doing is he's drawing a direct correlation between the church and its education system.

That when an education system can embody true education principles, his point is it will actually change the church itself.

He also, on the other side of that coin, argues this, most dangerous of all enemies in a church is a school of its own.

Christian in profession, and then he quotes Spirit of Prophecy, with teachers and managers who are only half converted, who are accustomed to popular methods, who concede some things and make half reforms, preferring to work according to their own ideas.

I believe that and that I feel like if our Seventh-day Adventist educational system could more and more embrace the principles of true education, That that schooling system would be turned into an education system.

That education system would be turned into an education church.

And we would get a church full of learners and growers and people who can't help but share the love of Jesus with those around them and they would do it and we'd go home.

I like camping on this earth, but I wanna go home.

When I go camping and I'm sleeping on this little, okay, 3 or 4 mats, you know, and that I and I can't turn except I scoot and turn.

I don't know if you do you do the scoot and turn thing because I can't I have to and then I roll on this side and scoot and turn and scoot and turn.

It's OK, but I'm really happy to be back in my bed.

When we get home, we're probably not going to sleep in a bed, and so that's irrelevant.

But you understand the illustration, I hope.

OK, so our schools should not be just schooling.

Let's talk about that just a little bit and take a look at a familiar verse, Proverbs 22.6.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, what?

You know, when I was young and first married and I was having children, I thought, you know, my kids will have a cool dad.

And I'll raise my kids, you know, to love Jesus and they'll love Jesus and this will be all just wonderful.

And then they get up and they make their own decisions, you know?

And they become their own people, and that's exactly what I want, but it wasn't exactly how I thought it would turn out.

I recognize more and more that we need to be claiming the promises of God.

And that we need to see the world, as I mentioned in the first presentation, we need to see the world through scripture's eyes, right?

So we see the world through this promise.

And as we look at our friends, as we look at our children, we need to claim these.

Ellen White was in a vision or a dream and she wrote this down, found in the sixth volume of the testimony, again a great section on education called The Need for Education Reform.

She says this, in the night season I was in a large company where the subject of education was agitating the minds of all present.

Many were bringing up objections to changing the character of education, which has so long been in vogue.

So essentially what was happening is some were suggesting that we need to change and do God's way and others were objecting to these changes.

1 who has long been our instructor was speaking to the people.

He said, the subject of education should interest whom?

I wonder to myself, how come there aren't more presentations on education?

Then I think to myself, if I get 5 people to come to my presentation, I'll be happy.

I don't want to set my hopes up too high that the room is packed.

I think that we don't understand some things, the things that are of most crucial importance.

Now wouldn't it be interesting to know about what you're doing?

And that, in fact, is what the book Education is about.

Essentially, it says, education shapes society.

She says this, throughout the world, society is in disorder, and a thorough transformation is needed.

The education given to the youth is to mold the whole social fabric.

We have, that's in Ministry of Healing, we have great opportunities to mold our church through our education system.

In fact, our education system defines the future church in a great degree.

In the sixth volume of testimony again, many suppose that, and I've broken this up so it's a bit easier to read, better educational facilities, greater skill, and more recent methods will set things right.

They profess to believe and receive the living oracles yet they give the Word of God an inferior position in the great framework of education.

That which should stand first is made subordinate to human inventions.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." He understood that, and that's 1 of the reasons why he was so famous, is he understood the power of education and stood for it.

03-Don’t Get Schooled, Get Educated, Part 3

I want to start with a word of prayer and we will have another testimony of true education.

We have a young man here who's agreed to come up and give a short testimony of how true education has happened in his life.

And we'll start with that, then we'll get into the meat of the session, and then we'll close with a question and answer period.

Father in heaven, we are grateful for your love.

You are so patient with us, you seek us so diligently, you have put so many ways, you have given us evidence that you adore us and are seeking after us, and we are just amazed by that and we're thankful.

We're thankful that you're that kind of a God and so as we spend some time this afternoon seeking after your wisdom in true education We pray that you would give us insight and you can be our teacher Lord, and we're thankful for that in Jesus name.

Okay From Souls West, Joshua, is that right?

He has come and he's going to share just a little bit about true education and how that's happening at a place called Souls West.

I am currently at Souls West and it's been a really, really great experience.

I started off, I've been in the SDA community and SDA school all my life, born in SDA.

I started at San Gabriel Academy, a small school in Southern California, where I continued until 12th grade, and then I moved to Pacific Union College, where I was really unsure of what I wanted to study.

I started off as nursing, and then I ended up switching to photography with a minor in emergency services and that's where I was until last year and then I decided to take a summer program Youth Rush.

I'm not sure if any of you have heard of Youth Rush.

Youth Rush, it's a summer program that requires students to go door to door.

And we leave books on donations to help us with school.

Books like The Desire of Ages, Steps of Christ, The Great Controversy, Spirit of Prophecy books that we really believe is going to bring the second coming much faster.

So we've been using these books to go door-to-door minister to the communities in our local conference.

I was in the Southern California Conference under the leadership of Heidi Bryant.

And during the summer she gave me, She suggested to me the consideration of Souls West.

I heard about the school before and my parents wanted me to get a degree.

And then later on, the director, Michael Touzon and his wife Candace Touzon decided to come visit us and they gave me the same opportunity that she had suggested to come to Souls West.

And so I, you know, I prayed about it, I gave it to God And that's where I am at now.

It's Seventh-day Adventist Outreach Leadership School.

The first year is like a semester system and the summer program is part of our curriculum for both years.

So we end up either canvassing that next summer or leading during that summer.

And so being at my time at Sols, I really understood what it means to have a true education apart from the education that I already had from San Gabriel and from PUC.

And especially going through this book, this is part of our curriculum.

We go through this our first year, 1 of our classes.

And it was really helpful because I see so many that, you know, they're going through the shelves and they see this book and they see education and they correlate it with schooling as how we've already seen.

And they're like, well, I'm not taking any like teaching classes or, you know, I have nothing to do with teaching I don't need that book but just understanding what this what true education means it just it's more than schooling as we've seen it's it's the balance between mind body and spirit and just you know at souls they really emphasize having a spiritual walk, a spiritual connection with Jesus Christ.

And just having that personal devotion, knowing who God is, knowing who he is.

And being able to understand or study who God is and then seeing how it ties into true education really just opens the whole world to, you know, what we really need to do in life.

And that education is not just a momentary thing or just till the age of 22.

It's education for eternity, which several of our schools have that motto.

But just seeing the difference between my PUC and souls, I was able to really understand and really cherish what it really means to have a true education.

And just understanding that who God is, For example, in 1 John 4, 8, if any man does not know God, then he, if any man does not know God, no, if any man does not love, then he does not know God, for God is love.

And so that is the basis of true education.

And this is something that once you understand the love of God, then it's just something you wanna share.

We have 3 weeks in school, and then we go 3 weeks out in the field ministering to the people of the Pacific Union, so Arizona, California, Texas, all these states, We go all over trying to minister to the different cities.

And just going through this experience, it's just really opened me up to how education can really change the world.

As long as we stick to the manual, that God has given us the true spirit of prophecy.

And so, yeah, that's just been my experience.

And I challenge you guys, if you haven't read this book, read it and then put it to practice.

Put service, the greatest lesson God wants us to learn is unselfish service.

And if we can push that to the rest of our SDA community, then Jesus is coming soon in a matter of seconds.

Well, I've been to have a chance to visit Soles and they have now also a Soles Northwest that is developing too.

What we want to talk with about this afternoon, I want to give just a little bit of an overview.

There might be a few in here who haven't got the first couple of sessions, so I'll just hit some of those pieces briefly.

Number 1, we're doing a distinction, a clear distinction.

Maybe I can get this turned down just a little bit for me.

It sounds like I'm getting, or maybe I should talk quieter, but that's going to be harder than actually turning that down, because I'm talking about education.

All right, so education and schooling are 2 different things.

We do this, we have schools and they focus on the academic, but yet there's education and that's broad and long and high and wide and it just is very, very different than just schooling.

And schooling is a portion of true education, but not the whole thing.

And then we also talked about process and how we start at some point, and then we have some goals, and then we have a process to get there.

And we talked about how education is this process, but we have to have clear goals.

We talked about the idea, and I say we inclusively because it was mostly me doing most of the talking.

But the idea that the world's schools have a very different goal.

And if you have different goals, you have a different process.

And so what we talked about then was the idea that we need some different processes to get at different goals.

And we thought, well, let's take a look at what those educational goals in true education might be.

And we kind of summarized 1 of the most important true education goals, which is the whole person, the whole being, mind, body, and spirit.

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GYC 2013 Seminar: Don't Get Schooled, Get Educated

05-Don’t Get Schooled, Get Educated, Part 5

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Parts

01-Don’t Get Schooled, Get Educated, Part 1

59m

02-Don’t Get Schooled, Get Educated, Part 2

52m

03-Don’t Get Schooled, Get Educated, Part 3

59m

04-Don’t Get Schooled, Get Educated, Part 4

1h 10m

05-Don’t Get Schooled, Get Educated, Part 5

10m

06-Don’t Get Schooled, Get Educated, Part 6

1h

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