# Orthodox Christian Education
Catechism, St Andrew Church
July 17, 2022
Keith Buhler, PHD
# Overview
- Because we are "little Christs", education is about purifying and illuminating the soul and body to become *more* like Christ.
- Educating children requires excellent mentor-teachers who are wise and loving, to cultviate children to become wise and loving.
- Educating *ourselves* as adults requires daily formation into the image of Christ
* My journey: Chrismated in 2008
* St. Barnabas (08-12), St. Athanasius (12-17), St. Simeon (17-21), St. Andrew (21-22)
* Teacher, scholar, headmaster
## Education at home and at school
* School life is about learning topics: nature, math, philosophy, etc.
* Home life is about learning to love people and love God
* There is overlap!
* Orthodox Christian formation
## What education is NOT
* Education is NOT - mere job training (modern education)
* Education is NOT - producing revolutionaries to change the world (post modern)
* Education is NOT - mere repetition or preservation or conservation
## Formation vs. Information
* German: Education is ‘bildung’, formation, molding, sculpting;
* Greek: it is ethos or pae, enculturating, discipling, inheriting;
* Latin: it is educare (or paedia), drawing out, leading forth, cultivating, and gardening the soul.
## Formation vs. Information
* Information (knowledge for knowledge sake) forms the mind
* Even intellectual formation takes time, care, love, and human connection.
* Formation must be divine-human, like Christ.
## Zooming out: what is education?
* Education is an essential aspect of human life
* It is "the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to the next" (Chesterton)
* It is formation in basic life skills but so much more
* Formal fducation is a segmment (5-18) of one's whole life journey toward Christlikeness
* It is formation in the _thoughts_ and _sentiments_, the _wisdom_ and _virtues_ needed for success in life
## Obstacles to education: sin and ignorance
* Education begins with virtue training (self-control, obedience, peity to overcome self-love, laziness, folly, immoderation)
* And it continues with wisdom training (wisdom to overcome foolishiness)
## Mentor teachers
* More important the person who you are around then the subjects you are learning.
* Modeling more than instruction
- Not: "What subjects are they learning all day?" but "What type of person is your child with all day?"
- Saintly and smart (NOT "cool", NOT "experts")
- Parents are the best teachers
- Priests and professors can help!
## Christian anthropology (what are we educating?)
- What is a human being? An image bearer of God
- What is God? The creator of human beings and (in the second person of the Trinity) one of us
- All things were made by the Word, by Christ -- and the Word is our destiny, our end or purpose
- A child is a saint in the making
- Education then is setting young people up to fulfill their highest calling: sanctity and union with God
- God is loving, humble, wise, self-sacrificial -> so should teachers be, and so should they make their students
## Wisdom and love (why are we educating?)
* So we learn all things in heaven and on earth
* In family, how to relate to people
* In church, how to relate to God and to pray
* In school, how to relate to concrete reality (our bodies, pencils, money, etc.)
and abstract realities (like math, physics, history, statistics, and philosophy)
## Classical Education
- We must create a little Eden, a little Sinai Desert, a little Bethleham, a little Gethsemane
- Reading, writing, gardening, poetry, arithmetic, and art
- The "Liberal arts" are truly well-rounded -- they are human and divine
- Three aspects: Virtue, history, and wisdom
- To be the complete man, we must pray with the spirit, and pray with the understanding also. (I Cor 14:15)
# At Home and Lifelong
- Daily readings (Scripture)
- Daily readings (Saints)
- You can also do the Path Podcast or PNP (https://patristicnectar.org/synaxarion)
- Daily prayers (prayer rule and family prayers)
- Daily Orthros/vespers
- Daily Jesus prayer
- *Notice the word 'daily'?*
- Read the Philokalia, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, or another spiritual text regularly.
- Repentance and humility are a powerful combination. They form the soul!
## Bonus quote! If there's time. Fr. Justin Popovich
Our life is deification — our life is *Christification.*
Through being purified, illuminated, and united with Christ the human being struggles for his own salvation, by God’s grace. The result is no less than the shocking gift of union. Fr. Justin says:
> “to become immortal in Him by the power of the Holy Spirit, to become God, to become the God-man — this is the purpose... of the human race...The purpose of man is to fill himself with the God-man, in His body—the Orthodox Church; to be transfigured in Him through grace-filled struggles.”