THE TRANSFORMATIVE ROLE OF EDUCATION

THE TRANSFORMATIVE ROLE OF EDUCATION*1 Randee O. Ijatuyi Morphé (ECWA Theological Seminary Jos & Hokma House—Centre for Biblical Research, Jos) I. FIRST CONSIDERATIONS “Education” in Africa, and Nigeria in particular, is viewed by many as a “sector” (of government) that is ridden with “problems”—probably not all its own, but which nonetheless appear to defy solution.2 In line with the topic of this paper, few would dispute that education ought to have a transforming effect of some kind, even if debate rages over how that goal can be achieved. Still, one may wish to probe the object of transformation (i.e., who or what is being transformed), its means (via what, education?) and in what sense both education and transformation are (to be) related. In this paper, then, I wish to explore, as a prolegomenon, the transformative role of education by raising some pertinent issues in this regard. I shall do so by considering some “roots” (less, mechanics) of the education enterprise, while seeking to relate some of its later developments, via the “theological project,” to some current concerns about Nigeria’s “education” crisis—one which, as I see it, is largely inseparable from the crisis of “society” in Africa. II. “ROOT”-SEARCH ON EDUCATION: GRECO-ROMAN/JEWISH MATRIX Where is education to be “rooted,” and what is its “matrix”? One way to proceed here is to examine the various “contexts” and “concerns” which “frame” education (in antiquity) as discussed or treated in major works on this topic. I begin with a caveat: the sources at our disposal reveal clearly the religious/social dimension of “education,” which often includes philosophy and philology. Also, “education” and history were united in the first journey toward human civilization. As A. Demsky points out, “It has long been realized that the beginning of history is inherently bound up with the invention of writing. It enabled ancient man to communicate his mundane needs as well as his intellectual and religious reflections in explicit terms for both *© 2010 by Hokma House. A paper presented at the National C.A.N. Conference for Church Leaders (March 3-6, 2010) in Garki, Abuja, on the theme: “Church in Mission and Transformation.” 1 I offer these thoughts in anticipation of another study in this area that is being planned for a Hokma conference (2015). 2 I treat the educational “palaver” in Nigeria, and do not engage with the African situation. On foundational issues in the latter, see my Africa’s Social and Religious Quest: A Comprehensive Survey and Analysis of the African situation (University Press of America, 2010) fc (hereafter ASRQ). The Transformative Role of Education 2 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) contemporary and future generations. The milestone in the story of mankind was achieved toward the end of the fourth millennium B.C.E. in ancient Mesopotamia.”3 Several things are worth noting here in passing: writing and communication are somewhat linked; and human reflections have a dual “orientation” or purpose of serving present and future generations. These will become clearer later. (I will summarize or simply give the relevant data on the points I raise or discuss). Let us begin with a very obvious fact: the alphabet—its invention and transformation. The alphabet emerged amid various systems of “writing” in the ancient world (the ancient Near East [ANE] in this instance). It was long preceded by other “systems” of writing (e.g., the “hieroglyphics”) which later gave way “in Canaan in the first half of the second millennium” to the evolution of the early alphabet, and has been dubbed the “alphabetic revolution.” Again, Demsky explains: “The ‘alphabetic revolution’ was the ability to radically reduce writing from hundreds of logograms and syllabograms to approximately thirty signs. This breakthrough was based on a sophisticated analysis of the phonemic system of Canaanite, giving each phoneme an appropriate sign.”4 The point here is that writing and the alphabet were linked in accounting for (levels or forms of) “literacy” in antiquity. In the ANE (ca. 1700-330 BCE), “the predominant form was the limited literacy of the highly trained professional scribes in the cultural centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt and their peripheral offshoots. The second form existed in emerging literate societies, where writing skills could be found among various levels of society.”5 It is from this standpoint that we can understand or make sense of the “long period of formal education and apprenticeship necessary for the performance of … more advanced and varied ritual duties” of Israel’s priests; and also measure or determine the extent of “popular literacy” in Israelite society.6 Whether arbitrary or not, the existence of, or rather division into, the literati and laity in ancient society already suggests how and where “progress” was made in antiquity. We would concede here the existence of “schools” (or guilds) as centers for education then. In the Hellenistic world, “the gymnasium”7 emerged as a distinct institution in this regard. J. D. Newsome says that “the schools of the Hellenistic world were a primary transmitter of culture”; much of the education was “public” or “socially visible,” although “some education was private, and tutors were often emSee A. Demsky, “Writing in ancient Israel and early Judaism: Part one: The biblical period,” in M. Mulder, ed., Mikra (Van Gorcum/Fortress Press, 1990) 2. 4 Ibid., 3. 5 Ibid., 10-11. 6 Ibid., 16, 15. 7 The “gymnasium” probably originally stressed the meaning of physical exercise or discipline, which for the Greeks may have been primary, given the belief then and now that “a sound body helps to make a sound mind” (see Newsome below). I have often modified this with respect to Nigeria/Africa thus: a sound body helps to make a sound mind, in a sound environment. To be sure, the issue goes beyond athletics for the Greeks (cf. 1 Corinthians, 2 Timothy for Pauline estimation of Greek games); it touches on body/mind dualism, among others. 3 The Transformative Role of Education 3 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) ployed by parents of means to come into the home to teach the children of the family”8 (e.g., Phillip of Macedon’s use of Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander [later, the Great]). Even within the colonies or “Hellenistic kingdoms, these gymnasia assumed a special role,” as Greek “ruling classes” were often a “minority” there. “The gymnasia became centers for the cultivation and perpetuation of all that was Greek: food, clothing (or the lack of it, in the case of athletic events), drama, literature, music. …”9 Indeed, language, literature and education, constituted the “complex” means and “process by which the literature, science, and arts of Greece came to be embraced— and in some ways recast—by the people of Alexander’s dominions.” Newsome argues that, despite reactions, “from India to Egypt to Greece itself men and women became, for the first time in human history on so grand a scale, citizens of the same world.”10 But this merely highlights the distant goals of Alexander’s imperial campaigns. It is more helpful to view such goals as the outworking of cultural and intellectual life, which in the ancient world had a “public” and “international” character. Thus, primary schools/gymnasia functioned within Hellenistic administrative citycenters, being “viewed as a public and communal responsibility.” But schooling then typically involved parents and their minors (boys and girls, separately or in co-ed11). As H. Koester well notes, at this elementary stage, “the methods of instruction were simple: one started by learning the alphabet and proceeded to the reading and writing of words and sentences. Rote learning played a significant role. Not much changed in this elementary instruction in the Roman period”—private tutoring notwithstanding.12 Even within such a very cosmopolitan cultural context of “education” in the Hellenistic world, Koester notes (ambivalently?) that “native cultural traditions within the realm of Hellenistic influence often maintained their own strength and vitality, but they lost their ideological justification.”13 While the question of the extent of literacy in antiquity is much debated among (biblical and historical) scholars today,14 the “three-tiered“ school (educational) system first introduced by Greek Ionia (so Koester) is widely accepted.15 Adopted as a Roman ”educational ideal,” M. Hubbard summarizes these stages of “the typical edJ. D. Newsome, Greeks, Romans, Jews: Currents of culture and belief in the New Testament world (Trinity Press International, 1992) 21. 9 Ibid., 21-22. 10 Ibid., 12. 11 L. Cunningham and J. Reich, Culture and Values: A survey of the western humanities (Vol. 1), 2nd ed. (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1990), 300, argue that modern “coeducation” marks a major discontinuity between “the organization and purposes of the medieval university and our own.” 12 H. Koester, Introducing the New Testament, vol. 1, History, culture and religion of the Hellenistic age (Fortress Press, 1982) 93; cf. J. Jeffers, The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament: Exploring the background of early Christianity (IVP, 1999) 27-58. 13 Koester, Introducing the New Testament, 97 (he notes the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucids). 14 On which see my Community and Self-Definition in the Book of Acts (Academica Press, 2004) Chapters 3-4, and M. Hubbard, Christianity in the Greco-Roman World: A narrative introduction (Hendrickson, 2010) 68-69. 15 It was also characteristic of Jewish educational system, on which see Ferguson below. 8 The Transformative Role of Education 4 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) ucational curriculum“ from 2nd cent. Apuleius’ toast (“to Muses, the goddesses of literature and the arts”): “The first represents ‘the master’ (ludi magister) who teaches reading, the second the grammaticus, who teaches grammar and literature, and the third the rhetor, who teaches eloquence. These stages correspond roughly to ... primary, secondary, and tertiary (higher) education.”16 It is remarkable that Alcuin of York who headed the Palace School founded by Charlemagne developed his curriculum by distinguishing broadly between “logic” and “science.” “It was from this distinction,” write L. Cunningham and J. Reich, “that later medieval pedagogues developed the two courses of studies for all schooling prior to the university: the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). These subjects remained at the heart of the school curriculum from the medieval period until modern times.”17 (On the rise of the university, see below). Emerging from the preceding are the following points: ancient Greek/Roman or Hellenistic and Jewish education (Gk. paideia, Lat. humanitas) was each motivated or characterized by different ideals—and perhaps different means of attainment. For the Greco-Roman, the “rhetorical educational ideal” was paramount; while not ruling out philosophy for the Greeks also. For the Jewish it was the “religious” ideal; that is, “the knowledge and practice of the Torah.” Likewise, one could distinguish centers or institutions for education: the gymnasium for the first, albeit with Roman modification of athletics inter alia; and for the second, the home or household—synagogue to some extent (e.g., Diaspora).18 It is often noted that for the early Christians, such “education” was often mentioned “in the context of the congregation, not the household.”19 Furthermore, while literacy and writing depended on the alphabet, rhetoric (in Greco-Roman education) and a large dose of memorization (in Jewish education) remained as distinguishing features of the educational activity itself in antiquity. Developments beyond and/or detours from these stages must be traced in and through the modernization project, which together with the ancient constituted the double legacy for contemporary (20th century-) education. III. REINVENTING EDUCATION: MODERN DEVELOPMENTS/DETOURS In accounting for modern developments in education beyond the ancient legacy (briefly sketched above), several factors come into play. But it is also clear that many competing “interests” are brought to bear on education; these regularly render the activity itself as a precarious project. Primary among modern developments is the rise Hubbard, Christianity in the Greco-Roman World, 70 (70-75 for their exposition); cf. esp., E. Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 2nd ed. (Eerdmans, 1993) 100-104. 17 Cunningham and Reich, Culture and Values, 238. 18 See Ferguson, Backgrounds, 100-103 passim. See also P. King and L. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (WJK, 2001) 45-47, 310-15. On the synagogue generally, see my Community and Self-Definition in Acts, chap. 7. 19 Jeffers, The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament, 254—he contrasts 1 Clement (AD 95). 16 The Transformative Role of Education 5 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) of the “university” as the central institution for transmitting knowledge. In the unfolding of this project one inevitably encounters some dangerous “detours.” In exploring these, my aim is much more modest: to highlight some of the forces at work in the modern developments in education (vis-à-vis “modernity” itself). Let us begin by locating the reinvention of education in the “modern” trajectory. In his treatment of “education in time,” highlighting several “assumptions and concerns of educators over time,” T. Groome correctly notes—albeit, working within a largely “western” context20 (see note)—that “education is as old as human consciousness.” Moreover, “many of the great philosophers and thinkers of history have given their time and attention to it. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Alcuin, Aquinas, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Pestalozzi, Hegel, Herbart, Marx, Whitehead, and Dewey all have membership in education’s pantheon.”21 The “membership” list is instructive as also the “trajectory” it depicts. To pursue the origins or classification of universities here is not germane to our study.22 We will do well to examine closely but briefly the context of their rise, the forces that set them in motion and how or where the modern experiment differs from the ancient. For heuristic purposes, I trace the beginnings of the “modernization” project from the (early) medieval period.23 This period witnessed—among other “negative” things (“cultural decay,” so Perry) which earned it the epithet “Dark Ages”—an infusion and profusion of ideas, which have shaped modern cultural institutions. Besides the “re-discovery” and rehabilitation of Aristotle by the theologians, esp. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and the movement of Scholasticism, the medieval time shared much in common with past educational endeavors. Thus, before the emergence of “the university,” rulers like German Charles the Great (better known as Charlemagne; ruled the Roman Empire: 768-814) sought to promote or develop “literacy” through his “Palace School,” headed by the renowned Anglo-Saxon (biblical) scholar Alcuin of York. As M. Perry argues, the institution served a narrow constituency: the clergy, administrators for the kingdoms, youths training to serve the emperor, the high lords, and Charlemagne and his family.24 Besides what misgivings one might have against such imperial moves, it is significant See J. Botha, “The Study of the New Testament in African Universities,” in C. Breytenbach, J. Thom and J. Punt, eds., The New Testament Interpreted: Essays in honour of Bernard C. Lategan (Brill, 2006) 24765, who develops four “metaphors” for “the university”—Athens, Berlin, New York, and Calcutta— but also notes that “an institution meeting all the characteristics of the medieval Western university existed in Cairo before the emergence of Bologna” (250, citing A. B. Gobban, “Universities 1100-1500,” in B. R. Clark and G. R. Neave, eds., Encyclopedia of Higher Education (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1992) 1245-1251, at 1246. 21 T. Groome, Christian Religious Education: Sharing our story and vision (Harper & Row, 1980). 22 See Botha above. 23 Here, I follow somewhat the lead of M. Perry et al., Western Civilization: A concise history, complete ed. (Houghton Mifflin, 1981), cf. also Cunningham and Reich, Culture and Values. 24 Perry, Western Civilization,189; cf. Cunningham and Reich, Culture and Values, 236-39. 20 The Transformative Role of Education 6 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) in itself that the Carolingian Renaissance which ensued prefigured future similar movements. Whereas Aquinas promoted Aristotelianism, Alcuin and “the Carolingian Renaissance did rediscover and revive ancient works”; but the latter “did not recapture the spirit of Greece and Rome.”25 Nonetheless, its “focus … was predominantly Christian,” argues Perry. Moreover, “in the process of training clergymen and improving their understanding of the Bible and the writings of the church fathers, the level of literacy was raised and the Latin style improved.” Perry sees the preservation of “the oldest surviving manuscripts of many ancient works” as its chief legacy; a movement whose “scholars … helped to fertilize the cultural flowering known as the TwelfthCentury Awakening, the high point of medieval civilization.”26 But we should also note another intellectual development of this period that contributed to the later emergence of the university. In the meeting of East and West, argue Cunningham and Reich, “most significant of all for medieval culture, Islamic Spain became a conduit to the West for Greek learning.” Besides English loanwords traceable to Arabic (e.g., zero, cipher, algebra, alcohol), both authors claim that “the university revolution of the 12th and 13th centuries would not have been possible without the flow of Aristotle’s works which came to the [Latin] West from translations done in [Toledo] Spain.” Also, as well known, Aquinas “read Aristotle’s works in a Latin translation done from Arabic manuscripts that had been, in turn, translated by Islamic scholars from the Greek originals.”27 One can readily see certain developments/detours, and what Groome terms “assumption and concern” about education, all preparing the way for the rise of “the university.” What, then, were the immediate causes or factors in the rise of this veritable “cultural” institution? According to Cunningham and Reich, “European universities developed in the late 12th and early 13th centuries along with the emergence of city life.”28 “As cities grew in importance,” they add, “schools also developed at urban monasteries or, increasingly, under the aegis of bishops whose cathedrals were in the towns.”29 Moreover, “the increasing complexity of urban life created a demand for an educated class who could join the ranks of administrators and bureaucrats. Urban schools were not simply interested in providing basic literacy. They were designed to produce an eduAlthough the movement did not produce a “synthesis of faith and reason,” as succeeding centuries did, “a distinct European civilization had taken root” through it during this period. “It blended the Roman heritage of a world empire, the intellectual achievement of the Greco-Roman mind, Christian otherworldliness, and the customs of the Germanic peoples. This nascent western European civilization differed from Byzantine and Islamic civilizations. … But the new civilization was still centuries away from fruition” (ibid., 190). 26 Ibid. For a similar assessment of the awakening in France through Erasmus of Rotterdam, see my “Editorial: faithfulness or frivolity?” New Horizons—News/bulletin of Hokma House (Vol. 1/1/0504). 27 Cunningham and Reich, Culture and Values, 237. 28 Ibid., 300—italics added. 29 Ibid. 25 The Transformative Role of Education 7 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) cated class who could give support to the socioeconomic structures of society.”30 We have already noted the “wholesale discovery and publication of texts from the ancient world”; especially Aristotle’s wide-ranging works that fostered collaboration between Christian and Arabic scholars. Such discovery is rightly accounted among “intellectual and cultural reasons for the rise of the universities.”31 What does all this suggest? The point to note is the crucial importance of the city or town and the setting it provides for the university. If we must prioritize such development, the urban settlement comes before the school; but it is also possible that both could emerge together (perhaps, as in college/university towns).32 Given the cultural significance of the institution, or similar schools, one can also understand its pivotal role in human civilization, and the stress on a curriculum that goes beyond, but builds on, literacy. These factors or causes help us see lines of continuity between the modern experiment in education and the legacy from antiquity. They also suggest the possibility of a transformation of rural areas of Africa into town(ship)s. The sheer implications of all this for the church’s mission and education should be readily obvious. The traditional roots of Africa’s rural areas, epitomized by the so-called “village” vis-à-vis current modernization trends will need to be critically (re-) examined.33 In the final major section below, we will treat some contemporary Christian religious concerns and issues for an education that pursues the transformational agenda. IV. TRANSFORMING EDUCATION: A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGICAL STAKE The preceding discussions should have alerted us not only to the Christian stake in education, but also to its theological core. I attempt only a cursory treatment of that here, since I consider the issues above to be primary. And to the extent that they are rigorously dealt with, we can hope to realize the transforming power of education. In line with our discussion, it has been observed that in the steps that led to the founding of Harvard University in 1636, along with other institutions in the “‘new’ world,”: “The fathers of Congregationalism studied the Word of God in its original languages, read and reflected on the writings of theologians through the centuries, engaged in debate over these ideas, and eventually formulated and published their own statements of belief and the results of their studies.”34 The ancient pattern/modern approach toward education is evident here35 (cf. note). But M. Kohl intends more, Ibid. Ibid. 32 On the urban/rural divide in Africa, and issues bound up with it, see my ASRQ. 33 See ibid. 34 M. Kohl, “Current Trends in Theological Education,” International Congregational Journal 1 (2001) 25—based on Robert Merrill Bartlett, The Pilgrim Way (Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press, 1971). 35 One suspects that the “founding” of Nigerian institutions of “higher” (and lower learning) must be different, given the checkered history of these schools. Without minimizing the negative impact of the 30 31 The Transformative Role of Education 8 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) as he tries to show why the “slogan” that “‘theological education is at the centre of Christianity—as the seminary goes, so goes the church’ must be taken seriously.”36 Clearly, much more is at stake for theological education or transformation than this. It has very little to do, in my judgment, with loading the curriculum with bible and theology courses—not bad by themselves, except that such exercise is often done with utter disregard for the “fund” of knowledge generated by these two disciplines. Rather, it has much to do with fostering a Christian worldview that is based on the study of the bible. This would minimally apply to both public and private institutions. The theological stake here lies in developing a critical (not traditional or cultural) framework for the educational activity. Crucial in this regard is that education must interface with the cosmos or world and humankind; this need not give rise to separate and dichotomous “fields” of study. Issues in the debate of how religion and science are, or ought to be, related must be engaged, without wearing the mask of superstition or Star Trek.37 All knowledge ultimately is theological. “Education” necessarily interfaces with “society,” and this study has highlighted their journey together (though less so in Nigeria and in many African states). Institutions, academic or otherwise, exist to transmit knowledge via education, which in turn serves the needs of society. But the knowledge so transmitted is neither raw nor rote, it is refined; this applies as much to knowledge of nature/cosmos and humans. The theological dimension of knowledge thus stresses its critical/reflective nature; it is this capacity, and human relationality, which probably define man and woman in their creaturely state as (bearers of) the image of God.38 Education’s role in forming, building and sustaining (an integrated) society for Africa cannot, therefore, be minimized. It is the mission of people of goodwill, but the Christian stake is higher. larger crisis of society in Africa, against which current institutional crises must be judged, there is also a more endemic issue with the “functioning” of these institutions, viz., how they came into existence. It would be superficial to distinguish, on this issue, between so-called state or federally “owned” (or run?) (= public) and faith-based or “mission”-established (= private) institutions; both suffer the same fate, albeit in different degrees. I would venture to claim that the pattern of rigorousness which characterized the first medieval/renaissance (e.g., Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge) and (post-) Enlightenment (e.g., Harvard, Yale), and subsequent institutions which still exist today (for relevant data, cf. Gobban, “Universities 1100-1500,” or Botha, “New Testament in African Universities”), seems to be lacking in our schools. The “colonial” and “propagandist” (used heuristically as paternalistic) factor would largely explain the condition of many Nigerian/African institutions: the “work” and the “thinking” were done by the foreign planters of these institutions (e.g., the extension campus strategy), or else existing schools were simply “copied” from the foreign originals. The colonial and propagandist are not separable in the end. The faith-based or “mission” institutions began similarly, managed by the planters and, when not “taken over” by a greedy government, were handed over to the “natives.” One would expect that newer “private” institutions of “higher” learning would be different; no, they have merely bypassed the colonialist/propagandist (paternalistic) “route,” often for good, but failed to be guided by the pattern observable in the founding of such institutions. 36 Kohl, “Current Trends in Theological Education,” 26—after Charles Spicer, Jr. (Overseas Council). 37 See my ASRQ, esp. Chapter 26. 38 See further ASRQ. The Transformative Role of Education 9 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) Humans, as individuals or groups live by values and these in turn presuppose either a personal or communal context for their functioning. But social values must in this case be vitally linked at the national level, thus suggesting that they are shared by citizens of the state or province. Thus, beyond personal and communal or tribal (= clannish) values, the values of a given “society” are as well-defined as the rights and duties that belong to its citizens: they are shared at the broadest base possible. But I must confess that I am circumspect or wary about “values talk” in the Nigerian/African context, especially.39 Globally today, discourse looms large here. And education is not left out, any more than it is to be treated as simply an issue of ethics. This matter was engaged in the winter 1993 issue (no. 19) of Faculty Dialogue. The various contributions to the journal issue suggest that values and education are integrally linked, albeit expressed in such context as, and in relation to: teaching, creation, beliefs, wholeness, indoctrination, mentoring, leadership, and work. Clearly, these do not exhaust all the areas or spheres for the interplay of values and education. How one navigates “social” values is immensely difficult, especially when they have become ingrained, as it were. Values in this sense come dangerously close to “interests” and both can employ education to achieve their ends. It is in light of this that I have opted for the cultivation of, nay, education in, the virtues, with a rich legacy, but whose “meaning” is less open to distortion and may in some instances overlap with values (e.g., talk of “democratic” values40). An argument I have advanced in this regard is that unlike value, which has to be qualified endlessly to specify the content of the value(s) in question, virtue, by contrast, are known by what is designated under that category and has a direct antonym, viz., “vice.”41 Education needs virtue (and value, to be sure), but Christian theology would seem to give greater preference to virtue, which is less susceptible to cultural production and maneuverings of human values. Education in the virtues and virtues promoted or developed via education serve the human race better than cultural values. In light of this, what do we make of the impasse in Nigeria’s education? V. “FACTORING” EDUCATION: INTERESTS AT WORK IN NIGERIA The problem of (biblical) “illiteracy” that the Harvard Charter, in part, dreaded is in principle and practice, a lived reality in Nigeria. The Charter states: “… to advance learning and perpetuate it to [posterity], dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in dust.”42 From another angle, the OT See ibid., Chapters 24, 25 on “An Account of African Cultural Values” and submergence of virtue. Cf. Anwar Ibrahim, “Religion and Politics, East and West,” The Wall Street Journal (June 6, 1996). 41 As first articulated by Aristotle, and engaged by religious traditions and modern moral philosophers, see A. MacIntyre, After Virtue, discussed fully in my ASRQ, Chapters 24, 25. 42 Cf. Harvard College Laws, 1642—in Kohl, “Current Trends in Theological Education,” 25, n. 3, who also remarks that, “The earliest known account of Harvard College appears in New England’s First Fruits (London, 1643).” 39 40 The Transformative Role of Education 10 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) scholar and first president of the University of Chicago (founded: 1890), William R. Harper, remarked concerning the seminary: “The seminary is not a place in which students are to learn certain views, or to receive and adopt certain opinions. It is rather a place in which they shall be taught to think.”43 The point of these remarks, perhaps, is in the future orientation of education that arises out of the present challenge faced by church and state alike. In Africa’s current cry, it is best captured by the “problem” of leadership (inculpating the government)44 and discipleship (implicating the church). While I do concede much of this—which has also become an avenue for “investment” (less involvement) by NGOs—the framing and phrasing of this issue is itself problematic. Its noun form readily casts it into an extra-curricular program of sorts aimed at dealing with a “problem.” Worse still, the solution proffered often leaves out formal education. The “future” is then at stake.45 Groome’s discussion of “education in time” referred to above specifies three key dimensions, roughly as past, present (= our preceding discussions) and future aspects of time. The age-old issue here is how to relate these aspects, or which dimension receives greater priority. Using a “praxis” (after Aristotle) approach, Groome treats an “assumption and concern for the future” by educators, which gives attention to the “not yet” focus of the educational activity. Groome explains this dimension to which Plato, Dewey and P. Freire, among others, have lent a voice: “The assumption underlying this dimension of educational activity is that if we are to have a usable future, we must educate towards it.” In relation to the other two aspects, “when this concern is properly expressed in educational activity, then the future is seen as arising from the heritage of the past and the creativity of the present, but with a newness beyond either past or present.”46 But with what does this “newness” have to contend? Significantly, it is in this future dimension that education becomes explicitly political.47 Groome concedes Augustine’s point that “the three divisions are no more than three aspects of the same reality.”48 Several competing “interests” are brought to bear here, given that “concern for a new future that is a transformation of the present and Inserted quotation in the Doctor of Ministry catalog of the Divinity School, University of Chicago. See, e.g., “The challenge of leadership in Africa,” West Africa Issue no. 4265 (5th-11th March 2001). 45 In my judgment, far more basic issues of Africa’s cultural values are at work in the current educational and leadership battles and crises that are spread over the continent, than both educators and leaders have been willing to confront. I have treated these endemic “traditional” values extensively in my ASRQ. 46 Groome, Christian Religious Education, 9. 47 Ibid., 9-17. 48 Ibid., 13. For Augustine, “all past time is driven back by the future, that all the future is consequent on the past, and all past and future are created and take their course from that which is ever present. … If future and past times exist … they are there neither as future nor as past, but as present. For if they are in that place as future things, they are not yet there, and if they are in that place as past things, they are no longer there. Therefore, wherever they are, and whatever they are, they do not exist except as present things”—citing from Augustine, The Confessions, 285, 291; also for support of Augustine’s view, cf. H. Blocher, “Yesterday, Today, Forever: Time, times, eternity in biblical perspective,” Tyndale 43 44 Bulletin 52 (2001) 183-202. The Transformative Role of Education 11 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) its past is a vital and necessary emphasis of educational activity” (after Freire). The forces impeding its realization, then, are shown to be “the self-perpetuating interest of the societies and other agencies promoting education”; “a concern by the group for its self-maintenance”; the maintenance ethos mainly motivates “rulers, leaders, and governments” and expresses itself in the “concern to maintain and fit people into present society”—a move “more domesticating than educative” in the end: “it leads to personal and social stagnation rather than growth and transformation.”49 These notions and actions inevitably turn the “curriculum” into a contending site for political ends. Like the “canon within the Canon” that has bedeviled the biblical theology task in its search for the (doctrinal or political?) “center” of the bible, the educational activity has been subjected to a political test, the “hidden curriculum.” As Groome notes from the luminaries in this endeavor, the political lines are drawn between maintenance of the state (Plato, Aristotle), and “social reconstruction” (Dewey) or a people’s ability to deal with existing “social reality” (Freire).50 In the final analysis, “the curriculum question becomes a question of what stories, myths, symbols … from the past we intentionally recall and make available to the present, and out of those what shape do we propose.” Thus, it concerns “promoting a world view and value system likely to maintain present cultural arrangements and social structures.”51 (Contrast our stress above on the virtues as defining education). Education in Nigeria has been shown to exhibit these conflicting qualities.52 Without engaging directly Nigeria’s “policy on education,” especially the constitution and the goal of national consciousness which education was to foster,53 it seems relatively clear from O. Lawuyi’s analysis that several issues were bound up with the “politics of education” during the Second Republic (1979-1983) much of which has become entrenched since then. These issues fall broadly between the goals the “federal” government desires education to foster (the ideal) and ends and interests of groups and the states (the reality). The first has to do with political goals of achieving “a free, united, and egalitarian society,” perhaps to be seen as merged with “the process of education [which] became a central issue in the search for and formation of a common identity.”54 The second broadened somewhat to include the interplay, largely at the “state” [read: regional] level, of issues of how group or ethnic “identities” were actually believed to be “constructed” (e.g., via language, birthplace, region).55 The introduction of the “federal character clause” seemed to have cemented the political ideal of “national unity.” As Lawuyi shows, “The point, then, is that the idea Groome, Christian Religious Education, 9, 10. Ibid., 15, 16. 51 Ibid., 16; for a full explication of worldview, see my ASRQ, Chapter 22. 52 See esp. O. Lawuyi, “The Politics of Education: Identity and change in an era of civilian rule in Nigeria, 1979-1983,” Asian and African Studies 24 (1990) 217-30. 53 On which, see ibid., 219-26, focusing on the Second Republic era (1979-1983). 54 Ibid., 217, 218. 55 Ibid. 49 50 The Transformative Role of Education 12 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) of education serving to forge national consciousness—and not construed narrowly as creating a dominant and elitist class—seems to imply the ideal of equal access to resources.”56 Supporting such access also was the provision of “free” education, albeit contingent, which Lawuyi takes to mean that “when a society’s education is free, that society will become socially transformed through the far-reaching adjustment in its value system facilitated by accessibility of education to all its members.”57 But the people thought differently: for them, beyond the (elusive?) dream of national unity, “self-survival became imperative, and in line with this, identity was rescheduled.”58 As a result of this, “the basic identity was that of the state—any other identity could change as long as that of the state remained firm.”59 Among several issues raised here, two merit some discussion. First, beyond establishing the (constitutional) legality or legitimacy of education for the nation, much of the task or activity and modality of education seems to have proceeded without adequate attention to, or resolution of, the issues and competing “ideals” of both government and the governed. Hence, a major detour from ancient/modern patterns observed above. Second, the contentious issue of identity (esp. national), is hardly dealt with by both contenders: is it abstract or empirical; who achieves it, the elites or the masses; and at what level, the federal or the state?—the latter at once raises questions about our long-assumed definition of political statehood or “stateism” as tribal. The identity issue itself is integral to the widely touted free but funded or “statepaid” education. The matter itself touches on a much wider issue that education in Nigeria and Africa should deal with. It goes back in time to debates over “direct vs. indirect rule” that raged in 1925 in the British “National Review” and the House of Lords. What was the question? “In what capacity is the African likely to be of more service to Africa and to the world, as himself or as somebody more or less an imitation of somebody else?, asked Captain R. S. Rattray, the Gold Coast anthropologist. But these remarks actually were linked to discussion in the “Times” on “the education of the African” to which Canon Roscoe in Uganda presumably gave “a reasoned and weighty reminder of the risks of State-paid, compulsory education in tropical Africa. One of those risks is that the people may no longer feel that education is something of great price, worth working for, traveling long distances for, going without lesser things for.”60 Education can ill afford to remain incidental to identity issues in today’s global culture. What has changed or remained the same in all of this? Ibid., 224. Ibid., 220. Cf. Section 18 of the 1979 (and 1999) Constitution in this regard. 58 Ibid., 218. 59 Ibid., 218-19. 60 Cf. my “Africa’s Search for a Future and the Necessity of Biblical Studies,” New Horizons Vol. 1/1/0504, pp. 4-6 (at: 5)—italics added; orig. article: “Himself or Another,” published on Saturday, January 24, 1925 in the Times [No. 417, Vol. IX] reprinted in West Africa, Issue no. 4210 (24th-30th January 2000) 51. 56 57 The Transformative Role of Education 13 R. O. I-Morphe (JETS & Hokma House) V. CONCLUSION: TRANSFORMING EDUCATION When ethnic, religious, political, colonial/postcolonial factors vie for or influence the educational agenda of a nation, its true stakeholders must seek wisdom to rediscover education’s lasting purposes; deal with emergent “-iza” forces of: modernization, globalization, secularization, indigenization, contextualization and civilization, but without succumbing to their multiple ideologies. The Christian stake in transforming education is high; Christian citizens must reconcile themselves to this fact.