Today, in Kansas City, citizens will go to the polls. Across the city, people will vote for those who sit on their local school boards and directly impact the future generation. There is also a vote regarding KC Sports (Royals and Chiefs), with many opponents foaming at the mouth. The question is really more about the good of the city over the individual desires of a few.
Long ago, when I studied Christian Education, I learned about the various educational theories. Education started at a very young age throughout all of the Greek city-states. The Greeks were well known for teaching children art, music, reading, and all aspects of a good education.
Athenians (people who lived in Athens) were recognized as the Greeks most enthusiastic about education. Athenian love of learning manifested itself in many significant accomplishments not only in the liberal arts – where the contributions to tragedy, comedy, philosophy, history, and poetry, but in the areas of medicine and engineering.
One of the things that stuck out for me was that the people of Sparta, who were also Greek, rejected this fashion of learning. The Spartan child, too, began at the young age of 7, joining other children for communal meals, physical education, and the study of law.
However, the focus on Spartan education was much different than that in, say, Athens. Where the Athenians were concerned with classical education, the Spartans focused on training their children to be fearsome, disciplined citizen-soldiers who were the foundation of a powerful city-state.
Spartan culture and education were essentially synonymous, as all aspects of Spartan life were in harmony with its educational ideals and practices. The single goal of their education was to incorporate citizenship into the life of every boy and girl to the degree that the needs of the city were the greatest need of all. Individualism was considered selfish and demonstrated a lack of self-control.
The Athenian obsession with learning undermines their resolve and makes them “easy victims of newfangled arguments, unwilling to follow received conclusions; slaves to every new paradox, despises of the commonplace.[1] This meant they questioned everything and followed every new idea without any loyalty to the past, the culture, or the community.
Decades later, Paul would address this mindset in Christians in his letter to Ephesus. In Ephesians 4:12-14 he writes "to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming."
In her article “Sparta, Athens, and the Surprising Roots of Common Schooling,” Avi Mintz makes the following observation. “Thus, for the Spartans, schooling on the Athenian model leads to questioning law and authority, the precise things that good soldiers must avoid devoting their lives to a common cause, their polis (City), and their fellow citizens.”[2]
She notes that “many are working to return to schools a concern about civic, intellectual, and moral virtues.” Can you imagine the political upheaval to change the goal of education to be moral, smart, and civic minded?
In closing, I truly believe that we have lost the concept of being a good citizen as individualism and personal agendas become the focus of local politics and residents. Maybe anytime we vote, we should ask ourselves, “What is best for the community and my fellow citizens.” This question should be examined through the lens of a Christian worldview of what the Bible supports. If we use the Bible as our guide and think about the best of all citizens, then perhaps we can restore hope for America in our time.
[1] Thucydides, 3.38.5. During the period of democratic and oligarchic revolutions during the Peloponnesian war, Thucydides describes how boldness was prized above prudent investigation and planning. Thucydides writes: “ability to see all sides of a question, incapacity to act on any.”
[2] Mintz, Avi, Sparta, Athens, and the Surprising Roots of Common Schooling, (Philosophy of Education Society, Urbana, Il. 2019) 111-112.
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