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Educate the Child Toward What? Examining the Telos of Modern Education

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” — Proverbs 22:6

“There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion.” — John Dewey, A Common Faith (1934)

Introduction: What Are We Educating For?

Every form of education has a goal — even if it refuses to admit it. The Greek word telos means end, purpose, or goal. It’s the answer to the question:


“What kind of person are we trying to form?”

You can give a child all the academic tools in the world — reading, writing, and arithmetic — but if you never answer that foundational question, you’re just training technicians, not citizens… and certainly not saints.

This blog post will explore the major schools of thought in education — Christian, Classical, Progressive (especially as it dominates public schools), and the growing hybrid of Classical Christian education. We’ll discuss:

  • The history behind these systems
  • The purpose (telos) each one aims toward
  • The worldwview shaping each model
  • How these systems are producing radically different kinds of people
  • And why the public school system today, far from being “neutral,” is functionally a faith system aimed at forming voters, not virtuous souls

Key Terms to Know

  • Telos – Purpose, aim, or end goal of an educational system.
  • Worldview – The lens through which a person sees and interprets life, morality, truth, and meaning.
  • Progressive Education – A secular, relativistic system rooted in the ideas of John Dewey, dominant in public schools today.
  • Classical Education – A tradition-based system that emphasizes virtue, logic, rhetoric, and historical learning.
  • Christian Education – An approach where the goal is Christlikeness and knowledge of God in all subjects.
  • Classical Christian Education – A hybrid approach using classical methods with a thoroughly Christian worldview.
  • Functional Faith – A belief system treated as morally binding and comprehensive, even if it is not formally religious.

The Christian Education Model

Telos: To form children into the likeness of Christ

History and Foundations

Christian education begins with the conviction that God is the Author of all truth, and every subject — from math to literature — points to His glory.

Historically, this model draws from:

  • The Bible as the foundation of wisdom and knowledge
  • Church Fathers and Reformers like Augustine, Luther, and Calvin who insisted education must shape both the mind and the soul
  • Scriptures such as Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6 that command parents and teachers to train children in the fear of the Lord

Core Principles

  • God created mankind in His image
  • Sin has marred human nature, requiring redemption
  • Jesus Christ is the center of all knowledge and life
  • The goal of education is not success or college admission, but sanctification and godliness

The Child’s Formation

Christian education seeks to cultivate:

  • Wisdom
  • Virtue
  • Moral courage
  • A worldview submitted to Scripture
  • An eternal perspective: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?”

The Classical Education Model

Telos: To form virtuous, wise citizens capable of critical thought and moral action

History and Foundations

Classical education traces its roots to Ancient Greece and Rome, shaped by thinkers like:

  • Plato and Aristotle – education as the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness
  • Cicero and Quintilian – emphasis on rhetoric and moral character
  • Thomas Aquinas – Christianized classical virtue with biblical theology

Core Principles

  • The trivium: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric
  • The liberal arts: training free citizens to think, speak, and act well
  • Cultivation of virtue (arete) and wisdom through historical, literary, and philosophical study

The Child’s Formation

This system seeks to shape:

  • A reasoning, articulate citizen
  • A morally grounded leader
  • A participant in the civic and cultural life of a nation

Note: When untethered from Christian truth, classical education can drift into elitism or moral relativism.

The Progressive Education Model (Public Schools Today)

Telos: To create compliant, progressive-minded individuals who serve the state and “social good” as defined by political elites

History and Foundations

Progressive education was born in the early 20th century through John Dewey, an avowed secular humanist.

“Faith in the prayer-hearing God is an unproved and outmoded faith.” — John Dewey

Dewey believed education should not transmit fixed truths but adapt children to a constantly changing society. He rejected:

  • Transcendent morality
  • Religious faith
  • Objective truth

Instead, he envisioned schools as labs for social change.

Core Principles

  • Child-centered learning
  • Values clarification (relativism)
  • “Critical thinking” that undermines moral absolutes
  • Group identity over individual character
  • Emotional “wellness” over intellectual rigor

What Type of Person Is Formed?

Today’s progressive schools (most public schools) are designed to produce:

  • Activists for social justice
  • Voters who support progressive policies (climate, DEI, abortion rights, gender ideology)
  • Individuals detached from family, church, and tradition

This is not accidental — it is the implicit telos of the system. Consider these facts:

  • Many schools use curriculum embedded with Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, and anti-capitalist messaging
  • Children are taught to question parental authority and traditional morality
  • Values like equity and inclusion are given moral weight, while religious convictions are marginalized

Dewey again: “Education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness.”

Translation? Schools are training children to share the values of progressive elites.

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The Classical Christian Hybrid

Telos: To restore wisdom, virtue, and truth in Christ through the structure of classical learning

This model takes the best of classical education and roots it in the Bible. Schools like those in the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS) aim to:

  • Train children in reason, logic, rhetoric
  • Immerse them in the Great Books of Western civilization
  • Ground all truth in God’s revelation

This model produces:

  • Biblically literate, culturally aware students
  • Individuals prepared to discern worldviews, not absorb them blindly
  • Disciples of Christ who are also skilled thinkers

Do Educators Know the Telos They Promote?

Teachers

Most teachers in public schools do not fully realize the ideological purpose of the system. They are trained in:

  • Techniques, not philosophy
  • Outcomes, not worldview
  • “Best practices,” not biblical truth

But whether they know it or not, they are transmitting a worldview.

Administrators and Policy Makers

These leaders are more aware:

  • Many push DEI, gender theory, and “equity” initiatives
  • Some openly mock Christian values or label dissenters “extremists”
  • They partner with political movements to reform society through schools

In short: they are catechizing the next generation — just not into Christianity.

Is Progressive Education a Functional Faith?

Yes. This is perhaps the most critical point of all.

The modern educational system:

  • Has moral doctrines (equity, inclusion, climate justice)
  • Has sacred texts (DEI handbooks, SEL guides, activist literature)
  • Has heretics (parents who oppose gender ideology, Christians who resist CRT)
  • Has priests and prophets (professors, bureaucrats, and celebrities who preach the new morality)

In rejecting biblical faith, public schools have not become neutral — they’ve simply substituted a different faith.

This is why Christian faith is excluded — not because the school is neutral, but because it is already functionally religious, just with a secular god.

Resources for Further Study

🔹 Books

  • John Dewey, A Common Faith (understand the secular foundation)
  • Douglas Wilson, The Case for Classical Christian Education
  • Neil Postman, The End of Education (explores education’s loss of moral direction)

🔹 Videos and Lectures

  • Indoctrinating Our Children – Voddie Baucham on YouTube
  • The Death of Education, The Rise of Indoctrination – PragerU
  • The Truth About Progressive Education – American Center for Transforming Education
  • What Is Classical Christian Education? – ACCS.org and Canon+ Resources

🔹 Organizations

Conclusion: Recovering Children’s Souls

If education is about forming a child toward a particular end, then we must ask:

Which end are we aiming at?
Which image are we shaping?

  • The image of Christ, or the image of the State?
  • A mind rooted in eternal truth, or a spirit shaped by temporary political trends?

Christian parents, pastors, and citizens: we cannot afford to remain neutral. The system isn’t. Progressive education has a telos — and it’s not neutrality.

It’s time to rebuild. It’s time to restore. It’s time to educate children toward Christ.

S.D.G.,

Robert Sparkman

rob@basedchristianity.org

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