For me, the issue is not whether these new technologies are  going to affect education -- of course they are. The issue is where and how we categorize it all -- which was my point about the enhanced library. This is the basic distinction I was making there. You either learn from someone you know personally, or from someone you do not know personally. If it is the latter, then it is enhanced library learning -- with the difference that I might be fooled into thinking otherwise with the new technologies. Reading Augustine is not likely to make the student think that he knows him, but if we had a recorded video series of that great man's lectures, and we got to watch his gestures and that little facial tick, we might come to think (erroneously) that we did know him. This is a mistake I see happening everywhere, and which I am trying to head off. I don't think the full force of what Jesus taught in Luke 6:40 is possible without face-to-face relationship at the beating heart of education.

Now I say this as someone who has used available technologies for spreading the word my entire adult life. So I currently stand condemned in all these ways -- I blog, I write books, I tweet all over tarnation, my sermons are recorded in both audio and video, they are made available for smart phones, I helped edit the Omnibus textbook series for homeschoolers, and I will be teaching an online seminar for Logos Press in the fall. Mea maxima culpa.

My position might be compared, at some disadvantage to myself, to that of Jehu in his chariot, whipping his horses into a froth, while simultaneously yelling whoa.

In line with this, I recently got a note from a friend pointing to what he thought was an inconsistency between these Logos Press online offerings, and all the cautionary kibbitzing I have done in the past (and am doing right this minute). But again, as before, it is not what we are doing that concerns me -- it is what we think we are doing.

So with that said, let me begin with Mortimer Adler's breakdown of education into the categories of didactic, coaching, and seminar. I believe there is room for disagreement on the percentages he assigns to them, but for the sake of discussion, let's start there.

I take Levi's distinction between distance learning and blended learning in account, and also assume the coaching and seminar leading is face-to-face. This does address the concerns about "disembodiment" that I have expressed, but there are still a couple of other practical problems.

First, a bus company has to run on a schedule -- they can't have the bus go whenever ten or more passengers have collected at the bus stop. That would play old Harry with all the other potential passengers at all the other bus stops all over the city. So even if the students are self-paced in the didactic phase, they would still have to be ready "by the time the bus leaves." And enough of them would have to be ready by the time the bus left. Otherwise, you won't be able to keep your coaches employed. In other words, we find a host of logistical detail here that needs to be taken into full account.

And second, the coach or mentor (or seminar leader) will either be on top of the material, or he will not be. He will either be a true teacher himself, or he will be a facilitator/coordinator/study hall monitor. If he is the latter, it will be hard for the bright students to see the value added. But if he is the former, it will not be long before his students will want to hear his voice added to the didactic portion of the education -- and we are back in regular old school where we started.  

There is obviously much more that can be said about all this, and so I appreciate the thoughtfulness that Levi has put into this question. And speaking of questions, let me conclude by addressing the questions that Levi presented to me.

How do age-segregated classrooms prepare students for adult life?

The fundamental principle here is not age-segregation, but rather ability-segregation, for which age-segregation is simply the first rough draft. Students who surge ahead or who lag behind can always be sorted accordingly, and always have been. Sometimes proud parents want to believe their children are being hampered by "the system" when all they are doing is being a regular kid. We have to be careful here of the Lake Woebegone effect -- where all the children are above average.

What are some resources that will correct the “nonsense being spouted about the history of education?”

I would recommend some of the footnotes I supply in The Case for Classical Christian Education. In particular, I would recommend histories of education written simply as histories. The point here is not a complicated one -- we have had classrooms for a long time. It is not a modernity thing at all.

Do you believe that a lecture-based school is the best method of delivering information? If so, why?

Well, no, I don't, but here is a common confusion -- a classroom-based school is not the same thing as a lecture-based school. A well-run classrom is going to have a healthy component of each one of Adler's categories. There will be didactic instruction, there will be coaching and mentoring, and there will be robust discussion. Those are good categories, essential to a good school, and is part of our common ground. A school that just has all its teachers talking 24-5 is a big dud.

Do you believe that there might be legitimate alternative methods in which a student will be forced to learn the lesson “life is not all about you?” Do you believe that our present school model is the best way to do this?

Yes, I believe there is more than one way to skin that cat. And I also assume that education will look very different one hundred years from now. But I also believe that the present school model is the best departure point for that future. I want a balance of maintaining what we have already attained while at the same time adapting to what God is giving us.

Postscript: technology also has its hazards. This post was delayed in coming because my new computer froze up yesterday, and ate the first draft of this response. So it is not all cake.

Now it happened that a small force with Abner ran across a small force with Joab at Gibeon (vv. 12-13). Abner proposes some sort of tournament or ritual combat, and Joab agrees (v. 14). Twelve men from each side came out, and they all slew each other (v. 15-16). The tournament erupted into a battle, and it went badly for Abner (v. 17). There were three sons of Zeruiah (1 Chron. 2:16), who was David’s sister. These men were Joab, Abishai, and Asahel, who was very swift (v. 18). Asahel made a point of pursuing Abner, who twice tried to stop Asahel from chasing him (vv. 19-22). Finally, Abner struck Asahel with the butt of his spear and killed him (v. 23). Joab and Abishai pursued Abner until sundown (v. 24), when Abner was able to regroup with his men at the top of a hill (v. 25). Abner calls upon Joab to halt (v. 26), which Joab decides to do (vv. 27-28). Abner and his men traveled all night back to Mahahaim (v. 29), just as Joab and his men traveled back to Hebron the same way (v. 32). When the tally was made, the fatalities were disproportionate in favor of David’s men (vv. 30-31).

Hebron and Mahanaim:
To get a lay of the land, David’s temporary “capital” was about 55 miles southwest of Mahanaim, where Ish-bosheth was located. David’s territory was due west of the Dead Sea, and Ish-bosheth “controlled” both sides of the Jordan north of the Dead Sea. Gibeon was in the border area about halfway between. It is likely that Ish-bosheth was headquartered east of the Jordan because the Philistines made things dicey to the west.

Hebron was an important city in Judah, and had been associated with Abraham (e.g. Gen. 13:18), and was a Levitical city (Josh. 21:13).

The discrepancy between the length of Ish-bosheth’s reign and David’s here is likely accounted for by the time it took for Ish-bosheth to consolidate his reign, and the time it took all Israel to acknowledge David after Ish-bosheth’s death.

Getting to Know Abner:
Abner was a noble character, despite being in opposition to David. He sets Ish-bosheth on the throne instead of taking it himself, for example. Abner was Saul’s cousin, and captain of his army (1 Sam. 14:50), and clearly had the power to make himself king. He was not worried about Asahel killing him; he was worried about how he would face Joab if he was forced to kill him. He and Joab knew each other—having apparently studied at West Point together—but Abner was clearly not cold-blooded the way Joab was.

Terrible War:
“I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war” (Ps. 120:7). Robert E. Lee once said that it was good that war was so terrible—otherwise we would grow too fond of it. And of all wars, civil wars are the worst. The eagerness with which the twenty-four warriors dispatched one another was a grim foreshadowing of what was to come. Asahel’s single-minded pursuit of Abner (and glory for himself) is another indicator of how these things go. And Abner’s vain desire to keep things constrained show us another side of this kind of conflict.

How Envy Devours:
Subsequent events will show that not only were David and Ish-bosheth rival kings, but that Abner and Joab were rival military commanders. What would happen to Joab if someone of Abner’s caliber came over to David’s side? Joab knew the answer to that question, and he acted accordingly. He was shrewd, but still a fool.

When John the Baptist gave way to Jesus, he said that Christ would increase, and the he would decrease. Jesus taught us to defer to one another, to take the lowest seat, to become the servant of all. But in countless situations, we still jockey for position, we still throw elbows. We would rather be the biggest frog in the smallest pond than to have much more than we do and be the seventeenth biggest frog in the biggest pond. If there were a button in front of you that would make you, a poor person, and all other poor people in the world, twice as well-off, but it would also make every rich person five times better off, would you push it?

This is not just a matter of income, or status, or military power. James asks us to figure out where conflicts in our midst come from (Jas. 4:1-7). Do they not come from desire that wars within our members?

Because of this, many would rather be a Joab—a wrong man on the right side—than an Abner, a right man on the wrong side. This is because we are trying to write the narrative of the world in big block letters, and we want it to shake out simplistically. There are, of course, two other options, but never become the kind of person who hides personal sin behind a righteous cause.

When someone calls you on it, you have to make deaf the part of you that knows their rebuke to be true, and you have to make the gullible you blink uncomprehendingly, perhaps with tears in those eyes. You have to manage the whole enterprise most carefully, which means the managerial you has to be in on the secret, and yet allow the managerial you to be somewhat sincere when protesting your innocence. This is what self-deception involves. You have to lie to you, and you have to buy it, and then you have to walk away from that encounter grateful that you didn’t ask too many questions. This is self-deception.

This is a deep trap, and so, not surprisingly, the Bible posts warning signs for us. The first lesson is that the Bible—the perfect law of liberty—is the only mirror which can enable us to identify this gross problem in ourselves (Jas. 1:25). Consequently, the self-deceived have to practice a little trick whenever they encounter the Word, whether in their Bible reading, or in sermons, etc. They have to disconnect hearing from doing (Jas. 1:22), which is the besetting sin of those in orthodox churches. Let hearing good stuff substitute for doing good stuff.

So we deceive ourselves when we shy away from application (Jas. 1:22). We deceive ourselves when we minimize our own sin (1 John 1:8-10). We deceive ourselves when we take our standards for evaluating ourselves from the world’s wisdom instead of the wisdom of Christ (1 Cor. 3:18). And of course, we deceive ourselves when we allow ourselves to flatter ourselves. “For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself” (Gal. 6:3).

So as we come to confess our sins, let us take special care to ask the Lord to show us ourselves as we ought to see ourselves.

Adam was a public person—that is, we were in him when he sinned. His sin was ours, and was justly reckoned to us. But the last Adam is also a public person—we believers were in Him, and were justly represented in Him, when He refused sin. His obedience was ours, and was justly reckoned or imputed to us.

When Adam reached for the fruit, in that fatal moment, the hand and arm which reached out toward it were your hand and arm. The fact that you were entailed in sin from the moment of your conception is no injustice to you. Adam represented you well. But there is glory on the flip side of this as well. When Jesus extended His hands and arms so that He might be bound and led away (Matt. 27:2), those were your hands and arms as well. His obedience in His suffering is imputed to You as well.

This is why you can come to partake of this meal at all. You come to partake of Jesus Christ in the name of Jesus Christ, and on the basis of His perfect obedience which has been credited, reckoned, and imputed to you. Our salvation is necessarily corporate. We must partake of Jesus Christ in order to be able to partake of Jesus Christ.

You must be worthy to come, but your worth is found in coming. You must be clean to come, but the cleansing is here. You must partake in faith, but faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Listen then to the Word of God.

Come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.

We live in exciting pedagogical times, and the arrival of many more options in distance learning via the Internet really is exciting -- and promising. At the same time, people are still the same as they always were, and one of the things that people have always done with new technologies is draw false inferences. Sometimes the next big thing isn't, as those with vintage 8-track collections might be able to tell you.

First adapters can be visionaries or idiots, and it is sometimes hard to tell. I say all this as a preface to some cautionary notes about our newest boom town in education. And please keep in mind that I am saying all this, not as a critic, but as a participant. Okay, if you want, you could make that a participating critic, or a critical participant.

In any case, in the middle of this start-up educational reformation, there is a lot of nonsense being spouted about the history of education, and we are unlikely to get the future right if we insist on getting the past all wrong. One of the ways to tell the visionaries from the chumps is to look carefully at how carefully connected to the past it all is.

Southwest Airlines burst onto the scene the way it did because it was not really competing with the established airlines. Their business model was to compete with the Greyhound bus -- to go after a clientele that had never flown before. The explosion of e-readers is turning out not to be the competitor of the book, but rather of the paperback. And . . . wait for it . . . distance learning of our modern, souped-up variety competes, not with genuine schools, but rather with libraries.

Lose you? Think of it this way. We have always had distance learning -- that's what a letter is, or a book. The original book of Ephesians was an example of divinely-inspired distance learning. For the Ephesians themselves, it was geographical distance, and for us in this generation it is geographical, chronological, linguistic, and cultural distance. There is a lot of distance between my thoughts and Paul's as we contemplate together what is meant by all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places -- and an enormous amount of blessing has crossed that distance nonetheless. So, in this sense, three cheers for distance learning. God loves it. But as He loves it, He knows what it is.

Not only have we always had such letters, books, and libraries, we have always had bookworm nerds who needed to get out of those libraries, and blink in the sunshine for a bit. They needed to go out to the sandlot with the other boys (other boys? what's that?) and get clocked on the forehead with a sweet line drive. Do that boy a world of good. This is because community -- the blessing of other people -- is not something that can ever be dragged and dropped.

So let us think like adults, not children. Community means people nearby, and that means people needing to be organized. And organization in community is a mark of good discipline, not a mark of capitulation to Enlightenment categories. I have seen a goodly amount of recent chatter that equates any kind of age-segregated classroom learning with the Prussian model of education, where we make all the little children sit in straight-line rows, so that they can be made to sit still while our robotic educative arm pours knowledge into their wee heads. And seriously, the Prussians were pretty bad, while the early American education johnnies who wanted to be like them were really bad too. But God's covenant people have had classrooms since the Jews established their first schools after the Babylonian exile, and Jesus graduated from Nazareth High. Every synagogue had as one of its officers a schoolmaster --a chazzan (Luke 4:20)-- and for all these many centuries all of these covenant folks had only a passing knowledge of things Prussian.

The Prussians, being both modernists and Germans, a bad combination, tried to turn all classrooms into knowledge factories, and that was bad. But they didn't invent the classroom from scratch, for pity's sake. They didn't invent kids learning how to stand in a line -- and if they did, good for them.

If you sign up for one of the online classes that Logos Press is offering this fall (as indeed, I hope you do), everything hinges on what you are comparing it to. Is that class a wonderful, interactive textbook, or is it a two-dimensional classroom? If the former, it is really cool. If the latter, then it is a great temptation.

One of the central reasons it presents such a temptation is that it is really convenient -- and one of the great blessings of community is that it is so inconvenient. Seriously. Your child has to be at the school by eight in the morning, even though he is not a morning person, didn't have time for a balanced breakfast, and has to deal with other kids who are not as sweet to him as his mother is. That is why it is so good for him. There is a macro-lesson underneath all the other lessons when it comes to working inside the framework of an established school. That macro-lesson is that life is not all about you.  

Is your car a really fast chariot, or a really slow airplane? When we make adult evaluations of education delivery platforms, we always must ask the basic question, "compared to what?" When I have to travel without my wife, today I can stay far more connected to her than I could do when traveling thirty years ago, for which I render thanks for the technology . . . but traveling without her is still for the birds. Compared to what?

Those who are using technology wisely are those who are using it to help them eventually connect with other people, in real time, on the ground. The goal is life together, and that means breathing the same air in the same room. It may take a while to get there, but that should always be the goal. In the meantime, I would much rather have my grandchildren studying in a good online course of study than in a bad brick and mortar school. This is for the same reason that I would rather have them go to a good library than to a bad school. Of course again. Remember, compared to what?

But anybody who might reverse this, walking away from a good school in order to chase knowledge "in the cloud" has already got his head in that cloud. He would rather read a book in the great cyber-library of the sky, especially if the book vigorously denounces Gnosticism, than to go out and deal with actual people on a daily basis -- which necessarily elicits from us this thing called love.