The Currency of Education--Part 1

Information is the currency of education. Trying to educate without information would be like trying to manufacture tricycles with no inventory of steel and other component parts, doing carpentry without wood, farming without animals or crops, or doing masonry without bricks and mortar.
Two sources of information that I think about a lot, and feel some frustration about not being able to access very readily in school are the internet and the natural environment. The former has been considered and, so far, rejected for our school, and, as far as I know, the latter has never been seriously considered by those who set policy. Lack of access to a rich natural environment is a widespread condition in American education. Lack of internet access is much more rare.
I am thankful for the information sources we do have in our school. Curriculum materials come to mind. We also have a modest library containing the most basic reference materials. Every day we have a transfer of information on a person to person basis by word of mouth. We subscribe to a daily paper and a small set of magazines. We are not starving for lack of information, but we are regularly inconvenienced in acquiring it. My instincts suggest that carpenters, farmers, masons, or manufacturers would not be content if they encountered the same inconvenience in procuring the currency of their respective endeavors.
Internet access is difficult to compare with other information sources. Its vastness dwarfs any collection of print information in one location. Immediacy and history are both present. Today’s news is there, as are copies of documents as ancient as the Code of Hammurabi or translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Essays by Elmo Stoll and David Kline or writings by David Bercot or Tertullian or information on MCC’s Fair Trade policy are available. Each of these can be obtained elsewhere, of course, but many of them are out of reach during class preparation time. The wonderful spark of relevance they are capable of adding to a classroom session must be foregone, or the preparation must be done away from school.
The internet is almost unfathomably diverse. Herein lies the reason for caution, even the sense of fear and dread people often express about the internet. Certainly many things are not worthwhile. Even good things may rob people of time better spent otherwise. In this way it is like the currency of many ventures: its potential can be exploited for good or ill.
But we do not limit our use of wood, steel, or bricks because they could be used to construct a house of ill repute. We do not abstain from planting corn because it has at times been used to make corn whiskey. We choose instead to make good use of wood, bricks, steel, and corn, and therefore can handle them with a clear conscience. They are the raw materials of many structures and foods that provide humanity with shelter and sustenance. Similarly, the internet can help illuminate truth, and inspire righteous living, or lead into error and sin. Accessing the internet in front of an “open window” (with a Covenant Eyes accountability partner also looking on) helps assure that its uses stay within the realm of Christian propriety.