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Welcome to breakpoint, a daily look at an ever changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stonestreet. Conservatives often blame the systemic failings of US Public schools on things like wokeness or other progressive indoctrinations that masquerade as education, and there's plenty of blame to be laid there. However, another prior and perhaps bigger widespread problem is destructive classroom behavior by students. According to a Post Covid survey conducted by the American Psychological association, which included nearly 15,000 pre K12 teachers, administrators, staff and counselors, 33% of teachers reported at least one incident of verbal harassment or violence, while 18% of school psychologists, 15% of school administrators, and 22% of other school staff reported at least one violent incident by a student. End quote. The survey also revealed that nearly 50% of all teachers hope to quit or transfer jobs due to school safety concerns. While the root cause of student behavior problems is the widespread breakdown of American families, the adoption of critical theory adjacent ideology in the classroom have only made it worse. Behavioral adjustment approaches that often go by names like social and emotional learning or restorative justice in Education or restorative discipline in the classroom. Reframe classroom discipline around notions of things like fairness, empathy, anti racism, privilege, justice, and inclusion. In some schools, these ideas are baked into every part of the curriculum, including math. Secular educational models like these operate from a naturalistic worldview, specifically ideas that were birthed from secular humanism, a worldview that believes that humans who exist without a supreme Creator will naturally bend toward kindness, altruism, and fairness. In this view, students should not be held responsible for bad behavior, at least not in any significant way, because they themselves are victims rather than consequences which parents often do not support anyway. Students should be understood and reminded to act justly within a Christian worldview. There is a radically different understanding of human relationships, what has been broken between them and how they might be restored. A central aspect of being made in God's image, at least according to the opening chapters of Scripture, are four created relationships that we all relationship with God, our relationship with ourselves, with others, and with the rest of creation. Just as God is a relationship in his very essence, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so also humans do not merely do relationships. We are relational. The core of our problem is that, broken by the Fall, our relationships are also broken, and what we need is restoration. This understanding of humanity offers a far more accurate context for human behavior. In a naturalistic worldview, human beings are merely highly functioning animals, so conflict resolution is a matter of pragmatism whatever works, brings peace, as if student behavior can be corrected through broad disciplinary policies in which no one is really guilty. Now, pragmatic approaches like this might work in the short term, especially given our propensity these days to medicate students so quickly toward acceptable behavior, but they do not address the core of who human beings are and what they really need. Like everywhere else, broken relationships are the root cause of most behavior problems in the classroom. So Christian educators have a much better framework to address the underlying broken relationships that are at stake, a framework that offers reconciliation and restoration, the real kind that's needed for lasting change. A central reason that reimagined secular models do not deliver the results that they promise is that they are based on a flawed understanding of the human person. After all, as T.S. eliot observed decades ago, every answer to the question what is education? Is based on an answer to a prior question, what is man? The current widespread disillusionment with the educational status quo in America offers an incredible opportunity for Christian schools and and Christian educators. However, that means that Christian education has to offer something substantially different and something substantially better. The Colson Educators Program forms Christian teachers to offer what is different and what is better. Educators can begin with a free online self paced course called Worldview Formation 101. In this course, educators learn to understand the ultimate goal of worldview formation, develop lesson plans that incorporate Christian worldview, and create a classroom culture where students faith can grow deep and wide. Sign up for this Worldview Formation course today@colsoneducators.org that's colsoneducators.org for the Colson Center. I'm John Stonestreet with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co authored by Billy Hutchinson. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast, and to learn more about the Colson educators program, visit colsoneducators.org.