Jennifer Burns

Oh, it's so good to be with you all. So happy to wrap up our Ed summit. Thank you for being with us. You know, I wear many hats, and one of my favorite hats to wear is that a formal logic teacher to wide eyed seventh graders. Basically, I teach argumentative tweens how to argue. Well, the first thing that I teach them is how to define terms by their essential attributes. In other words, the thing that makes the thing the thing. So for example, the thing that makes a triangle a thing is that it's a figure with three sides. The thing that makes a calculator, the thing is that it computes numbers. And the thing that makes an oven an oven. Right. It heats food. Absolutely. So you get the point. It seems so obvious, but we get this wrong all the time. We often get distracted by the superfluous, the color of the oven, the brand of the oven, whether it's powered by electricity or gas. And other times we get caught up in the outliers. The oven heats, but the temperature gauge is off or one side of the oven heats better than the other. These uniquenesses distract us from focusing on what makes an oven an oven, its essential attribute, its purpose. Defining key terms by their essential attributes is critical when we're evaluating arguments about faults, far more important things than ovens. And a crucial debate that we've been having lately is what should we do about education? So it begs the question, what is education's essential attribute? What makes education education? Well, I would say that education's essential attribute, its purpose, its reason for existing, is its ability to prepare our children for their designed purpose. So how would you describe the designed purpose of a child? How would the teachers in your school, how would the parents in your community imagine for one moment that you have a child with an obvious innate talent in something like math or music or sports? Their purpose seems as clear as day. They're going one day to be an engineer, a musician, a professional athlete, and as their parent, you would make sure that your child's nature and talents are developed in such a way that they flourish. You might even make sure that they learn at the feet of a master math tutorial, or an award winning music teacher, or a pro sports coach to ensure that that child turns into an adult that is reaching their full potential. But most people don't have that blossoming prodigy in their house. However, we still want productive citizens. So we tend to believe that a child's purpose is to learn how to read and, and write and calculate, get good grades, get into a good college, make a good living, pay their fair share of taxes and do more good than harm. So for the sake of argument, let's just say that that's our purpose. Is education doing its job? Is it preparing children for that purpose? Well over one third of students fall behind the most basic reading and math competency levels. In my great state of Illinois, only 38% of white students are reading at grade level. And oh, it gets worse. 18% of Hispanic students and 11% of black students are reading at grade level. Yet. Yet there is an 80% graduation rate. You do the math on that one. Wait, you can't. Because In Illinois, only 32% of students are at grade level in math. It's so sad. So if the purpose of a child is simply and narrowly to grow into a good earner and good consumer in a system, in our system, our education system is doing about as good as an oven that freezes food. The British would say that our education system isn't fit for purpose precisely. But our education system isn't the only problem. We've missed the the mark. We've put the bullseye on the wrong target. The Bible tells us that the Creator of the world, who needs nothing, created us to glorify him and enjoy him forever. In John 10:10, Jesus says, I came so that they might live and live more abundantly. Christ wants us to have life and his life, full, rich, flourishing in goodness, always loving our neighbor, stewards of all that he's given us, and full praise for the marvelous beauty that he has created. He wants us to be so much more than producers and consumers. He wants us truly to have the glory of of God is truly being that we live in this fully, that we are fully alive. If education's essential attribute is that it prepares our children for their design purpose, and their designed purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And the education system removes him completely from its hallowed halls. We have been sold this beautiful Vikings range with a six burner cooktop, stunning red front and convection without a heating element. So who did it? Who's to blame? Is it that 1962 Supreme Court who banned prayer in school? Is it John Dewey? Or is it Rousseau? Or is it Locke doing a post mortem on education to figure out what exactly or who killed it? Well, that's interesting, but that's not as productive as taking a closer look at the kids who are thriving our bright spots. In a wonderful book entitled Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. They feature a story of a man named Jerry Sternin who on the request of his employer, Save the Children, which is an international organization that helps kids in need. He moved to Vietnam to tackle the overwhelming problem of malnutrition that was rampant in the poverty stricken country with poor sanitation and impure water. Malnutrition, poverty, poor sanitation, dirty water, these are big problems. And the deadline of six months to turn things around. If Vegas was taking bets on this one, odds would not be in Jerry's favor. So when faced with big problems, we naturally try to come up with an equally big solution to solve it. We're like the captain of the Titanic trying to find an iceberg sized plug to fill the hole. And this is overwhelming and exhausting and often completely ineffective. It's ineffective when we try to solve big problems like the poverty, like malnutrition, but also education. So instead of looking for all that is broken, I'd like to encourage you to reorient yourself, to seek out what is working. And that's just what Jerry did. Bad bet. Jerry traveled to the local villages and he weighed and measured every child in the village, and he found children who were bigger and healthier than the typical child of the destitute area. And he interviewed those parents to find out what they were doing. And it turns out that a typical child in the village ate twice a day, and they ate food that was deemed appropriate for children, like soft foods, like rice. But in families with these healthier children, moms were feeding their children the same amount of rice, but over four meals. And when they went into the rice paddies, they were picking these small crabs and small shrimp and they were mixing those in, but that was supposed to be bad for children. And they also added these sweet potato greens, and that was considered to be low class food. But these moms didn't let conventional wisdom or stereotypes get in their way. They did what they thought was right for their children. And it worked. In an area of extreme poverty and malnourishment, there were bright spots. And where there are bright spots, there's hope. But now what? What? Some big government led campaign to add shrimp and greens four times a day? No, see, Jerry understood that simply telling moms about nutrition wasn't going to do the trick. It was practice and the resulting positive behavior that would result in that change. The community designed a program where small groups of malnourished families would meet daily and prepare food together. And within six months, 65% of those children were better nourished, and they stayed that way. And today the program has reached over 2 million million children and 265 villages. And it's drastically improved the nutrition rate of Vietnamese children. The starving children of Vietnam were a huge problem that countless experts, by the way, had analyzed and agonized over. The water supply, the sanitation, the poverty, the ignorance. It was huge. And they had written position papers and research documents and development plans and nothing had changed. See, it's the natural diversity of human experience and the courage and creativity of feisty parents that can reveal unintentional successes. Bright spots from which we can learn that big problems, they can be attacked successfully in small little ground up ways, like the faith the size of a mustard seed that can move mountains. Sadly, people do what conventional wisdom teaches them, even when it's failing. Those moms of malnourished children surely loved their children as much as the better nourished ones, but they were trapped in conventional thinking. But success comes from out of the box thinking. And ordinary people can take responsibility for implementing a solution with their very own hands. See, the problem of education. It's massive and the stakes are high. But good transformative education can come like a phoenix out of the ashes from the bright sparks that are already kindling. Many of you in this room are the sparks that have created bright spots in your communities. Some of you are public school teachers who nourish your students with great works of literature in lieu of the suggested drivel to jor. Some of you are charter school founders who cannot allow God inside your building. But you have faithful parents who are praying outside each day, children who bring God in those doors. Some of you have taken on the woke school boards and you're winning. And some of you are pastors who realize that school business is church business and that you open your doors not only on Sunday morning, but every day of the week. Some of you are radically and creatively thinking about what what school could and should be rather than what it has been. And you're working to make your vision come to life. Some of you are courageous parents who have broken free from the government schools and are running toward an education that's worthy of your children. At Turning Point Academy, we are committed to finding those bright spots spots and multiplying them. And one such bright spot is that small school in Barrington, Illinois started by a woman who felt very inadequate but desired to truly be obedient to God and partnered with a kingdom minded church and dedicated parents to provide an exceptional God centered classical education for a fraction of the price of of a traditional private school. Throughout that school's 17 years of faithful ministry, it has served hundreds of Families seen thousands of students become good critical thinkers, win some speakers, successful college students and graduates of some of the best schools in the country. Engineers, artists, pastors, teachers, husbands, wives, community and church leaders, parents, and most importantly, young men and young women who glorify God and enjoy Him. Turning Point Academy is helping people around the country start and grow this kind of model of school. Christian, classical, conservative, church based and cost affordable. But we aren't stopping there. Turning Point Academy is committed to finding these sparks and fanning them into flame. Turning Point Academy wants to be like Paul was to Timothy, the multiplier of light. We are bringing together sparks to encourage them and to give them a platform to inspire others through through our Turning Point Academy Association. And I hope you'll join us if you haven't already. See, our massive education problem is not going to be solved by some huge government sized plug. Our educationally malnourished children will be fed in the same way the children of the poor Vietnamese villages were nursed back to health by families coming together, armed with a system that works, supported by an organization that cares to multiply the bright spots and bask in the light of the glorious results. One way Turning Point is helping nourish the next generation is by providing great educational resources free of charge. Thanks to the generous donors of Turning Point, we have three wonderful options. One is our Constitution Kit. This is a five day unit study that is designed for third through fifth grade students. We have a classroom version and we have a homeschool version of this kit. It talks about our founders and the founding of our country and the Constitution. The second resource that we have is a current events curriculum called How We Got Here and it features Dr. Bill Federer. It is made for our middle school students and high school students. We drop a video that's about 10 to 15 minutes each week and it features Dr. Bill Federer and we have a one page supplement that goes along with it. And the third thing that we provide is an economics curriculum for our high school students with David Bonson.