Proverbs and the Common Core

by Ryan O'Dowd

The debate over a national “Common Core” has been in the news constantly lately, as criticism and debate increase among those on the right, life, and center. Politicians and educators wrestle with questions that range from level of content and the pace at which to move to a permanent new standard, to the best way to integrate the curriculum and apply a common standard across groups with highly diverse demographics.

Of course, the Bible doesn’t speak directly to curricular design or diverse educational populations. But the Bible—and Old Testament wisdom literature in particular—does lay out an educational vision that looks very much like what we might call a “common core.” And that core can help us to think critically and productively about the future of a national curriculum.

Let me narrow down this claim considerably to make a few basic points.

First of all, Old Testament scholars agree that the book of Proverbs served as the foundational curriculum to prepare ancient Israelite children for adulthood. Call it Israel’s K-12 education.

Second, Proverbs 1-9, in turn, sets the framework or vision for Hebrew education and learning as a whole. Call these chapters the “reading, writing, and arithmetic” of early primary education in America today.

So let’s take a look at the first nine chapters and three central pillars that form the foundation for Israel’s “common core.”

The First Pillar: Presuppositions
Proverbial education begins with the assumption that “the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). Wisdom is a path we take through life. Faith is the door that we pass through, not just once, but as a prerequisite to the beginning of each day as we live and seek in the hope of being formed into wise people. And that growth in wisdom is organically united with growth in the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2:5).

Too often, we assume that faith and reason are mutually exclusive ways of knowing—that they’re unrelated to one another. But Proverbs sees it differently. In Proverbs, reason is always tethered to—and even grounded in—our faith commitments. To reason well, we daily need to be transformed by “the renewing of our minds” in faith (Rom 12:2).

The Second Pillar: Tradition
Proverbs 1-9 contains ten lectures from a father to a son (1:8, 2:1; 3:1, 4:1, etc.). Chapter 4 stands out among these lectures, because in it the father credits his own father for teaching him wisdom.

Now, some Christians believe that this supports the idea that all children must be homeschooled or in some way get all their instruction from their parents. To this we note that Israel eventually developed ancient schools where teachers were called rabbis or “fathers,” and students were called “sons.” This is probably the context where Proverbs was most often studied.

We should also remember that many—if not most—parents in Israel’s history are depicted as failing their parental duties (David and Solomon in particular). So it would be difficult to argue that the Bible requires homeschooling as we know it today.

What’s more likely going on here is that Proverbs is shaping the way we relate to our culture and history, from the top to the bottom. Said another way, just as the sons and daughters are responsible for listening to their parents—which is one of the very hardest things for children to do at this age!—so too parents and grandparents are socially bound to invest in the development of the next generation.

The spirit of freedom and individualism in modern educational jargon stands in contrast to this proverbial vision of social belonging and intergenerational responsibility.

The Third Pillar: Desire
There are just over 250 sayings in these first nine chapters. 144 of those sayings describe, concern, or quote one of several interrelated women: Woman Wisdom, a wife, Dame Folly, the, adulteress, and the strange woman.

That’s a lot of material about women—over half of the curriculum, in fact. And none of it deals with health or biology. It’s a lot of street talk about sex.

Now, sometimes scholars will explain this oddly overwhelming bout of sexual material by pointing out that the young man addressed in these sayings would naturally be facing the great male adolescent curse of sexual temptation. The father belabors the point to keep his son from sinning.

But if abstinence were the goal, then is saying more really the best method—drawing his son’s attention to the very attractiveness of the adulteress over and over again? Replaying her alluring image and voice will just as likely lead him to imagine her and want her.

The abstinence argument also fails to explain the purpose of the wife and the two cosmic women, Wisdom and Dame Folly. These sexual innuendos point to something else more important.

Indeed, the best reading of this material sees all of these women working to put desire at the heart of the path to wisdom and, thus, at the center of the common core. Desire precedes and guides our thoughts, not vice versa (Proverbs 4:23).

Consequently, knowledge isn’t just a body of valueless and unrelated facts to gather from books and laboratories. Knowledge is an invitation to receive as a divine gift she who watched as God set the heavens and earth in place. To call her “my sister.” To “love” her, “grasp” her, and rejoice that she “delights in us” (7:4; 4:6; 4:8; 3:18; 8:31).

What if the common core, as a preface to all the discussion about method and content, started by asking about the hearts of our children (and our adults)?

And then what if educators went about addressing matters of method and content with the recognition that students can know everything we teach them and yet dishonor their parents, hate their neighbor, fear their future, despise their life, and take from the world rather than give?

Something quite different, I imagine.

So if wisdom is to be so understood as a passionate pursuit of God and the (feminine) knowledge that he gives, then it is a mistake to read Proverbs 31 as a model that women must live up to in their pursuit of womanhood and vocation. But that’s a matter for another time.

(To be continued!)

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