Should Women Be Teachers?

The following E-mail was received on 11/6/1997:

"I read your comments on Christa McAuliffe. I got the impression that you considered women teaching to be sinful. Please elaborate. Are you saying that the teaching should be a male-only occupation? Does this include college, grades K through 12, and preschool? Am I taking this out of context? I am really curious."

PRELIMINARY NOTES:

Much of what is wrong with society today stems from the lack of male influence during the formative years of children. Proper male influence is particularly important in regard to boys though it is also recognized as being very important in regard to girls. The important and beneficial influence fathers have on their children cannot be over emphasized.

There is much difference between males and females in both their methods and patterns of thought and of learning processes. Men and women both have normative tasks in this life and each are designed according to the needs of these natural roles. (IMPORTANT: Because men and women have existing temporal differences and tasks does not mean that their spiritual goals are different, or that in the sight of God one sex is preferred to or is better than the other. In God's sight physical appearance, intellectual abilities, environmental factors, etc. are gifts which can be used as assets or obstacles. How these variables are perceived and utilized, within a proper faith perspective, ultimately determines our eternal relationship with God. In essence, no one is created with advantages or disadvantages in regard to one's ultimate destination, Heaven or Hell, or in regard to their relationship with God.)
Degree of ignorance, individual circumstances, and contemporary conditions must be taken into consideration when making moral evaluations concerning sinfulness of acts. It is important to keep in mind that in regard to whether an act is condemnatory is dependant upon God's final judgement. It is useful to understand that God's granting of mercy is dependant upon the reality of each person's faith and upon consequent sincere repentance. God's mercy is freely offered, but the granting of it is conditional.

SUMMARY: Women, except for having authority over their own sons under the age of 20, should not have control/authority over males over the age of reason under most circumstances. I have read excellent articles written by some women and have heard great lectures by a few women. When placed in a proper context and setting, under sound male oversight, the resources of women may (speculatively speaking) be used. A major danger that exists comes from "position acceptance / prominence" which can and often does lead to abuses. People look for direction, for authority, but are frequently misled by appearances (handsome, pretty, etc.), by unrelated skills (movie stars, athletes, etc.) or by smoothness of words (politicians, con men, etc.) -- President Bill Clinton is an excellent example of what can happen when control is given to an unqualified and/or immoral person. (While it is another subject it should be noted that if women did not have the right to vote Bill Clinton would not be president.)

The following is presented for consideration: Only self-supporting males 30 years of age an older should have the right to vote. NOTE: Jesus was 30 years of age when He entered public ministry. I believe that it was a valid consideration of that age, that prior to age 30 men had insufficient stability and insufficient life experience to be considered to have enough wisdom to be regarded with esteem. While social conditions have changed and the sciences have developed, human nature in mortal life has not and will not ever change; only fools believe otherwise. (Perceived exceptions, regardless of the degree to which they might be real, do not alter the general rule.)

Recent generations of children, both male and female, have largely been taught by women.
Two relevant questions are:

Have women sinned by positional teaching of males above the age of reason?
Have boys, by having women as teachers, progressed as much as they would have with properly motivated male teachers?

The answers to either of these questions involves a lot of open-mindedness with honest reflection. Developed explanations are too involved for this document even though the actual answers are relatively easy.

Not unless they knew and understood the Word of God and there was in place a system whereby they could properly be replaced by qualified male teachers.
Again the answer is no simply because males process thought differently and are motivated differently than females. Women have difficulty solving problems with unpredetermined variables and with the processing of complex thoughts. Also, women are easily confused by the processes of men's logic. (A whole new systematic of education should be established for males as our present system has been formatted along patterns best suited to females. While some courses can utilize some female teaching methods, others courses, for boys and men, should use a much different approach. Normal females learn largely by rote. Normal males benefit from conceptual learning.

Past the age of reason males and females should be taught in separate classrooms. This would allow both groups to more fully develop their potential. At around the age of twelve it would be preferable --because of the growing influence of hormones in their lives-- to separate them into different schools. (NOTE: These subjects require much reflection and development.)

Much adverse reaction to the above, from both men and women, is to be expected. This will be due either to preconditioning or to a lack of spiritually oriented faith. While confirmed agnostics, atheists, and the immoral are not expected to accept the above, it is believed that overall, at least in time, faith and reason will prevail.

COMMENT: The following passages from the Word of God should sustain the positions taken if the concept that equality on earth is not the important consideration.

1 Tim. 2:11-15 A woman must receive instruction silently and under complete control. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. Further, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed. But she will be saved through motherhood, provided women persevere in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

Genesis 3:17 To the man he said: "Because you listened* to your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, "Cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. (*listened - in the sense of hearing and acting without analyzing whether what she said was correct and good. Women talk and are heard. This is good [of God's design] in regard to the training of speech of the young, in basic and routine instruction, and in social communications. )

1 Cor. 14:32-38 Indeed, the spirits of prophets are under the prophets' control, since he is not the God of disorder but of peace. As in all the churches of the holy ones, women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not allowed to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. But if they want to learn anything, they should ask their husbands at home. For it is improper for a woman to speak in the church. Did the word of God go forth from you? Or has it come to you alone? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet or a spiritual person, he should recognize that what I am writing to you is a commandment of the Lord. If anyone does not acknowledge this, he is not acknowledged.

1 Tim. 5:11-15 But exclude younger widows, for when their sensuality estranges them from Christ, they want to marry and will incur condemnation for breaking their first pledge. And furthermore, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers but gossips and busybodies as well, talking about things that ought not to be mentioned. So I would like younger widows to marry, have children, and manage a home, so as to give the adversary no pretext for maligning us. For some have already turned away to follow Satan.

2 Tim. 3:1-7 But understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them. For some of these slip into homes and make captives of women weighed down by sins, led by various desires, always trying to learn but never able to reach a knowledge of the truth.

Proverbs 2:16-19 Saving you from the wife of another, from the adulteress with her smooth words, Who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the pact with her God; For her path sinks down to death, and her footsteps lead to the shades (hades, sheol, hell); None who enter thereon come back again, or gain the paths of life.

Sirach 19:2-4 Wine and women make the mind giddy, and the companion of harlots becomes reckless. He who lightly trusts in them has no sense, and he who strays after them sins against his own life. Rottenness and worms will possess him, for contumacious desire destroys its owner.

Titus 2:1-5 As for yourself, you must say what is consistent with sound doctrine, namely, that older men should be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, love, and endurance. Similarly, older women should be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers, not addicted to drink, teaching what is good, so that they may train younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good homemakers, under the control of their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.

Sirach 3:2 For the LORD sets a father in honor over his children; a mother's authority he confirms over her sons.

Tobit 8:6 You made Adam and you gave him his wife Eve to be his help and support; and from these two the human race descended. You said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make him a partner like himself.'

1 Cor. 11:7-10 A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; nor was man created for woman, but woman for man; for this reason a woman should have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels.

Space Shuttle Disasters Distillation or Doom 3 Cartoons -- 4 Questions

Links

Suffering in Hell Relating to God God is Love
Entry Page HOME Site Map E-MAIL:

Editor

Books and Religious Gift Items

This web site is produced and provided as a service by Life Enterprises Unlimited.
Contents may be reproduced ?unchanged? provided source, with link, is noted.
Current Debt is in excess of $50,000.00
Please help us to continue this service. Mail contributions to:

LIFE ENTERPRISES UNLIMITED
(A 501-c-3 Non-Profit Organization)
P. O. Box 850307
Mobile, AL 36685
U. S. A.