Vision for Students

Over the years, I've spent a lot of space on this blog writing about my school's mission statement.  I don't know if I have ever brought up the vision statement, which is weird, because I actually find it more applicable to my daily classroom practice.  It states:  "GRACE students will be grounded in God's Word and challenged to achieve academic excellence as they prepare to use their gifts and abilities effectively to follow God's plan for their lives."

I remember sitting in a staff meeting when we were trying to write the school mission and vision statements.  We spent twenty minutes during the mission statement discussion deciding what the connotation of the word equip was and whether it was too mediocre a word.  As a result, we added the word challenge and inspire, but essentially the final draft was the same as the first.  The vision statement was different.  The draft first presented to us spoke only of developing leaders.  A general murmur went up amongst the teachers in the room; I turned to the person next to me and said, "I think I've been doing my job wrong."  A fifth-grade teacher raised her hand and said, "They aren't all supposed to be leaders, are they?  If they are all leading, who are they leading?"  We talked a lot about what we strive to develop in our students, and we ultimately came to the statement as it is seen above.  I thought a lot about why the first draft was so different from the final one, and I finally came to the conclusion that the first draft was written by our board members, most of whom own a business and all of whom are leaders.  Thus, that was a quality they valued highly.  It was probably a quality they hoped to develop in their own children.  Teachers, however, spent their days with all the students, seeing that some were leaders and other had different qualities that had nothing to do with leadership.  We can all become hyper-focused on one characteristic, especially those we possess, and forget that God has different plans for different people.

We want all of our students to be grounded in God's Word.  No matter what their future holds, a knowledge of the Bible and the ability to interpret it as well as apply it to their lives will matter.  We want them to achieve academic excellence, not because grades are so important, but because having a wide breadth of knowledge and the ability to analyze, synthesize, and innovate are necessary to adult life.  

God has gifted each of us for the plan He has for us and not someone else.  I do not have an ear for foreign languages.  I took two years of high school German, and what I retained makes me fully qualified to communicate with a two-year-old German child.  I can say, "Hello. My name is Beth. How old are you? What color is this?"  When I have tried to learn a few phrases in other languages as an adult, someone will tell me what the phrase is, and I will repeat it.  Two minutes later, I can't say it anymore.  While I believe in growth mindset and know I could get better at it with time, I also know that we start with some natural abilities, and foreign language just isn't in my natural skill set.  You know why?  God didn't call me to a life where the ability to pick up language would be needed.  I have students, however, that God will call to the mission field or who will serve as interpreters at the UN; so God did give them the ability to absorb pronunciation and understand other syntax in a way He did not gift me.  

As we help our students develop their skills, it is important to remember that they won't all be equally good at everything.  That's not what academic excellence means.  I know that not all of my students will be scientists, and they shouldn't all be scientists.  It is important that they have the ability to think scientifically because we live in a world that increasingly relies on the results of science but doesn't understand it.  We've seen that a lot during this pandemic, and it has revealed a severe lack of scientific thinking in a large portion of the public.  Every student doesn't have to do science professionally, but they will need to make decisions that require at least a little scientific knowledge and analytical ability.  Learning science develops a part of the brain that can be used in a variety of fields.  When I am teaching science, I keep in mind what it takes to develop those skills and brain processes, not just the content I am teaching.  

While we should help students grow in every area, it is important that we think about God's plan for them, not ours.  When a student struggles with a subject, we should support them in their growth.  When a student shows a natural aptitude for a skill, we should encourage them to develop it even more because God has obviously gifted them in that thing for a reason.  Five years ago, I was in a meeting with the mom of one of my 8th graders.  She was an incredibly detail-oriented perfectionist with a lot of anxiety.  I said to her mom, "Clearly, whatever God has planned for her will require this level of attention to detail.  It's just hard to get through middle school with it."  We came up with some ways to help her with her anxiety, but we were careful not to tell her that wanting to do things right was the wrong way to think.  We gave her some coping strategies that I think have been helpful to her, but we did not try to take out of her something that God put in her.  When she's working for the CIA or pursuing a career in a lab or whatever detail-driven career God is going to place her in, she will need the gift He gave her.  

As we get to know our students over the next few weeks, it's important that we look beyond their grades or our priorities and look for ways to develop in them those things that will allow them to "use their gifts and abilities effectively to follow God's plan for their lives."