Planned with Purpose

Two weeks ago, I was on a trip to Washington DC with my 8th grade students.  We leave very early on Monday morning, arriving in DC just after lunchtime, and keep our kids moving hard and fast until about 9:30 every night only to return late on Wednesday.  It is fun watching different kids respond to different things, like my little nerd party and the Air and Space Museum, the girls who were very excited to see the Hope Diamond, or the kids who really got into their roles at the International Spy Museum.  Each evening, around sundown, we meet our tour guides who walk the kids through the various monuments and memorials on the National Mall.  

This year, our tour guide kept repeating the same phrase over and over as we encountered each site.  That phrase was "planned with purpose."  As we approached the Vietnam War Memorial, we learned the purpose of the layout of the panels and the meaning behind the two statues.  As we stood by the WWII Memorial, we learned the purpose of the wreaths, the columns, and the relief sculptures.  Even the city itself is laid out with intentional design, for the purpose of eliciting certain feelings in the minds of visitors.  Our trip was designed and planned by our amazing Marcia with many purposes (fun, learning about history, learning about God, honoring sacrifice, bonding time with friends).  The act of taking their phones from them during the five-hour bus ride has a purpose, which was great for me to remember when half of the kids on the bus I was on broke out in a Disney song medley.  "Look at the fun they create for themselves when they don't have their phones," I thought, even though the singing was objectively terrible.  Our purpose had been accomplished.

Because I'm a nerd teacher, I can't help but think of how this should apply to my lesson plans.  I've been writing a fair amount recently about clarity and whether or not students understand the purpose of the activities you are asking them to do.  If not, is there a chance you don't know the purpose behind it?  Are you doing it because it's a fun activity that the kids like (a Grecian Urn)?  Is it a state standard you are required to teach without understanding why?  Or, is there a purpose to your plan?  Have you looked carefully at what you want students to learn and designed learning experiences to achieve that purpose?  Are you planning with purpose?  If not, rethink how you approach your plans.

We know from Scripture that God designed humans with a purpose, both as a species (to tend the earth and subdue it, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, to make disciples, etc.) and as individuals (Paul going from place to place throughout Greece, Joseph being faithful in prison and used to save Egypt from famine).  As Western Christians who pride ourselves in our individualism, we like to think of our specific call, and we tend to focus only on the big things (college, marriage, career aspirations).  Of course, all of those things are part of our plan and purpose, but each day God gives us also includes a plan and a purpose.  God may have put laundry in front of you today.  He may have put lesson planning or test grading in front of you.  He may have put a conversation with a stranger in WalMart in front of you.  He planned your day with a purpose, and the way you carry out laundry or grading or the conversation is an act of worship as you carry out that plan.  You, as CS Lewis said, "are not a mere mortal."  You are a carrier of the Imago Dei and planned with a purpose every second of your life.  Live in that.  Grow in that.