Report Cards Can Be Deceptive

Schools are placing tremendous efforts on test scores parents can get too caught up on scores and miss opportunities in the formation of faith. The Christian family has an opportunity when children struggle with a subject to build their faith with divine confidence. 

Transcript

Ethan: 0:01

Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast dedicated to faithful parents navigating their families through a stormy culture

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This is raising joyful children in an angry world. I'm Paul Osborne. Today I want to dig into the subject of report cards and can report cards be deceptive In, the education system in the United States, particularly in Texas, there's this massive emphasis on testing and when the states don't get, or the schools don't get the results that they want. They'll often change the test or the methods to get them, because we all want a blue ribbon high tested score that shows the greatness. Of our school and our students. We love test scores. And yet I wanna suggest to you that it often misses the larger component of are you actually getting life skills? Are you really learning what's important? Or are you just able to absorb a lot of information and then put that information down on a test and then just leave it there and move on? And that's why I say report cards don't always tell us everything about what our child is learning. And I think there's an opportunity here for parents to bring some encouragement and potential blessing in the struggle. I mean, let's say you've got two kids and one kid is a straight A student, the other one is B and C's, and let's assume they're in the fifth grade or higher. Your assessment is likely to be if you're like a normal parent while the A student's doing all the hard work and that BBC student needs to study more, sharpen their cognitive skills, and that assessment can be right if you have observed them sort of fluffing off. But if the child's putting in the time we're, we're in a different realm. And this is where I think we can find some encouragement and some blessing. Let me break this down if you'll bear with me a minute. Psychology would, would talks about this term of self-efficacy, and it comes out of this theory of what is called cognitive overload. In other words, you've got too many pieces of information, too many tasks being expected to learn at the same time, and you become overloaded. And, and people that can then develop what is called a metacognitive skill. In other words, something that is outside the traditional or normal way of learning. In, in the world of psychology, they call that self-efficacy. In other words, let's say the student should be able to master a subject in X amount of hours by doing the exercises in a particular workbook and. You're talking about that and you go, well, that formula didn't work. They did the exercises, they put in the time, but they're still struggling with the topic. And, and all of us are going to find with our kids and ourselves some topic, uh, some skillset that we're gonna struggle with. And I'm not talking about a learning disability or some severe dyslexia or something like that. I'm just talking about, Hey, this is something that I'm struggling with. And the struggle forces us to tap something deeper inside of us. And in the world of mental fitness, this is what we call the self-efficacy or self-confidence, and the behaviorist is gonna describe this as meta cognition. Meta before Facebook claimed this word, it means something beyond the physical realm, something beyond the mind and the brain. And, and I wanna say that the, the Christian world also sees this, but it's a better understanding that that struggle with a topic. Is is going to give us the opportunity to search for something that is both outside of us, God and inside of us, right? The Holy Spirit says he's gonna come live with us. This is what the spirit filled life means, and here the child gets to learn to trust God for the power, the gifts, and the effectiveness of overcoming something difficult. This is where we find the desire, the power, and the promises of God. To change the worldview of our, of our young people as a person seeking to not to avoid obstacles, right? We wanna change the person from seeking to avoid obstacles, to a person that sees life's challenges as opportunities to grow their faith. Here's the place I hope you find yourself when you see a report card and your son or daughter is struggling with a particular subject, and that is seen as an opportunity. To reach out to God, both externally and internally in a spirit-filled life, and to embrace the struggle and help them see challenges as opportunities to build their faith in God and allow God to build resilience in them, something they will need in adulthood. And I believe the starting point of this is helping them, uh, come to terms with the words that Jesus uses all the time. In fact, it it's the beginning of Christ coming to the earth. The angels tell the shepherds out on the fields. Do not be afraid. Jesus uses this term over and over, and he starts with Peter when he first catches the fish and he says, I'm unclean. And he says, don't be afraid. Same term, he uses the amount of transfiguration. I don't want to get into a huge biblical lecture here, but don't be afraid of the struggle of what the world is gonna think of you. If you don't get a good grade. You, you have to move from that fear of the world judging you to now trusting in the promise of God. Peter, for example, moves from this incredible profession that you are the Christ, the Son of God, to then struggling with the mission of Jesus towards the cross. And here, here's what I hope we can see when these report cards come. The report card is only telling you part of the process. It only reflects oftentimes. What comes easy and what does not straight a's, may not be as beneficial as they appear, and as c may not be as detrimental as you initially think. If your son or daughter's goofing off, that's a different story and that's a different lesson. Let's confess and repent of our slothfulness, our laziness, which is a valuable spiritual skill in itself. But the report card, in my view, is an opportunity to discover early in life what it means to live in the world, but not of the world. By not fearing the judgment of the world and seeking God's wisdom and power to provide us. The strength to overcome the obstacles we face to be of the world is to either condemn the poor grade or over praise the great grade in search of confidence, self-efficacy inside the self, but to be. Not of the world means to see lesser grades as opportunities for learning to trust God. High grades as opportunities to praise God. And that's what we're trying to build from a report card. I, I've been a substitute at my church for the last three weeks, fourth grade, one week, fifth and sixth the next. And I will tell you my greatest concern. Is what I might call familiarity with the Bible without understanding the greater story and what it means for my life. And, and this is where this grade, 4, 5, 6, and seven is where this transition needs to start taking place to see these stories in their meaning and what they mean on how I see the world, the lens in which I understand the life and the world that I live in. Uh, this age is, is the opportunity, what I would call the age of opportunity to start helping our kids see the deeper meanings, but for Christian child to grasp these concepts. We need these opportunities that God presents in things like report cards as a means of teaching them how the spirit-filled life of faith works.

Paul: 8:28

The ultimate battle for the heart and soul is a fight for identity. Our king invites our kids to know who they are, what to believe, and where they belong.

Paul (2): 8:41

Until next time, let's remember the words for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.