Grades, Learning, Success...What's Really Important Here?

As I am reading John Tagg's article "Why Learn? What We May Really Be Teaching Students", I feel like my Honor's Orientation class is returning to a subject brought up in the beginning of the semester.  Back then, we were questioning the definition and measures of success and wondering what really matters in college: grades or learning.  I believe learning is more important, but I think college professors typically use grades to measure how much the students have thus far learned.  From what I have seen, the Honors Program at JBU places more value on learning than grades--for which I am grateful--but what about the non-honors courses I am required to take?  And scholarships like the Arkansas Challenge?  I have to keep a certain GPA score to maintain those scholarships.  How do I keep my focus on learning when I need to make the grades that keep the scholarship that made it possible for me to learn at JBU?  What is the balance between qualitative learning and quantitative learning as Tagg mentions in his article?

ExCo vs. JBU

   This evening I explored the website of Experimental College (ExCo) of Haverford, PA.  This college is unlike any I have ever heard of before.  ExCo is student-taught and student-run and neither offers the students nor pays the teachers.  Their goals are “to connect people who share diverse interests in learning outside the classroom” and “to enrich [their] education by allowing [them] to share [their] knowledge, interests, and skills with each other in a cooperative and relaxed environment”.  At the bottom of their “Teacher Guidelines” page, ExCo encourages the teachers to experiment as much as they want: “ExCo is not just about learning unusual subjects,” they state, “it’s about a different kind of learning, too.”

   Unlike John Brown University (and many other colleges and universities in the U.S.), ExCo gives the students no credit or transcript.  The course catalog consisted of four courses: “Beginner Ceramics”, “Roman Baroque Art”, “The History of Punk Rock and the Role of Punk Rock in Contemporary Western Society”, and “SEPTA and the Real World: Getting Out, Knowing How, and Using the Resources We Have to Take a Break from Haverford”.  This program seems to be a place where one can “learn unusual subjects in a different way”.  Experimental College is just that—an experiment.  I do not understand how attending this place would prepare one for the real world, although I do appreciate their goal to bring different people with diverse interests and backgrounds together in order to learn from each other.  They seem to place more of an emphasis on learning and gaining knowledge than on career training and preparation.  Here at John Brown, the goal is to provide “an academic, spiritual, and professional foundation for world-impacting careers”.  JBU does focus greatly on learning through a Christian worldview (the Gateway Seminar, a required course for all new students, is specifically designed  to teach how to integrate faith into learning) yet also prepares its students for careers and graduate programs, something that ExCo does not seem to do.

   For this reason, as well as others, I do not think that JBU should adopt ExCo’s educational approach.  I do not believe one has to go to college for the mere purpose of learning from others and studying “unusual subjects” (is there any other way to describe that course catalog??)  I am attending college both to gain a strong foundation in the liberal arts and to prepare to serve God in the field(s) to which He has called me.  My other reason for rejecting ExCo’s approach are found within the “Teacher Guidelines”.  One of the questions is, “Somehow I managed to get into one of the top colleges in the country, but it was all a fluke.  I really don’t know enough about anything to teach a class.”  ExCo’s response is, “You don’t have to know everything to teach an ExCo class.  ExCo is about learning together, not necessarily leading or following.”  I personally view my teachers as mentors in their particular subject.  I want a teacher who can answer my questions or help me get started on seeking answers.  Moreover, I want a teacher who can and will tell the truth and point me toward the truth.  That is why I came to JBU—to learn the truth and be guided into the truth.

"What Say You?"

I am finished reading Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.  On page 188, Miller says, "There is no conflict man can endure that will not produce a blessing."  I am not so sure.  What about Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden or Herod from Matthew 2?  What blessings came from the conflicts in their lives?  I was relieved as anyone else to learn of their deaths, but they are in Hell now.  How is that a blessing for them?  (Perhaps I am being extreme on this, but other examples would be either too close or unknown to me.)

Chapter 29 is titled "The Reason God Hasn't Fixed You Yet".  The difference between stories and reality, Miller explains, is that stories have climaxes, relief of tension, and a "happily-ever-after".  Real lives do not have those moments.  Miller says that "the reason we like stories so much is because they deliver wish fulfillment" (page 200).  As much as I love stories with their climaxes and happy endings, I have to wonder...should we allow ourselves to escape to a reality that we will never know?  Christians, if Jesus Christ is our ultimate fulfillment, why do we feel the need to escape to the non-reality of stories, especially if these stories leave us dissatisfied with our own lives?  Or are some stories meant to inspire us to pursue a better life in Christ?

Lost in the Crowd

   Due to an unusual health-related experience I had last Thursday evening, I had to travel with my parents to an overnight speaking engagement they had agreed to do.  (They wanted to keep me and my health under their watchful parental eyes. :)  While there, I was able to sit with the crowd and hear my parents speak about relationships and marriage.  While it was pretty cool to see and hear my parents work together like that, I felt so out of place.  I was the only single person in that room.  Everyone else was married, engaged, or seriously dating.  Most of them were college students as I am, but I felt like a high schooler.  I felt shy and afraid of being seen as a tag-along.  I have no idea why I felt uncomfortable.  Everyone I talked to was so nice and welcoming.  Yet, I still felt out of place.  It could be because I still was not feeling my best, but I began to think of all the other times I have felt lost in the crowd.
   I am a very shy and reserved person (though my recent experiences in drama have helped me overcome the shyness a bit) and a people-pleaser.  I hate confrontation.  I hate being the new person in a group of people who know each other.  Nine out of ten times those people will talk with each other instead of trying to get to know me.  I feel that in my old church youth group, I had to struggle to become friends with the people I saw most often.  I was home schooled and loved it, but knew very few other people in my youth group who were.  The people I liked the most, I saw the least.  Before I moved from Texas, God enabled me to let go of the people I was trying to be friends with and pointed me toward friends who would support me and whom I could support.  I'll be honest.  I was trying to get into the "in-crowd" at church.  Not that these people were mean or snobbish–they were simply unaware of my insecurities.  And truthfully, I don't remember wondering about theirs.
   I have rarely felt completely accepted into a group of people.  I feel that I have hopscotched around from group to group for a great portion of my life.  This has made me fearful.  I am fearful of polite people who smile and ask, "How are you?" when they see me yet do not go out of their way to include me.  Whenever I was around my friends who went to public school, I felt lost and ignorant when they discussed their doings in school.  Oh, I would ask what public school was like and try to understand their lives, but I could not.  It was so different.  Sometimes, I am so confused that I give up listening.  Then, when I am ready to jump into the conversation, I remain silent because I feel that I have nothing to offer.  When interacting with people of different backgrounds, I fear looking like a fool when I ask about something that only I don't understand.  I am afraid of being the intruder, the busy-body, the tag-along that no one wants.  I, the redeemed daughter of the King of Kings, am just plain afraid of the crowd.  Although HE has more than accepted me, I cower and weep because I want to be accepted and loved by people I fear.
   Over the last few years, God has shown me both sides of the "acceptance/rejection issue".  He has made me aware that there may be people who feel just as lonely and unwelcome as I do–perhaps more.  I feel convicted whenever I ignore someone who appears lonely.  I don't think God wants me to throw away my new friends in order to be a friend to the friendless or something.  I just haven't figured out a way to balance the two.  My school schedule is so rigorous that I feel I barely have enough time to take care of myself and spend time with my new friends.  Let alone go seek out more people.  But, if I have truly given myself up to Christ, shouldn't I just let myself be led by the Holy Spirit and not worry about this?
   Looking back over all my experiences with people, I realize that God has blessed me with unexpected friends if you will.  I was not looking for these friends nor do I believe they were exactly looking for me.  I remember reaching out to one girl thinking, "She looks like she needs a friend."  It turns out that I needed her friendship.  (Our God has a sense of humor–don't try to tell me otherwise!)  These unexpected friends did not take God by surprise.  He knew I needed them, and that they needed me too. I am not the only lonely person on the planet.  I pray that God will continue to shape me into an includer, a person who is bold enough to speak out on the behalf of others yet who is sensitive to those who need. Jesus befriended the friendless.  I cannot call myself His follower if I do not let go of my fears and shyness and do the same.

Dreams and Reflections

         Before you write your response, I want you to do something.  I want you to go outside.  I’m not going to say for how long, because this isn’t something to check-off your list.  I want you to go outside and just be for a little while.  Be.  Listen.  Be.  For this activity, I don’t want you to be with anyone.  Be by yourself for a little while.  Really allow yourself to BE with yourself (this may sound odd…but seriously, I want you to do this).  And as you sit with yourself, I want you to ask yourself this question:  What is my dream? What is that one thing that makes me feel most alive––the most alive that I have ever been?

         And I want you to be real honest with yourself.  Don’t listen to the voices in your head…don’t listen to the pressure you feel from either yourself, your parents, your friends, or any other source.  I want you to listen to your heart.  To truly listen to your heart.  And then after you have spent time with yourself…I want you to go back inside and write.  Write about it.  Write about your dreams, your fears.  Write about whatever tugs at your heartstrings.  Just write.

         The above is the blog prompt my Honors Orientation instructor gave us this week.  (I know it makes this post really long, but I felt the need to add it.)  Quite interesting, don’t you think?  Regardless, I did go outside and sat on the 101 steps for about an hour.  I was praying for a quiet heart and mind, and was growing slightly anxious because I was not hearing any response from God.  I do not want a dream that does not line up with His will, so I asked Him to I wanted Him to tell me what my dream is.  And I started to think about how I am always desiring to follow His path and speaking passionately about living for Him alone, but my inner life is so reluctant to do just that.  I came to the conclusion that I know and accept the concept of a sold-out life for Christ, but I have yet to learn how to put this into practice.  If I spent the rest of my life learning to become more and more set-apart for Him, what would my dream be?  The answer is…I don’t know.  I am not sure that I have a definite goal-oriented dream for my life right now.  And I feel a little pressured by the question above to have that kind of dream.  I feel that I am supposed to know what I am going to do with my life.

         Then again, the question does not ask what I am going to do with my life after I graduate from college.  It asks, “What is my dream?  What is that one thing that makes me feel most alive—the most alive that I have ever been?”  Near the end of my outdoor time, I felt God tugging my heart toward a life of worship.  Whether I am leading in church or dancing/singing/acting in musical theater, I want to always have an attitude of adoration to my King.  I am a little frightened that I will not be able to support myself in this, and that I’ll either be forced to take a second job just to pay the bills and buy the groceries or be unable to find such a job.  But, the Lord is asking me to trust Him, and how can I say “no” to the One who poured out His blood for me?

            I am sensing a tug in another direction as well.  Actually, it is the same direction, but I am not entirely sure how to describe it.  Here goes…I have a heart for children.  Whether I ever marry or not, I want to be a Christ-like shepherd of all the children in my life.  I want to guide them in their ever-growing faith; I want to encourage them to take on the totally set-apart life for Christ that I am pursuing.  I do not know how this will look.  Will I marry and adopt many children in addition to having my own, or will I be like Amy Carmichael—missionary, single woman, and adoptive mother?  Who knows where God will lead me?  This question both scares me and excites me.  I want to follow my Prince wherever He goes and serve Him in everything I do, but I am afraid to lose myself in Him.  But, when I do give up my identity for His, can you imagine all that can be accomplished through me by His name?  I can’t!  And now that I think about it, I think my biggest dream is to do the impossible, the unimaginable, and the incomprehensible—all in the name of Jesus Christ my Lord!


Questions:

In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller states in chapter 21 on page 125, "...a story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling the people around us what we think is important."  If you are a Christian, think like a Christian when answering this question: Why should we get to decide what is important and what is not?  How can we determine what is important/unimportant?  Also, in the beginning of chapter 24, Miller discusses how the epic stories contain two elements.  First, "the thing a character wants must be very difficult to attain...There needs to be a question as to whether the character will make it, whether he will defeat the enemy or the enemy will defeat him (page 156).  Second, "the ambition had to be sacrificial.  The protagonist has to be going through pain, risking his very life, for the sake of somebody else" (page 157).  I want to know how we move from "practice stories" (see chapters 22-24) to epic stories.  Do we need an inciting incident or self-motivation?  Or, if the two are combined, what do they look like?