Kids in the Kingdom

Since the point of this blog is to explore ways to impact the next generation by radically reforming the institutions of public education and the organized church, the main question that I hope to keep always before me is, What is best for kids?

To answer this question, we need to consider children as whole people that have spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional, and social dimensions. You can check out my "Faith Like a Child" series on this blog to see what the Bible says about the spiritual capacity of children.

Here are those posts:
Faith Like a Child (part 1)
Faith Like a Child (part 2)
Faith Like a Child (part 3)
Faith Like a Child (part 4)
Faith Like a Child (part 5)
Faith Like a Child (part 6)
Faith Like a Child (part 7)

It is important to us that disciples of all ages can fully participate in the mission. Therefore, it is critical that children understand the essentials of our practices without "watering down" their meaning and power.

A child does not receive a "junior-sized" Holy Spirit, but the Bible teaches that children have tremendous spiritual insight and often receive profound Kingdom truths more easily than adults. Simultaneously, a child's human development requires that the gospel is presented in its simplest form in terms of the language and imagery we use. Therefore, we process our core practices in "kid-friendly" terms because we want to pass on essential truths to the next generation form the earliest moments possible.

Here are the child-friendly, essential truths of our mission (what we call our "Cores for Kids"):

• Jesus teaches us that praying helps us get close to God!
• Jesus teaches us that we can worship God by doing good everywhere we go!
• Jesus teaches us that baptism is a way we can show we want to follow Him with our whole heart!
• Jesus teaches us to obey Him and be like Him by loving God and others!

Did I Forget to Remind Myself?

My last education-related post dealt with memory. 

Dr. Judy Willis

This week I want to quickly recommend another expert in the area of learning and the brain: Dr. Judy Willis. I encourage you to check out her "Top 10" list on "How to be Your Child's Memory Coach". Her book, Learning to Love Math, was a terrific resource that impacted my teaching when I was in the classroom. I explicitly taught my students some of the concepts I learned in the book. You can read the Introduction and first chapter here.

Last time I wrote about the fact that the brain looks for patterns or relationships among the bits of information coming in to the brain. The truth is that so much stimuli is bombarding the human brain every second. The only way we can function is for the brain to instantly be able to filter all this incoming data. Dr. Willis talks about the parts of the brain responsible for that filtering process. Again, I want to stress that this is a part of normal human functioning. The brain must filter out boring, non-essential, un-emotional, irrelevant pieces of information for survival and thriving. The brain cannot and will not pay attention to such things.

It probably wouldn't hurt for us to slow down in our schools and reflect on that simple truth. How does this reality affect our practice? How do we get beyond theory?

One Step at a Time

I have to confess that I am totally overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem of human trafficking in our world. There are enough statistics and stories to make my head spin. On top of that, the organizations and efforts to fight against it are too numerous to keep up with, as well. How in the world can I know which is most effective? Most efficient? Operating with the most integrity?

In the early stages of learning about the human tragedy of modern day slavery, I have encountered new vocabulary and acronyms, data I don't even know how to process, and places I didn't even know existed. 

It is easy to feel like there is just too much out there. It is easy to throw my hands up and believe I cannot make a difference. I mean, really, this vile practice of enslaving humans is more prevalent now than at any time in our recent history, possibly ever. 

Who am I to change that?

To call this discouraging is the understatement of the century. It is unfathomable that we find ourselves facing this mess.

So I am left confronted with the reality that I don't know the best way to overcome it, which leads to a question. If I don't know the best way to fix a problem, do I ignore the problem? 

Justin Dillon
Founder of "Made in a Free World"

Fortunately, I attended the Free Austin Summit last October and heard Justin Dillon speak. Dillon reminded me (and everyone there) to not get misled into allowing "perfect" to be the enemy of good. Just because I cannot do something perfectly does not prohibit me from doing good, no matter how small.

Thank God! Because I need manageable, realistic steps that I can take. 

A step like writing a blog post. 

A step like attending an Allies meeting.

A step like using an App. (and then telling others about it)

A step like reading an article online. 

A step like exposing my children to this topic.

A step like making a donation.

A step like sharing a hotline number.

A step like buying a Fair Trade product.

And I am writing this because I am betting that there is someone who will read this that is just like me. Someone who does better taking baby steps in the right direction then trying to run as fast as you can in every direction. And I feel like this is a cause in which direction is more important than pace.

Don't get me wrong. If there is any issue that demands a sense of urgency, it is this one! 

Still, I don't want to get so caught up with trying to move so fast that I don't move at all.

So, for now, I will work on little steps. More importantly, I will share those little steps with others because I can't help but think that many of us taking little steps in the same direction is much more powerful than one person trying to take a leap by himself.

It is with this perspective that I invite you to read (even subscribe!) and share these blog posts that are associated with this topic. They usually come out on my blog on the weekends. (Mondays and Wednesdays tend to focus on reform in education and reform in the church, respectively.)

In these weekend posts, I will share some of the simple steps I am learning about.

Maybe we can walk together.

(Be ready for a simple step next week.)

Teaching (Core Practice #4)

Intro Note: I have already written about our Plan on a Page, which lays out the four core practices that we consider the marks of discipleship according to the New Testament. In that document, we try to capture the "irreducible minimum standards" of our mission. 

Basically, I contend that there are many things you could not do and still be a Christian, or follower of Jesus. For example, you could not "go to church" or participate in a youth group or listen to Christian radio stations or become a missionary in a foreign land or tithe or...okay, you get it...and yet still be an authentic, sincere, passionate follower of Jesus. These examples may all be good things, but they are not the marks of true discipleship that Jesus gives us in the Bible. They are not the "make-or-break", non-negotiables of the Christian faith used to identify people as real believers.

Then, what are the non-negotiables?


The fourth and final one is TEACHING.

 If we are going to call ourselves disciples, then we must respond to the Great Commission, which calls us to teach new disciples everything that Jesus has commanded us. Discipleship is holding to these teachings. There is a long list of things we could teach each other that would be helpful in our faith, but Jesus has a special way of boiling it all down to the absolute most important teachings. He also makes it clear in Scripture how the world will be able to tell if we are truly His disciples.

Ultimately, everything comes down to obeying Jesus' command to love. This is the greatest command for us to obey. Obedience is expressed through the fruit of the Spirit and leads to freedom.

What is critical to teach children is that being a disciple means obeying and acting like Jesus, especially by loving God and loving others. 


The guiding question for a disciple or church could be, Are people being set free and becoming more like Jesus?

Remember How to Remember

Let's face an obvious truth in education.
You can't learn what you can't remember. 
You can't reflect on what you can't remember. 
You can't apply what you can't remember. 

The prerequisite to being able to comprehend, analyze, evaluate, categorize, debate, or carry out any kind of higher-order thinking process is to first simply recall the information. 

Therefore, one of the critical pieces to learning is memory.

Fortunately, we now have an entire field devoted to the neuroscience of memory. We are able to identify practices that improve memory and those that hinder, or even prevent, it.
In fact, a great example of what we are learning on this topic can be found in a webinar from EdWeb, presented by Sandra Aamodt.

One of the discoveries about memory that makes a lot of sense is the realization that teaching concepts in isolation of other concepts is a sure fire way to keep kids from remembering them. The brain naturally looks for patterns and relationships among pieces of information. Retention always increases when facts are learned in context and when they are connected to one another.

In fact, according to Dr. Aamodt, all learning is "re-learning" in a way because of how the brain organizes information each time it processes it. When the brain does not see the relevance to future activity or a connection to previous learning, it does not see the value in retaining the new teaching despite how fabulous a presentation might have been given in introducing the concept. The brain will simply dump the information.

This is not a matter of weak willpower, negative attitudes, poor classroom management, student irresponsibility, or any other fault of the teacher or student. It is neuroscience. It is how our brains work! 

It is, therefore, problematic that we often teach a ridiculously overwhelming amount of content in our schools and don't allow the time and space for the brain to make connections and organize the information properly for later retention. It is also disturbing when we then blame students' lack of studying and label them as "not caring" when they cannot recall all this information on tests and assignments.

Are some students irresponsible? 
Sure. 
Do some students refuse to study, which leads to poor academic achievement? 
Of course. 

However, if we are going to be professionally honest, then we have to face the fact that it is equally irresponsible on our part as educators to ignore the reality of brain functioning when it comes to academic performance!

Perhaps our starting point should be to focus on the teaching/learning process itself. How do the things we have control over in our system affect memory?

If we know that what we do makes a difference in what and how children remember, then at what point does it become a form of systemic, professionally endorsed "child neglect" if it does not change our scope and sequence, assessment practices, and instruction?