On the door jamb of Miss Hills’ classroom are lines that mark/measure the height of her students. Later in the
year new lines will measure growth in physical stature, but what kind of lines measure growth in other areas?
In Donavan Graham’s book, Teaching Redemptively Bringing Grace and Truth into Your Classroom he states that “the task of true education is to develop knowledge of God and His created reality and to use that knowledge in exercising a creative-redemptive dominion over the world in which we live. Such an outcome can be attained only by loving God and communing with Him, resulting in the wholehearted worship of God.” Donavan Graham then rightly recognizes how difficult true education is to measure and evaluate. Most of us grew up measuring our progress in school primarily by the marks we got. Donovan states, “The first obvious problem is that creatively caring for the creation in righteousness, loving and serving God and fellow human beings, becoming reconciling agents, and communing with and worshiping God in awe do not exactly lend themselves well to scientific measurement. To be sure, there should be observable evidence of these qualities, but outward evidence demonstrated by fallen people can be deceiving. That is why, though the Bible suggests that by their fruit we will know them, it also says that God looks upon the heart and not the outward appearance.”
The more we become a school which fosters grace and truth, the less focused we will be on marks and the more focused we will be on fruit, which God knows is only part of the picture.
