Many people criticize the Common Core learning standards as being just another example of unwanted secular government intrusion in our private lives. I am a high school history teacher and I have to say the Common Core actually has some redeeming qualities. It even helped me in a gospel outreach conversation today!
Let me explain. I was at a Starbucks and reached out to start a conversation with a man there named Tom, a retired junior high English teacher. Tom has been a faithful church attender all his life and, as is typical of members of his particular denomination, has formed his own ideas about God and salvation that are based more on wishful thinking than what the Bible actually says. We had a wonderful conversation, I was able to share the Gospel clearly, and towards the end we both found out we were public school teachers.
I told
him how because of Common Core my role as a history teacher has changed
from simply being a dispenser of information about history to teaching
critical thinking and reading analysis skills. We teach students how to
have opinions based on facts and historical evidence, much of which they
get from primary source documents. So often students tend to "read
past" a document and tell me what they think it says rather than reading
it closely to find out what it actually says.
And isn't that what we are to do with the Bible? Isn't the Bible made up of primary source documents? Don't we almost always learn something new every time we read it even though we have read certain sections many times before? I was able to use this example to show Tom how he has approached the Bible all these years. He believes what he wants it to say rather than what it actually says. I told him how when I first became a Christian I knew that Jesus had said "If you love me you will keep my commands". I had to be honest and say that I didn't really know much of what his commands were which drove me to read and analyze the Bible for myself. Now, as a public high school teacher, I may not be able to teach religion directly, but I can give my students the skills with which to read and understand the Bible for themselves. And today , maybe, I was able to help a retired English teacher do the same.
And isn't that what we are to do with the Bible? Isn't the Bible made up of primary source documents? Don't we almost always learn something new every time we read it even though we have read certain sections many times before? I was able to use this example to show Tom how he has approached the Bible all these years. He believes what he wants it to say rather than what it actually says. I told him how when I first became a Christian I knew that Jesus had said "If you love me you will keep my commands". I had to be honest and say that I didn't really know much of what his commands were which drove me to read and analyze the Bible for myself. Now, as a public high school teacher, I may not be able to teach religion directly, but I can give my students the skills with which to read and understand the Bible for themselves. And today , maybe, I was able to help a retired English teacher do the same.
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