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TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome back, today we’re expanding our knowledge of expectations in order to understand how Expectational Education works. We have free episode notes, a transcript, and a whole bunch of related resources to help better understand this educational philosophy, but—more importantly—help those you lead (whether they be children or disciplees or students or employees) to achieve their best to the glory of God.
Last time we looked at the Universality of Expectations, but today we’re going to consider the Individuality of Expectations. Both sets of expectations are important, but they are different, and without the other, each might result in our failing to please the Lord. But when they are embraced in tandem, we can thrive. So, let’s get started investigating the Individualized Approach. Transcript
Last time we talked about how we needed to observe the forest as a whole in order to get a right understanding of what a tree is capable of becoming and doing. If the only tree we’ve ever seen is sickly and twisted or dying, we might assume that’s what all trees are like. If the only tree we know never bears fruit, we may assume that’s how it is. But when we see that the majority of trees in the forest and across the millennia are healthy and productive, we can understand the tree in front of us in a new light. When we observe that—under the right conditions—most trees are capable of fruiting 80 and 100 fold, we begin to realize that the unproductive tree in front of us was created to actually bear fruit. Now, instead of encouraging the lone tree to continue being what it has always been, we can help it be more.
But will this tree ever bear 80 or 100 fold? Other trees do, but what will this tree do? How can we know? How can we know what sort of expectations we should have? How do we help it be more without setting an impossible goal that it is sure to fail? This is where the Individualized Approach comes. We use the Individualized Approach to determine Appropriate High Expectations for each unique person based both on their cognitive ability and spiritual maturity. We talked about Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual Maturity two episodes ago. I hope you’ve listened to the previous 3 episodes because they’re absolutely foundational to our discussion today. Please note that Physical Maturity has very little to no bearing on Expectational Education. We’re going to talk about supposed developmental stages later this season, but—generally speaking—the only relationship between Expectational Education and Physical Maturity is that kids naturally get older as they’re being educated. That’s it. Since we can’t learn everything at once, we’re all getting older as we master previous concepts and move on to new ones. That’s about all that happens in regard to Physical Maturity. It’s a necessary consequences of the same passage of time in which our learning takes place. However, the individual’s Cognitive and—even more so—Spiritual Maturity plays an insanely important part. But before we get into the details, the sponsor for our show, MyPillow, wants me to share with you that they are having a pretty amazing sale right now on their premium MyPillows. What would normally cost you $70 to $80, you can purchase for only $25 by using the promo code “EVERMIND” at checkout. But that’s not the only deal going on right now. You should go to MyPillow.com/evermind and see all the great discounts being offered. Just make sure that your “EVERMIND” promo code has been entered when it comes time to check out. I have been thoroughly enjoying my MyPillow 2.0, and my son has been loving his premium MyPillow. Who knows, it may be time for you to get a new pillow, so why not take advantage of this amazing offer. Okay, now, let’s consider how Cognitive Ability and Spiritual Maturity factor into the Individualized Approach. 1. Cognitive Maturity One’s cognitive ability can and should be assessed using traditional means of measuring retention and recall, systemization and problem solving. As I’ve already acknowledged, though we don’t understand exactly how it works, it appears as though people have varying degrees of brain capacity or—more likely—recall. The easiest example is a person who is legitimately on the autism spectrum because of a genuine physical developmental issue. Many of these people—precious though they are—have shown that they appear to not be able to process and recall information with the same speed or finesse. Now, there are some who are just as cognitively mature as any other healthy adult, but they lack the ability to communicate themselves. This and other unique struggles make it hard to quantitatively say for sure whether or not a person is capable of higher performance or simply not performing to the best of their ability. But physical challenges aside, if your children or students are scoring very high in Cognitive Maturity, then it would be appropriate to have higher expectations for their performance than you would a person who legitimately scores lower because they are not as cognitively mature. And this is where it becomes very hard to definitively say whether or not a person’s cognitive scores are a good reflection of their abilities. Just because a person scores low doesn’t necessarily mean they couldn’t have scored higher. There could have been any number of factors that resulted in their scores, so to take the final product as the gospel truth is foolish at best. For these reasons and more, even though I mentioned Cognitive Maturity first on today’s list, I never start with this metric when trying to identify Appropriate High Expectations for anyone. I always start with their Spiritual Maturity. Let me use an extreme example, in I Samuel 21:10-15 we read, “Then David arose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. 11 But the servants of Achish said to him, ‘Is this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing of this one as they danced, saying, ‘Saul has struck his thousands, And David his ten thousands’?’ 12 And David took these words to heart and greatly feared Achish king of Gath. 13 So he disguised his sanity in their sight and acted insanely in their hands and scribbled on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down into his beard. 14 Then Achish said to his servants, ‘Behold, you see the man behaving as a madman. Why do you bring him to me? 15 Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one to act the madman before me? Shall this one come into my house?’” David didn’t want anyone to know what he was really capable of doing, so he put on a show. Other people are very competent, but they’re lazy. Others are equally capable, but their lack of desire motivates them to not perform to their peak. And often each of these people will claim, “I did my best!” That’s why the spiritual metric is so important. So, let’s consider . . . 2. Spiritual Maturity Now, I want to remind you that when I teach these concepts in secular arenas, I talk about Mental Maturity. For those of you who may be concerned that I am missing my chance to testify for my God, never fear. I do glorify the Lord in these conversations, I just do it in different ways that aren’t as easy to misunderstand as the word “spiritual” can be. Too many people have a very worldly and pagan understanding of spirituality, so I use the word “mental” in order to steer them away from coming to very wrong conclusions about what I’m teaching. In addition to using the phrase Mental Maturity, I developed a measurement called the Operational Maturity Quotient. Educators love this kind of stuff, but I don’t want you to be put off by the fancy phraseology. The Operational Maturity Quotient, or OMQ, is simply a measurement of the individual’s practical utility and is scored on one of four metrics. Now, when I say “utility,” this is what I mean. Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines utility as “usefulness; profitableness to some valuable end.” Merriam-Webster defines it as “fitness for some purpose or worth to some end, something useful or designed for use.” I’m currently in the pre-production stages of a family online course from the book of Philemon about having a useful family. In our modern English usage, the word “useful” is unpopular and so incredibly sanitary that many people might not like to have the word applied to them. “I find my relationship with Aaron to be very useful.” If someone where to say something like that about you, it might almost sound like you’re being “used” by them. But terms like utility and usefulness are very important ideas. I’ve spoken a number of times on this podcast about the importance of being valuable. On episode 447, I ask “Is Your Parenting Valuable?” and we talk about “How to Have a Valuable Family” on episode 145. We even look into “Five Ways Disagreeing Children are Valuable” on episode 50. I’ve linked those episodes and others for you in the description of today’s show if you are interested in learning more about how our families should pursue utility, usefulness, and valuable endeavors. The point is, we should want to be valuable in our relationships. To that end we will have utility, and we will be useful within the relationship. And that’s what the Operational Maturity Quotient measures. In order to make this measurement, the individual will have to be closely observed by someone who knows what they’re doing. Listen, I believe that everyone is competent to counsel just like Jay Adams believed because the Bible says we’re all competent to be spiritual leaders . . . but that doesn’t mean we are . . . actually . . . right here and right now . . . competent to lead spiritually. That’s why this ministry exists. We want to equip dads and moms to be the intentional, premeditated, disciple-making, mature, Ambassador Parents God called and created them to be. But we’re all in process, and not all of us are ready to determine a child’s Operational Maturity Quotient. I’m in process too, I definitely haven’t “arrived” in any meaningful way, but because I’m a biblical counselor and do this type of thing every single day my life, I do have practice in it. So, let’s talk about the four groups into which everyone falls and start teaching you how to identify your own children’s and student’s and employee’s and disciplee’s spiritual maturity. Through extended observation we want to determine not only how he or she responds to the positive influence offered by each authority, but also the quantity and quality of influence the student has on their peers and the authorities themselves. First, I get really excited teaching parents how to do this because the parents should be the ones spending the most time with their kids. Therefore, they should be able to identify the child’s spiritual maturity far better than an individual who rarely interacts with them. Second, this metric is a measurement of influence. And it’s important to recognize that influence is a two-way street. Lord willing, you are positively influencing the people in your life, but they too should be positively influencing you regardless of their age or relationship to you. That’s what mature people do. If you believe that your children should have no redemptive influence in your life, you are sorely mistaken, and that belief contradicts what we learn in the Bible. So, start changing how you view the relationship with your kids. Now, I rarely quote people on this show—other than God, that is—but I really thought this quote from Jordan Peterson was very insightful. Now, I don’t know his relationship with God, but Jordan Peterson gets a lot wrong when it comes to the Bible. However, in regard to education, by God’s common grace he gets a ton right. So, here’s what he said that I liked so much, “Conscientiousness is an excellent predictor of academic performance.” Merriam-Webster defines conscientious as meticulous and careful, but more than that, it goes on to say, “governed by or conforming to the dictates of conscience.” Webster’s 1828 says, “Influenced by conscience; governed by a strict regard to the dictates of conscience, or by the known or supposed rules of right and wrong.” If we’re thinking about this biblically, then we know that the conscience is a gift from God that needs to be tuned to God’s standards for behavior—His definitions of right and wrong. Therefore, if Jordan Peterson is correct and “Conscientiousness is an excellent predictor of academic performance,” then we could say that—biblically speaking—Spiritual Maturity is an excellent predictor of academic performance. And that’s exactly what the Operational Maturity Quotient attempts to reveal. So, let’s look at each of the four groups. The first is the group we should want to be in and—of course—where we want our kids to land. 1. Influential Operational Maturity, or simply Influential Maturity, means that the student not only consistently benefits from the positive influence of her authority, but she also consistently benefits her peers and authorities. Now, we get in trouble when we only consider the effect our influence is having on the children. We miss key observations when we don’t carefully consider the influence they’re having on us and the other people around them. So what does this two-way influence look like? Academically speaking, when you teach the child, he benefits from the teaching. That’s the easy one. But these individuals also benefit you, the teacher in their interactions with you. They may ask a challenging question or present a valuable point of view. They add to the experience in the classroom, and—to that degree—they’re also benefiting the other students. Quite often the students with the highest grades fall into one of two categories, the first is the student who is more anti-social. Everyone knows they’re smart, but they don’t have a lot of friends, or worse, they have a lot of enemies. But then there are the bright stars that are not only really smart, but they also are so kind and well-liked. That’s this category. Relationally speaking, this student benefits from the relationship they have with you, and they too invest in the beneficial relationship with you. There is mutual appreciation and respect, they’re obedient and helpful in class, and they are a positive influence on the other students. Of course, there are examples I could give from the home setting or ministry or business or any other relational dynamic, but this is as far as we can go for this podcast. But if you invite me to speak at your event, I can not only deal with these topics in more detail, I can also do one-on-one coaching. Check out AMBrewster.com or the Evermind App to learn more. Okay, so if the individual in question has Influential Maturity, then I can double down on identifying their Cognitive Maturity in order to formulate what their Appropriate High Expectations are. But what about the kids who are really sweet and kind, but who don’t benefit as much from the authority’s influence? 2. Polite Maturity refers to someone who though the student does not consistently benefit from the positive influence of his authority, he does consistently benefit his peers and authorities. These kids seem to have the relational qualities down, but they appear to lack the requisite smarts to excel in their education. What do we do with these young people? Well, this is where analyzing their Cognitive Maturity can be helpful. Are they genuinely not capable of performing at certain levels, or have they never learned how to learn well? Are there certain subjects that are harder on them than others, or do they simply not like the subject in which they underperform? The question we’re trying to identify is the “why” behind the “what.” Sure, the grades are low, but why are they low. Now, hold on to your hats. Here I go again being really outside of the box. I have taught thousands of people across various subjects, ages, skillsets, and the like, and I can say that nearly every person I’ve ever taught had the ability to be just as good as the majority of people in the room. Listen, I believe in the Bell Curve. What’s strange is that modern classrooms would have us believe that grade dispersion is more like a precipitous mountain than it is a bell. The majority of students are doing very poorly, a much smaller number is doing what used to be considered average, and the infinitesimal minority—if there is one—is doing really well. My point is this, a Politely Mature individual who seems really nice but who doesn’t benefit from the positive influences in his life is spiritually less mature. Now, I’m not saying that all spiritually mature people are natural geniuses, but they can be learned geniuses. So, barring an actual biological impediment—which will manifest itself in more than just grades—if a person is performing poorly, we have to at least consider they’re not as spiritually mature as they could be. So, yes, I would run cognitive tests on this person simply to rule out legitimate biological problems, but I would recognize the biggest benefit I could have on this young person would be to help her understand what her Creator has created her to be. I would take her through the Learning to Learn material. I would challenge her to change her perspective on education. Now, again, I don’t have the time—I fear this episode will already be longer than I was planning—but I have successfully done exactly what I’m describing with hundreds of people. They came to me as really nice people who underperformed in their learning, and—by the grace of God—I focused first on Who God is, who they are, and what that means for them today, and then over time as those people submitted to God’s Appropriate High Expectations for their character, we also saw a requisite rise in their academic performance, job performance, relationships, and everything else their lives touched. But we must push on. 3. Antagonistic Maturity refers to people who consistently benefit from the positive influence of their authority, but they also consistently harm their peers and/or authorities alike. Earlier when I mentioned that the highest performing students normally fall into two categories—the social and the anti-social—this was the other group in the mix. These individuals are the opposite of our last group. These are the ones who are not obedient in class, they don’t respect their teachers or classmates, but they are still really smart and seem to perform well in their academics. I sometimes refer to these individuals as the the Lex Luthors or Arch Villains. They’re geniuses in their own right, but they’re sociopathic in their interactions. Of course, I don’t refer to them this way to their faces, but it’s helpful for us to clearly see who they are. This is a difficult group because everyone can tell they’re not spiritually mature, but for some reason they rise to the expectations put on them by their learning. If you’ve been listening to this show for any amount of time, then you know they excel in their academics because they want to. It’s their act of self-worship . . . which is the same reason they don’t relate to other people well. They don’t want to. Now, a secular expert might think they were spiritually immature but somehow mentally mature. No, they’re cognitively mature, but they’re spiritually immature. So, in a secular academic context the child is basically allowed to remain as they are as long as they’re accomplishing the educational expectations placed on them or they cross a significant line in their behavior. The public school system is not interested in helping people develop any kind of valuable character, they only care about their perceived academic prowess. But even though these people may have straight A’s, they are not going to accomplish all that they could because they are not submitting to God’s expectations for being loving to their authorities and peers. Now, what’s really scary is that many times these kids have basically been given a pass to act however they want because they have so many labels placed on them we can’t see through to their hearts. We’re told they have ODD, ADD, ADHD, anxiety, attachment issues, depression, you name it . . . and are therefore not responsible for acting any different because they’re a victim of a disease or illness. And though it would take a month of episodes to build the biblical and scientific case for the statements I’m about to make, I have to warn everyone listening that if you don’t expect your children to submit to the expectations God has placed in His Word simply because a “medical professional” says they can’t . . . you are setting unscripturally low expectations for them and inviting them to fail. And because they are obviously spiritually immature, they will gladly accept your invitation to failure, and as long as you keep lowering the bar, they will keep lowering their behavior. Listen, my friends, we have been sold a bill of goods by the faux-medical community. I hate asking people to take my word for it, but here and now, it’s all I have. Please take my word for the fact that if your child has been diagnosed with any of the labels from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, they likely either do not have anything actually wrong with them, or there is an adjacent biological issue that isn’t actually causing the problem but is simply putting enough pressure on the child that they aren’t responding to it well. I lament how many families in the church have submitted to the patently unbiblical, secular, man-centered, God-denying rhetoric of pop-psychology. And we, the church, need to take back a biblical understanding of anthropology, psychology, and behavior. And it’s Antagonistic Mature kids and the ones from the next category that pay the price. We’re told that we’re bad people to expect great things from them because “they’re not capable of doing it;” so we don’t, but it’s not helping them. Fewer and fewer people are benefiting from secular therapies and the instances of anti-social behavior is increasing exponentially every year. We need to get back to calling sin sin, and dealing with it biblically. I really need to get off that soap box. I may have already said too much and not enough. So, listen carefully when I say that I never want to call something a sin that God doesn’t call a sin. I believe that our broken physical bodies do put legitimate stressors in our lives, and we would be wise to steward our health to God’s honor and glory. But we absolutely must not say that something isn’t a sin that God has called a sin. If you’ve never listened to our Parenting Angry Children, I encourage you to listen to the last episode. On that show I deal in greater detail with the psychological labels and what they mean for us and our kids. So, when it comes to the Antagonistic Mature child, I need to start by trying to figure out the lies they’re believing about God, His Word, and themselves, in order to set the right expectations for their behavior. Then and only then will we see them increase even more in their academic performance. Okay, let’s look at our last category and finish up this episode. 4. Destructive Maturity refers to students who consistently reject the positive influence of their authority, and they also consistently harm their peers and authorities. These are what the world would call “bad students.” They have very poor academic performance and—on top of that—harmful relationships. And it’s not just at school; they’re this way at home as well. That’s not to say that birds of a feather don’t flock together and get along pretty well when they do, but even in those contexts the relationships aren’t really valuable because they’ve created an echo chamber of unbiblical thinking. You can check out our series on Friends to learn more. Now, when it comes to the Polite, Antagonistic, and Destructive individuals, you can have Appropriate High Expectations for them, but the chances they will meet those expectations is very low because they’re not spiritually mature enough to do so. Even when they’re cognitively capable like the Antagonistic students, they’re still not going to live up to the relational expectations without maturing spiritually. So, what is one to do? Maybe as you’ve been listening you’ve already identified the level of maturity in your kids, disciplees, students, congregation, employees, or volunteers, what now? Well, remember, we’re only dealing with the foundational concepts necessary to appreciate and start implementing Expectational Education. The focus of today’s episode is that once I understand the Appropriate High Expectations that most people should be able to achieve, I now need to identify the maturity of the individual to see what he or she personally needs to be able to achieve the Appropriate High Expectations. Some kids will need to grow in their relational maturity, some will need to embrace a different academic paradigm. It’s when we identify and start addressing the student’s spiritual maturity that we will be able to accurately identify the right expectations for their learning. And some of you are probably thinking, “But—wait—what’s the difference between academic learning and behavioral learning? Aren’t they both learning? Don’t they both require Appropriate High Expectations?” And that is a correct observation. The issue is that we rarely have success cranking up the academic expectations with someone who is spiritually immature. This means that once again we’re learning that the heart of the issue is almost always an issue of the heart. If you want the people in your life to be the best students they can be, then we really need to prioritize their spiritual maturity. Allow me to give you a personal example, and we’ll close. Both of my children can be fantastic students, and the only thing that has every held them back was unbiblical attitudes, sinful choices, and immature modes of thinking. So many times my homeschooling had more to do with parenting into Christlikeness than it did Math, Science, History, or English. And when we would get through the meltdown or defiance or immature roadblocks and came out the other side with a renewed understanding of God, ourselves, and His expectations for our lives, they always performed very well on the task which they had previously thought was impossible or too hard. Conclusion
After understanding what all trees are capable of, we need to look carefully at the individual trees in our care and identify why they’re struggling. Maybe they are immature in how they relate to people, and maybe they’re immature in how they approach learning, or maybe it’s both. From there we need to get more specific in addressing the wrong beliefs at the root of their harmful behavior.
Remember what we learned in the Merest Christianity Series. You do what you do, say what you say, and feel what you feel because you want what you want, and you want what you want because you believe what you believe about God, His Word, and yourself. Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets because all Christian parents should want to know how to help their children do their best for the glory of God. And if you would like some personalized assistance in determining your child’s level of spiritual maturity or helping them mature into the Influential Mature category, please email [email protected] or call (828) 423-0894. Next week is the last episode in this introduction to Expectational Education. We’re going to discuss the “AH Moment” we’re all hoping to achieve with those under our care, we’re going to briefly introduce other important wheels and cogs in Expectational Education, and I’m going to share with you my favorite test cases from the decades that I’ve been putting Expectational Education into practice in my classroom, church, counseling room, and home. I’ll see you then!
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