Students’ attitudes towards various subjects have a great effect on how their relationships with those subjects blossom or wither away.

By Ben Sytsma

Assistant Principal, 5th Grade Faculty
Calvary Schools of Holland

Throughout our lives, we are assessed or evaluated primarily by what information we know.

I can remember, even from a young age, a parent picking me up from school and the first questions were: How was your day? What did you learn?

As I got older, I was constantly assessed on what I knew. Was I developing my math concepts? Could I spell the words correctly? Did I know what wars America was involved in? Even in practices at sports, I would often be assessed to ensure I remembered the plays or knew where I was supposed to be and when I was supposed to be there.

While assessing a student’s growth is important, knowledge demonstrated through performance and high stakes tests have had a very negative impact on children’s learning. Nearly all educational experts agree on this point.

In an article in the Journal of Pedagogy, Michaela Minarechová outlines the details of just how negative the impacts of this movement have been. Students feel frustrated, there is unhealthy competition, many important subjects are cut from the curriculum altogether, and students lose joy in learning because they have formed no relationship with the subjects that are being taught.

In another article outlining the effects of high stakes testing, we see that many subjects are not taught at all, and teachers are nearly forced to teach in a way that allows little connectivity, creativity, or imagination by the students. “Critics [of high stakes testing] contend that high-stakes testing has caused teachers to engage in repetitive instruction on isolated pieces of information, leaving students with little time to engage in creative interdisciplinary activities… Many teachers report adopting instructional approaches that resemble testing methods; for example, finding mistakes in written work or solving only the types of math problems contained in the test.”

It seems clear that the movement towards high stakes testing has led to a loss of joy in learning and has led to students forming negative relationships with subjects.

If this view of knowledge as information to be retained and tested on in high stakes is not working as intended, what other ideas are out there? How can we ensure students come to know important truths, ideas, and concepts without taking away the joy and love of learning?

Calvary Schools’ view of knowledge is quite different. While we do assess our students in many ways (as this is important), we also do our best to promote an education where children love to learn, and where healthy relationships are formed with many subjects. An education where students show care towards their work allows them to form intimate relationships with those subjects.

Often, students are asked, “What do you know?” While this is a good question, and one that merits much consideration, an even more important question to ask is, “How much do you care?”

Have you ever wondered how we come to know things? What allows us to remember some things really well and other things seem to be easily forgotten so quickly? As teachers and parents, we so often focus on the result (knowing) that we forget to think about the how and the why, or the process through which we come to know, which is really of great importance.

A couple weeks ago, my students and I read a selection from Matthew 15. In this passage, the Pharisees are asking Jesus why his disciples do not follow the laws and traditions of the elders of Israel. Jesus rebukes them by quoting Isaiah and states, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

Jesus realizes they know the rules and the information, but their care and desire for God is not present. There are many examples similar to this throughout the Bible. It matters to God what our intentions are and the reasons why we care, or if we even care at all. Knowing facts or information is not enough, he wants our hearts and cares to be directed towards Him. Only when we have formed a real and intimate relationship with Jesus will we really know Him.

How does this relate to education? Modern educational philosopher Parker Palmer, who has written many books on education as a spiritual journey, states in his book, The Courage to Teach, “[Even] Modern physics has debunked the notion that knowing requires, or even allows, a separation for the knower from the known. Physicists cannot study subatomic particles without altering them in the act of knowing, so we cannot maintain the objectivist gap between the world ‘out there’ and the observer ‘in here’ as posited by pre modern science. Knower and known are joined, and any claim about the nature of the known reflects the nature of the knower as well.”

In other words, we only come to know something by being in a relationship with it ourselves.

Let’s step away from education for just a moment and think about how we come to know people. What allows some friendships to blossom and others to drift away?

Most relationships are built through spending time with one another, through doing activities together, and through sharing our hearts and our deepest desires with the other person. This is how close, intimate relationships are formed.

Education is no different. Our attitude towards various subjects have a great effect on how our relationship with that subject blossoms or withers away. How much time are we spending with each subject? Are we listening to the desires and passions of this poet? Are we relating with the ideas in the text? Are we sharing in joy over a beautiful piece of art or a musical composition?

True relationships are formed upon intimacies, shared love, and a desire to both care and know about the other person, and to be cared for and fully known by others. This same idea directly applies to our relationships with various subjects.

How does this relate to a student’s day-to-day learning?

In geography, are you taking the time to be diligent in your work, creating beautiful maps that you are proud of, and seeing the beauty of the land which you are studying? In math, do you take a deep breath after feeling the fulfillment of executing a multistep problem correctly?

In Bible, are you connecting with the disciples and discovering the joy and struggle of what it looks like to live a life following Jesus? In Literature, are you able to imagine the story as the author tells it? Can you relate to the characters and the relationships and conflicts they have with others in the story? All of these examples, and many more, show the impact care can have towards true knowledge.

“The question is not, – how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education – but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?”
– Charlotte Mason

Some of the favorite parts of my days at school are when fellow teachers get to share stories of the intimate relationships students are forming with various subjects and the care they have towards the people, ideas, and things they come across in their readings. Below are two stories from my class in past years.

In our U.S. History curriculum, we read all about the American colonies and the American revolution in Class 5. Every year, when we come to read about George Washington, the students are always deeply moved and inspired by the leadership of Washington, both during the war and during his presidency that followed. Last year, I remember one student was so moved by his leadership that when asked to write a reflection about what made him a good leader, the student wrote multiple pages, outlining what made Washington lead so well. After reading his response, it was clear to me that he had developed a personal relationship with George Washington himself. Even though he obviously never met him, he knew him, as a friend and leader, through the stories that we read.

Every year at Christmas, I normally give my students a book of poetry by William Wordsworth, as students come to enjoy his poetry a great deal when we study it in Class 5. Last year, after giving the book to students, I remember multiple students coming to me after Christmas break and telling me that they had memorized three new poems because they enjoyed those poems so much, they didn’t want to forget them. They even recited them for me. The next class, we took time to read poems we enjoyed most from the year and students shared why they enjoyed those poems and what ideas still struck them.

These stories give a glimpse into the intimate relationships that students at Calvary are forming throughout their day. I am sure you have heard many stories like this from your own children. I would love to hear them!

A quality education is not about what facts or information have been retained for a short time. A quality education is about what we have come to love and care deeply about, for these are the stories, concepts, things, and ideas that we will have formed true, intimate relationships with. These are the things that will be truly known and remembered.

Ben Sytsma teaches 5th grade at Calvary Schools of Holland and also acts as Assistant Principal of the elementary campus. Mr. Sytsma completed his Bachelors in Education and is currently pursuing his Masters in Education at Dordt University. He is a graduate of the Ambleside Master Teacher Training Program and has been on staff at Calvary Schools of Holland since 2014.