Growth and Learning

Just finished reading Mindset by Carol Dweck.  If you haven't read it, I really recommend it, especially if, like me, you really struggle with the insecurity a fixed mindset can cause.  The book makes me think a lot about growth and how to foster that in my children and my students.  As a teacher, I really despise having to use grades and test scores.  These "products" do so much to undermine what I hope to teach my students - the value of learning and growth.  Part of our school mission statement talks about helping students grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ.  Am I really teaching lifelong growing if I emphasize grades?  test scores?  There is a huge difference between students who are focused on learning and students who are focused on grades.  Students focused on grades are focused on an end result that they think will happen right now.  But life is a journey - we grow in Christ, we let Him work in us, in every aspect of our lives.  Change doesn't just happen, it takes work.  But if we act like grades just happen, that they are the result of "smart" or "not", then what's to keep us from expecting our relationship with Christ to just happen.  If we are focused on learning, on growing, on using our mistakes or missteps to help us to ultimately succeed, then we know that change takes work.  Our relationship with Christ, like all relationships, takes work.  We have to spend time with Him, surrender minute by minute to Him, study His love letter to us.  None of these things save us, but they do bring us closer to Him.  They do teach us that we can't just sit by and let life happen, we have to be purposeful and purpose-driven.  "Go and make disciples", not sit by and wait to see if anyone asks you questions that might lead them to one day think about accepting Christ.  Action.  Purpose.  Learning.  Growth.