Destined to Fail?

In my last blog post, I shared about my daughter, who was born with Williams Syndrome and how we took her out of public school, believing that her needs would be better met at home. But there is more to that story that I wanted to share today. You see, there was one issue that I was always wrestling with, something that was too painful to even verbalize at the time. As much as I hated to admit it, I believed in my heart that when it came to her education, my daughter was destined to fail.

You see, I knew what a successful education entailed because I thought I had experienced one. With a nearly 4.0 GPA all through high school, I had the ability to memorize large quantities of information, to write a convincing paper, to give an effective presentation and to take a difficult test – all with flying colors. After high school, I went on to complete an academically challenging college program in the medical field, excelling in both my classes and in my internship program. Yes, I knew first-hand what it took for a person to be successful in their education. And I also knew that Taylor did not have those abilities.

At least that’s what I used to believe before I learned the liberating truth about education.

All my life, I had bought into a major deception that is commonplace in our culture today. Like most people, I believed that education was primarily informational in nature and that the evidence of a person’s education could be found in their intellect and their head knowledge.

The attempt to educate individuals through an informational transfer of knowledge is seen everywhere today: in schools in the form of lectures, in church services in the form of sermons, in Sunday School classes in the form of information-based lessons and in homeschools in the form of content-focused teachings. But such an academic focus is extremely limiting because it only validates the transfer of knowledge that occurs within the intellect.

I used to believe that knowledge was supposed to be taught through my words, transferred from my mind to the mind of my children with the end goal of filling up their heads with knowledge. To a degree, this method had indeed been successful in achieving its goal. Minds had been filled – at least those minds that were not limited by their cognitive abilities. But this accomplishment, in and of itself, is superficial. There is a more whole-life approach to education which is far superior.

As Marilyn Howshall describes in her book, Transformational Education, true education is not informational, but relational in nature.  This means that the primary source of transferring knowledge is not through words. My words, though still used to transfer knowledge, will always be limited to the expression of facts and data. It is within the context of a real relationship and a heart to heart connection that I am given the precious opportunity to transfer who I am as a person – all of my character qualities and my values – to another person.

By its very nature, the evidence of a true education cannot be determined by a mind that has been filled with knowledge (though scholarship is indeed a byproduct of a real education, to the extent of an individual’s capabilities). The real evidence is found in a heart that has been transformed to reflect the character of Christ.

As I began to understand the truth about education, I experienced a full range of emotions. With both relief and elation, I discovered that a true education allows all individuals, including my daughter with her limited cognitive abilities, an equal opportunity to succeed. That relief was soon followed by the uncomfortable realization that I myself had a history of prematurely aborting the heart transformation that accompanies a real education.

I also experienced a tremendous sense of responsibility that remains with me today. I am fully aware that the degree to which any of my children will succeed in their education is related directly to me. My children will only be as loving of a person as whom I have become. They will adopt my character qualities and values, regardless of whether my motivation is loving or selfish. My children will always be a direct reflection of who I am.

This realization leaves me with a sense of urgency to aggressively pursue my own education. Heaven forbid that I choose to remain passive or indifferent to my own process of heart-level growth and change! By neglecting my own education, I would only continue to be the source of my children’s limitations.

Today in my home, the truth about education is being exposed and embraced, and the result is liberty. I am experiencing the liberty of becoming free from the arrogance of my perceived success by putting this part of my flesh to death, and I am engaging in a real education for the first time in my life. My daughter is experiencing liberty as well. Her potential for growth and change is no longer limited by a label. We have the assurance that the Lord created her with everything that she needs to succeed in her education.

I realize that it could appear that I am suggesting that a true education disregards the process of individual scholarship, but quite the opposite is true. And I will explain how it all fits together in my next post.

~ Christi Faagau