Okay, well, we're gonna jump into a talk this morning. We're gonna talk about the honor and the excitement of learning and how to cultivate that with our students. But before we do that, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this calling that you've given to us to help Christian parents disciple their children and raise them up in the Lord. I pray that you would bless this time as we learn how to do that better. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. So I remember, I'm gonna start this off with a brief memory of mine. I remember one of the first times I walked into a public library. Do any of y'all remember that, have a distinct memory of that? I know everybody does, but I had that memory of walking into a public library as a kid, the Franklin Public Library. Now, in hindsight, Franklin is not a very big town. It's a pretty small library. It's not really all that impressive, right? But to a five-year-old who's never seen walls and walls of books, it seemed like a really amazing place. And it is, it's an amazing place. I mean, look at all those books, rows and rows of books, endless possibilities for learning and for exploration. It's really, really exciting. And somehow, in that moment, as a five-year-old or however old I was, I had acquired a strong sense of excitement and mystique of this thing that we call learning. Now, unfortunately, these days, the adventure of learning is seldom in the hearts of most students these days. It's an unfortunate thing. There may be tiny sparks of interest every now and then, but school is generally thought of as boring by a large majority of those students who go every day. And the boredom doesn't stop when the child grows up and maybe starts going to college. Many students find more excitement in their extracurricular activities than they do in their academic studies. And part of the problem is our modern approaches to schooling, rejecting the idea that students are individuals, like we had talked about last year. Y'all remember us talking about that, the individuality of students? We need to take that into account. And I think many of these failures and these approaches to schooling, when it comes to the excitement of learning, stems from failure to acknowledge the individuality of the student. I mean, think about it. If all the students in a classroom are expected to perform equally well in their subjects, And if some children are frustrated that they don't achieve the standard, and then you have other kids who are bored because they're way ahead of the standard, then there's a strong possibility that the majority of the students in that classroom will have lost the honor and the excitement of learning. And if only a handful of kids dislike school because they find learning boring, well, that's only going to spread throughout the entire class. Something isn't done about it, right? And having a whole school that has lost the excitement of learning is not a place that we want to be. We don't want to get to that point, OK? I don't think we are necessarily at that point, but we could always help and cultivate a spirit of excitement when it comes to learning and it comes to our subjects, right? And so this brings us to a man who really wanted wisdom and he asked God for wisdom and he got wisdom, right? Who is that man in the Bible? Yeah, Solomon. Exactly. So this man, Solomon, he wrote about this, about the search for knowledge and wisdom. He says this in Proverbs 25 verse two, It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. Now Solomon is telling us something very, very important here. He is telling us that God has carefully hidden certain things in this physical world of rocks and trees and all of creation. And it's man's job to find them. The world, the creation is a giant treasure hunt. And we have been called by God to find the treasure. You know, everybody likes a treasure hunt, but only if we know it's a treasure hunt. Who would like to go on a treasure hunt not really sure if there's treasure at the end of all of the work and the sacrifice and all of these sorts of things? Well, Solomon is telling us here, God is telling us through Solomon, that God has hidden a great treasure in his creation for us to find. Since this world is a treasure hunt and there's treasure to be found, that means that if you have a tree in your front yard, that that tree is not meaningless. It's not meaningless. It's not a meaningless, purposeless accident. I'm trying to say the words right. Yeah. In a universe of pure chance. It's not that. Neither did it appear by accident by a God who forgot what he was doing whenever he created the cooler things like whales and roses, right? No, neither did this world come into being because maybe a scientist left an experiment too long over the weekend and it exploded in the laboratory and voila, creation. No, that's not how it works. No, the Christian worldview says that everything has a purpose, everything. that God has a grand purpose for each of the elements, each of the compounds, each plant, each form of animal life that he's created. That means there are wonderful, significant uses hidden in the plants and in the minerals of this world. And we're only talking about the physical world. We're not even getting into the spiritual as or the world of ideas. I'm only talking about the physical world. And it's this Christian worldview that has created the greatest poets, the greatest botanists, the greatest doctors, the greatest physicists, and the greatest farmers that the world has ever seen. This is the worldview that has brought up the amazing advances of the Industrial Revolution, with all of the modern inventions that now regularly accompany us in modern life. Many, if not most, of the early scientists, the early doctors and philosophers from the 17th and 18th centuries, they were self-conscious, professing Christians. They were professing believers in Christ. And their discoveries and their advances all happened prior. Think about this. They all happened prior to the modern institutionalization of education. Now these days, we find the great minds of the modern age abandoning this Christian worldview, holding on to maybe a few fragments of truth that says that God created the world with order, meaning, and purpose. And even that little fragment, these fragments are disintegrating as well. See, the Christian with a thoroughly Christian worldview, straight out of the Bible, looks at some seemingly random plant growing in the yard, and they know it's not random. They know it's not random. They know it's not a product of chance, that there is a design there and that that design is intentional and it's purposeful. And looking through the lens that a personal God has created everything that he sees, he sees a potential solution for some aspect of the curse that was put on creation at the fall of man. He sees in that plant, in that rock, in these elements, some potential solution for a problem that's been afflicting the human race ever since the fall for thousands of years. Maybe he sees in that plant a cure for cancer or a cure for heart disease. He may see the potential for fuel for rocket ships coming from that plant. That's what a Christian sees when he looks at creation. God hiding a treasure in the creation and giving us the job to find it. This is the one true motivator for the creativity of man. If a Christian believes that there is something of value and something of purpose hidden intentionally by the God of the universe, then he is gonna be motivated to find it, amen? If one believes that an intelligent designer put a plant in this world with a purpose, then he is gonna be motivated to get out there and actually find out what that purpose is. Creativity, when it all boils down, is discovery. Creativity is discovery. You're discovering something. And that can only happen in a world that has already accepted purpose and design and creation. See, this view of the world gives a totally different approach to learning and to taking dominion. First, this perspective shows us that knowledge can actually be accessed. You know, there have been religions and beliefs in the past that says, even now, agnosticism, can we really know? Can we really know anything? Well, God is telling us, yes, knowledge can be accessed. Knowledge is waiting for us in the next book that we pull off the shelf. Some important discovery is about to bust out in the next lab experiment. Even in your class, some important discovery is about to bust out. It's waiting, the potential is there, right? Even knowledge of God and his redeeming work, that's accessible to us, right? That's accessible to the one who reaches out by faith. Romans 10, verses six through eight says this. It says, but the righteousness based on faith says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down, or who will ascend into the abyss, that is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you. The word is near you. In your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith that we proclaim. It's near to us. It's right at our fingertips. If we would just reach out and grab for it with a heart of faith, that's what we need to teach our students. That's what they need to know. The great botanist and chemist, George Washington Carver, he understood this. And it was this truth that God made knowledge accessible to us, that fact motivated him in his research of the sweet potato, the peanut, and cotton. And he had this anecdote to describe his sense of wonder and purpose in the universe. Listen to this. I'm quoting him now. Quote, I asked God, why did you make the universe, Lord? Ask for something more in proportion to that little mind of yours, replied God. Why did you make the earth, Lord, I asked. Your little mind still wants to know far too much. Ask for something more in proportion to that little mind of yours, replied God. Why did you make man, Lord, I asked. Far too much, far too much. Ask again, replied God. Explain to me why you made plants, Lord. I asked, well, your little mind still wants to know far too much. The peanut? I asked meekly. Yes, for your modest proportions, I will grant you the mystery of the peanut. Take it inside your laboratory and separate it into water, fats, oils, gums, resins, sugars, starches, and amino acids. Then recombine these under my three laws of compatibility, temperature, and pressure. Then you will know why I made the peanut. Now, while not every scientist would say something like this, obviously, most modern scientists wouldn't, this view of the world, though, is the presupposition in which successful science operates in. Successful science cannot operate without this presupposition, that there is something to be found, and it was put there. God put it there, an intelligent designer put it there, right? God created the universe, amen. God created the universe and he created every element in it for a purpose that must somehow fit into taking dominion. Everything is for the great task of taking dominion. We must keep that as teachers in the forefront of our minds. Everything in this world, every idea, every physical object, all of your subjects, handwriting, phonograms, all of that, all of those things are for the task of man taking dominion, okay? Second, if there is personal intent and purpose behind the creation of all things, then this implies that man is created with the ability to discover what that purpose is. Knowledge is accessible and man has the ability to access it, to have it, okay? If there is purpose inside of everything that's created and it's hidden in there, then God wants us to find it. He wants us to find it. God says, in essence, I've put treasure in everything that you see, and I command you to find it. Not just I desire you to find it, I command you to find it. That's what the creation mandate is. It's a command for us to go and find it. Genesis 128, I'll repeat the creation mandate to you. It says, and God bless them. man and woman. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. There is treasure in everything. Go and find it and have fun finding it. Enjoy finding it. I command you. Don't we serve a good God who commands us to do these wonderful things? I command you to go on the treasure hunt. Go and think my thoughts after me. I command you. That's exciting. And we need to teach our students this. And we need to pray that they will get excited about this treasure hunt. There's treasure to be found. Third, the idea of significance and meaning in creation. That implies that there is usefulness in everything that has been created, and it's good that man knows what that is. Everything in creation is useful. God tells us. Do we even know a fragment of how useful everything is in creation right now? I don't even think we know half a percent of how useful everything in creation really is. But God tells us in his word and implies that there is usefulness in everything that's been created. And it is good that man knows what that is. In the beginning, God created man. and God gave man the responsibility of taking dominion over the world. And this dominion extends, of course, over the animal kingdom, over plant life, over minerals, and that responsibility is still in effect to this day. Psalm 8, verses five and six says this, yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. Who's he talking about here? Christ, yes, but who's Christ represent? Man, that's right. Christ, of course, he is talking about Christ, but Christ is representing all of man here. I'll read verse six. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet. 1 Corinthians 15, that rings, it links right up to that, to that, amen. That's so weird. We still have that responsibility today to take dominion, to subdue the earth. It hasn't changed. God didn't require man to take dominion without the same time creating a world that would be beneficial to man. Once we find the treasure, what are we to do with it, right? And that work of discovering what all of these uses for creation is, that's the work of obedience. That's us obeying. That's doing what God has commanded us to do with the raw materials that God has given for that very purpose. Now, it's challenging work, right? Some people spend their entire lives. George Washington Carver spent his entire life just taking dominion and subduing and learning and finding the treasure in a peanut. that we get in whole containers at Costco, right? Or sweet potatoes and cotton. He spent his entire life just for that. It's challenging work, it's hard work, but it's very fun and rewarding work at the same time. Especially the reward Christ will give us when he says, well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy master. Did you know that was connected to dissecting peanuts too? Fourth, if we really believe that God created the world with significance, with meaning, and with purpose, then this belief should produce in us a sense that the world is enchanted. That there's a certain magic about the world. And that should produce in us a sense of wonder about the world around us. For this universe not only shows us purpose, but it shows us a personal purpose. We don't have an impersonal God just out there somewhere disconnected from this world. No, we have Yahweh's fingerprints all over everything in creation. His fingerprints are everywhere. Right? Our daily interactions with this world in the laboratory of the scientists and in the laboratory of life should produce a deep desire, a deep sense of wonder at the wisdom and the love and the magnificence of the God behind it all. there should be a sort of a romance developing in us toward the creation. Now I'm using romance in the traditional sense of the word, not the modern definition of romance. I'm defining romance as a sensitivity towards the beauty, towards the wisdom and the complexity, the variety, the usefulness and the significance of creation. It's okay for us to be romantics in that sense. Right? Romance requires us to be acutely aware in observing creation, and it requires a mind that can see the personal character of the message sent to us by this personal God. Romance is the feelings of significance, the significance of experience of the moment, combined with the significance of the meaning associated with the experience. In other words, we don't want to separate emotion, the emotion of an experience, from the intellectual awareness of the experience. I'll say it in different words. We don't want to subscribe to emotionalism. Nor do we describe to having warm fuzzy feelings while having our brains turned off. That's really what I'm trying to say. Because that could easily happen. We can be immersed and enraptured in the feelings of an experience, but our brains are turned off. We could be being majorly deceived right now. So we have to have both. We have to, while our brains are turned on, while we're intellectually aware of things, we need to develop a romance and a sense of wonder with the Lord and with his creation. That's super important, and that's what we have to teach our students to cultivate within their own hearts. Next, because there is significance and meaning in creation, and in the truth revealed to us by God in his word, there is a significance and honor found in the work of discovery." There's significance in being an explorer. There's significance in being someone who longs to discover. The person who chooses the work of being a scientist, or a theologian, or a doctor, or a plumber, or an electrician, or a statesman, is engaging in a worthy occupation. There's much to be discovered in all of those fields. Those are, as Proverbs says, positions of honor. Proverbs says that they're due to kings. It's the glory of kings to search these things out. Sounds pretty honorable, right? What is honor? Well, honor brings this idea of respect. They're respectable professions. The more a man engages in research or in discovery of God's truth hidden in his word, in the Bible, hidden in his world, the creation, the more he is going to command the respect of others. He becomes an honorable man or an honorable woman in the sight of God and in the eyes of men. So honor isn't earned by affluence or wealth. It seems to be the modern myth these days. Honor is accrued through wealth or who you know. But that's not how the Bible says honor is accrued. Honor is earned by the pursuit of knowledge and of understanding and of the acquisition of wisdom. It's not so much the success of the search. You don't necessarily have to be a successful searcher with everything you're trying to find out. That's not where you're necessarily going to get the honor. God is saying that it's honorable What makes you honorable is the process that you're involved in in searching, no matter what you find out, right? The process of searching makes the searcher an honorable man. Next, it's the great calling of honorable men and women to discover the truth hidden by God and in his creation and in his word. This is assisted by a universe that has the utmost of divinely intended meaning and purpose in every revealed word and in every plant and rock. Then we can say that the work that's done is important. and it ought to be done in a way that recognizes its own importance. In other words, all that is done should be done with all our effort, 100% of our effort. That's what the preacher said in Ecclesiastes. He says, whatever your hand finds to do, Do it with your might. So if young students can capture and harness the sense of significance that's placed in the facts of the universe because of the God who put them there, then he is gonna be drawn to study. He or she is gonna be drawn to study. You ever wish some of your students would be like, I wish they would just have the motivation to study on their own. Well, the reason they don't study on their own is because they don't understand this. They don't understand the significance and the magnitude and the God-given mission that each student has been given to study and discover. If they understand this, that all of this work that we do here at school is important, then they're gonna be drawn to study. With this worldview, the Christian worldview, and only with this worldview will the search for knowledge and wisdom be desirable to the student getting a Christian education. It's the only way. You know, the whole idea of getting honor and respect from just getting straight A's, that should pale in comparison to this mission. Straight A's don't mean a hill of beans compared to that. That's a great calling, right? Getting straight A's just to win a popularity contest or to get a pat on the back from their parents or even get a pat on the back from the world, that's superficial compared to this mission. You shouldn't be learning for the sole purpose of getting approval from the world. You can see how all that's going at Harvard right now, right? You haven't heard about all that? The president of Harvard has been accused of plagiarism, and there's a whole big fiasco going on at Harvard right now, and she recently resigned. And I think that's going on across the board at higher institutions of learning, that people are just getting exposed. And oftentimes, a lot of these folks will copy each other's work. And why is that? To get the accolades, to get the pat on the back, right? And so we can see the fruits of that sort of worldview panning out over there at Harvard. So we can't do that. True honor is recognized by, and it's recognized in the man, the woman, who is busy running after wisdom in God's world and in God's word. Now, you may think, well, that sounds great and all. But how do we even begin to do this? How do we begin to cultivate this in our students? Well, not much education is going to happen without creating an environment that fosters the thrill of the chase. the mystique of the discovery or the honorable nature of the work. It's not going to happen unless there is an atmosphere that cultivates and fosters that, right? In the home and in the classroom. You know, education isn't going to happen in a classroom full of long faces and empty stairs. It's not going to happen. Nothing thrilling is going to happen if most of the class is already yawning from boredom, right? Look, we're not an expensive daycare. If we were a daycare, we'd be really expensive. Oh, are we? Oh, goodness. Well, we're not a daycare, okay? We're not a daycare, so we shouldn't cultivate an environment that looks like one, okay? We're not just housing children for eight hours a day, and then they go home with their parents, no. And so we have to cultivate this environment. So that brings us to the teacher, brings us to you guys, brings us to myself, right? A good teacher needs to convey to his or her students the value and the purpose of learning. Now, this can happen by instruction. I'm instructing you now, right? That can happen by instruction. That can happen by telling them and communicating this to them. And that's good, but it mostly happens by example. That's where it happens the most. Good teachers have to lead the chase for knowledge, and they have to be the most enthusiastic about the treasure hunt. You know, probably every one of us remember a good teacher that we've had in the past, right? I have a few. I remember them with endearing thoughts. And the most amazing thing about those teachers is that they're really found in a lot of places. They're found everywhere. But they're not always found in the places that we might think. They're not always found at Harvard. They're not always found in the most prestigious schools and universities. They're not always found at some Ivy League school out there. I would say that much of the time, they're not. But they're often found in kitchens. They're often found in living rooms or tucked away at some obscure junior college somewhere, right? SLCC probably has a lot of great teachers, right? Tucked away at some Christian school somewhere in South Louisiana. We're tucked away, right? Those good teachers are out there. They may not even be found in like institutionalized education. They might be found in business apprenticeships. It could be found in training programs, on-the-job training for some trade. The great teachers are not usually, they're not always unusually intelligent. They're not always the most original thinkers. They're not always found in high-level positions in the academic world. But without fail, the best teachers in our lives are always the ones who loved the subject more than they knew about the subject. They were always the ones who loved the subject more than they knew the subject. And the more they learned of their subject, the more they loved their subject. And their enthusiasm for the subject was contagious. And it spread to all of their students. It pulled the students in with them. They were excited about their field of study because somehow they had captured a sense of its significance. They understood why it was important. And embarking on the study was like going out to find a treasure hidden in a field. They understood that. You know, what exactly the treasure was wasn't always clear, but the treasure was worth finding out. It was worth at least seeing. What is this treasure? There's treasure out there. We got to find it, right? The best teachers are those who are in discovery mode in the process of teaching. In other words, they discover together with their students. In the discovery experience, they're the ones who exemplify the highest sense of wonder, the highest sense of expectation, and the highest sense of honor that must be learned and shared by their students. You know, I heard a story about this panel of experts coming together to talk about education, which was actually aired on the radio. And one of the mothers on the panel had a PhD in zoology. And she told everybody that she had learned more homeschooling her children than she did in her entire doctoral program. And she's not the only one that's saying these sorts of things. How many of you know, I know the answer to this, but how many of you know that teaching and lecturing can be the best way to come to a real understanding and comprehension of the subject matter? You don't know it well until you have to teach it, right? And the students, if they sense your excitement, and they sense that you're hot on the trail of an idea, they're going to sense that and follow along with you, right? That's contagious. The trail in the class looks fresh. Ooh, there's an idea. it looks fresh and it's not it doesn't look like it's well traveled let's go down this road I don't know what's down there but we know God put it down there for us and so it's worthwhile to see and worthwhile to get to so and the students can smell this adventure and this excitement and and they can feel the mystique of it right this treasure hunt idea explains I guess what we call an irony in education when it comes to like a total newbie in teaching. When that total newbie in teaching turns out to be the very best teacher of all. The most common fear by new teachers and by parents homeschooling their kids for the first time is of course their lack of experience in the subject matter. I don't know anything about teaching. I don't know anything about this subject. Well, that's a myth. That's a myth that you can't teach your students if you don't know anything about the subject. Somehow they feel that it's a drawback to have to study the same material alongside their students. But what they don't realize is that trails that are freshly blazed can provide the biggest reward for the discoverer. And what many new teachers and parents thought was their greatest weakness actually turned out to be their greatest strength. The idea, this idea also ties into the idea that we talked about last year about relationship-based learning. If the child's closest mentors have a great love for learning, and they have a great recognition of the honor and the reward of learning, then the child is most likely going to acquire that same love. Right? Now, on the other hand, if a parent who spends the few hours that they do have at home in mindless entertainment, and the child sees that, while at the same time, you know, telling Junior, you need to read and study more, you know, is that gonna work out very well for the child? Is the, or they're not gonna have much success in the education of that child. You know, as the saying goes, more is caught than taught. If a parent or a teacher doesn't find great reward, and they don't see how great a treasure knowledge and wisdom really is, then their kid isn't going to see that either. The student isn't going to see it. So, let's ask this question. How can a teacher maintain a sense of adventure in the hunt for knowledge and a freshness to the trail of wisdom when he has been over the same material over and over again, year after year? How do we overcome that? Well, the answer is found in the nature of knowledge itself. As it turns out, every trail that's blazed, there's new implications. that might be discovered, and there are new connections that can be made with other fields of knowledge. New ways of understanding the material may come up. Even though you've followed the same curriculum path over and over again, have your antenna up for other implications and other ways that this material can be connected to another subject or something else. Always be looking for new ways to explain the material. They're often there every time you pass by, every time y'all pass by this certain concept or this certain unit, they're there. But since you've been through this unit already, maybe three, four or five times, uh, you kind of, you don't have your antennas up anymore. We've got to have that up, right? Because there's no reason why the trail can't appear fresh over and over again, especially if the teacher has come to realize the God given significance in the material she's teaching. Are you continuing to learn your subject matter more for yourself? Are you continually reading books and listening to lectures so that you may continually learn more and more and be a better teacher? How can we expect students to do this if we don't do it? The best teachers are the best learners. So if we're not learning and actively on the hunt for treasure, we can't expect our students to do that, right? So the student has to also learn to experience the thrill of learning for himself. Until that happens, the student is not going to learn how to learn on their own without somebody constantly prodding them and pushing them along. That's a major goal for us at CCA. We must show the students the thrill of the chase in learning. He must learn the habit of stimulating the adrenaline glands right before he opens a good book, right before he begins to explore a new subject, right before he begins to study any part of God's creation. Learning has to be driven by the same force that drove John Glenn to enter the space capsule that would orbit the earth for the first time. The force that drove Shackleton's men to explore Antarctica, The student enters the study assuming that his discoveries are going to impact the destiny of mankind and that his efforts are going to be rewarded with some measure of success. And that future value, as he sits in the study today, he knows that that study will accrue gains from that investment that he's putting in. He doesn't know how. He doesn't know how it's going to pan out. But he knows there's treasure to be found, and it's going to not only benefit himself, it's going to benefit the world. It's going to benefit mankind for the glory of God. And look, ideally, this is something to work towards, ideally, by the time a child is 12 or 13 years old, in ideal circumstances, he should have learned this lesson, and he should be self-motivated in his studies. I mean, think about it, especially for us that maybe teach 12 or 13 year olds, think about that. This reduces the need for us to constantly be looking over the shoulder of the student to make sure they're doing their work. Right? That's important. That's convenient for us. But more importantly, this has already started a fire in them to learn for themselves, to go on the hunt for themselves, right? To know that there's a treasure out there, wherever this is going, and that it is worthwhile to go out and try to find it. I mean, once a kid understands that, they're gonna study. They're going to put in the work to find these great treasures. Another thing that's really important when it comes to the student loving learning is the company that he hangs out with. A student must surround himself with peers who also have recognized this high calling in education. Boys in particular can learn to despise school when their individuality isn't taken into account. And this happens when they're put in a learning environment and they're subjected to lessons for which maybe their bodies and their minds aren't prepared for yet. And then they get frustrated. And then they hate school. In a surprising number of cases, boys aren't prepared to begin regimented academic work until they are eight, nine, or sometimes even 10 years old. Moreover, parents and teachers should be very aware of the relationships that are developed by their children with their peers. If their closest friends in school on the playground, or in church, despise the pursuit of knowledge, and long to go down the path of a fool, then that's inevitably going to rub off on them, even as they're just starting to get a taste for the value of the chase. It's important. We've got to monitor who they hang out with. I do my best to fence the table, but we still have a school full of sinners. We still have a school where some students don't understand that value yet. That's okay. Their parents barely understand that value. That's all right. We're all new to this. We're all growing in the Lord. But at the same time, we need to see it. We need to be on the lookout for it. And do our best to remedy that in the classroom by being the lead learner, by being the one who really is the most excited and the most enthusiastic about the subject matter that we're learning. Because these things have implications. These things just aren't stuff we learn in school and forget about the next day. Right? These have implications for the dominion mandate, for pleasing the Lord, and for benefiting mankind. And so we have to give them a taste for the chase. All right, so how do we cultivate the spirit of wonder and honor in the quest for knowledge? How do we do that practically? Well, I have seven ways, and I really have to credit Kevin Swanson for offering these seven ways that I'm gonna share with you. They're very good. Seven ways to nurture the spirit of wonder and honor in learning. First one, we need to cultivate an expectation at the start. need to cultivate a sense of expectation at the start. The introduction of new content in either an informal or formal education program, it has to, right at the outset, create that sense of significance that's about to happen, right? First impressions are very, very important in the classroom. The first day of class in the school year, the first encounter with the teacher, the first five minutes of class on any given day of the week, the first time any new material is introduced. Those are the prime opportunities to establish the value of the journey, the value of the quest that lies before them. That's first. We need to cultivate expectation at the start. Number two, we must appeal to the survival instinct. We must appeal to the survival instinct. The thrill of the chase can also be driven by the survival instinct. And this instinct is especially strong when it's understood that education is for our work in real life. You know, you ever got that question, when are we ever going to use this? Yes, there'll be plenty of opportunities to use this depending on where God calls you to. If a student can know for sure that the studying that they're doing today is going to one day help put food on the table later on in life, then he is going to immediately see the value of the work that he's putting in today, right? That's especially important the older the students get. You know, I get the junior high and high school. I get those questions all the time. When are we ever going to use this? I'm like, there are so many ways that you can use what I'm teaching right now that you don't even can't even begin to understand yet. So trust me, have faith in your teacher that we're just not wasting your time. Okay. But a factor that's even more motivating than that kind of survival instinct, physical survival, right? Sustenance, food on the table, is the survival instinct in the war of ideas. The war of ideas. Look, I found myself bored in the course of studying something. Haven't we all? Sure. I might be reading a book that was assigned to me, or a book that I have to read for one of my classes, and the material at times seems to flow into my brain like molasses in January. It's just not happening. Now, obviously, in those moments, are you gonna retain much of what you're learning when the information's just not flown in? No, of course not. But in moments like that, it's important for me to ask the question, well, what practical use does this material have for me right now? What use is this for me? And if I can see that the book would be helpful to better gain a defense maybe on some important position that I've taken or on some issue, then right away I begin to see some value in the study, even though, you know, it's tough going at the time, right? Instantly, if I can get this idea in my head that this is practical and this is of use to me, then I can change from being this bored bystander of this information to an enthusiastic pursuer of knowledge. That's because I found a good reason for studying this. And this may, I could see that this is gonna help me stock up an arsenal of defense for the day of battle, whenever that may come, right? If I can hold that purpose in my mind, then my attention to the content, my ability to absorb the information, and my retention of the information are gonna increase immediately. It's gonna increase. So super important. Have to appeal to the survival instinct. Number three, we must indulge the spirit of wonder and exploration continually. Indulge the spirit of wonder and expectation or exploration continually, excuse me, even if it puts you off schedule. I know it's a tough one. Even if it puts you off schedule. If you see, let's say you're on vacation, or you're driving somewhere in the West, and you see this strange land formation out there in the distance on this boring stretch of road, stop the car, hike up the mountain, if it's hikeable, and check it out. If a question comes up in class about the death of Alexander the Great, and it doesn't immediately pertain to the lesson, but it could, grab the encyclopedia, go on the internet, finish the search. It's okay to take detours. It's okay to take rabbit trails. I do it all the time in my class. To where I think at the end of the hour, I didn't get anything done that was on my list. But that's okay. If they're good questions and they're asked in good faith, then explore it, go. You got my permission, go on a detour, right? Apparently a student sees some type of treasure, sees something valuable at the end of this, or there could be something valuable. Well, let's go and explore together. In other words, nurture that sense of curiosity that children have. Cultivate the excitement of the quest and the joy of the find. And that brings us to the next one, the next point, number four. Never discourage the curious mind of a child. Never discourage their curiosity. That means this takes you patiently answering or patiently attempting to answer a question. Every genuine question that you get by those little inquiring minds, right? Look, younger children can be unnecessarily confined by the imposition of an excessive number of rules by restricted parents and teachers. While order in the home and order in the classroom is very, very important, it's not the only principle that God has set before us in an environment of learning. Many times, parents and teachers severely restrict their children out of mere convenience for themselves. And doing that, they create a virtual tyranny in the classroom for a child who is naturally inquisitive and just naturally creative. We can't do that. We can't do that. Any genuine question that a child has in class, patiently attempt to answer it. And if you don't know the answer, say, look, I don't know the answer. I have this book right here, or I have this site right here. We can go and find the answer for them. And it's okay if it knocks us off schedule. We never want to discourage the curious mind of a child. We don't want to do that. Number five, we need to associate, as teachers, we need to associate with those who nurture the spirit of discovery. This is just us personally. Of course the students need to do that, but they're not really gonna do that unless we do that and their parents do that, right? So it's important that we associate with those who nurture the spirit of discovery. You know, two people, you ever had like a study buddy in school? You ever find that studying goes so much better when you have someone else to study with? Not always, not all the time. That's true. Well, good point. Well, yes, there is, there are usually advantages to that, right? Two people can sometimes employ the spirit of wonder better than one. One can motivate the other one or vice versa. One can take the other's idea and move that idea forward in discovery. You know, that's why, you know, I mean, I'm a musician, so I'm pretty familiar with the music world. That's why so many, you know, if you ever look at a song title, like on the back of a CD jacket, you find like five writers under it. Like, not one person usually writes a song for five writers, because there's collaboration. There's inspiration that can be bounced off one another when multiple minds are involved with a creative project. It's the same thing with studying. And so, you know, one could take that idea that maybe you come up with about a certain thing and they could be like, oh, well, what about this and this and this? And then, you know, it creates all sorts of, you know, new trails to where there's new treasures behind those things. And so it's important for us to associate with those who nurture that spirit of discovery. having friends, having acquaintances, having, you know, people in our lives that. want to glorify God in the discovery and learning as well. Because as you know, education doesn't end when you graduate from CCA. We should all be disciples, right? We're called to be disciples. Those comes from the word discipulo in Latin, I learn, right? Disciple. So we are all called to be lifelong learners. So we need to associate with people who can help us with that. Number six, avoid activities that mesmerize, yet do not encourage a spirit of wonder and discovery. Avoid activities that maybe mesmerize the child, but yet they don't encourage a spirit of wonder and discovery. You know, the heart of wonder and discovery can be squashed when a child indulges in mind-deadening babysitting activities like TV, videos, video games, you know, I'm not saying these things are necessarily bad and of themselves, but in the classroom, I mean, there should be very few instances where you employ these certain media to educate children. Because the problem with these forms of media usually is that the mind is led by the nose through these programs, OK? And so there's very little opportunity for engagement outside of the limited scope of what the program is, right? There's very limited engagement in analysis, in imagination, and pursuit beyond the program's limited scope. Basically, the video just gives them everything. There's no imagination necessary. It just goes ahead and just coddles them along and takes them through the program. And so prolonged exposure to that sort of thing discourages a child from proactively engaging in the pursuit for himself. So we want to avoid those activities whenever we can. And number seven. Honor true achievement. Honor true achievement. You know, the failure to honor our children's accomplishments is a sure way to fail in teaching them and in child raising. Now, while, you know, what's the saying? The squeaky wheel gets the grease. It's tempting to only tend to our children when they're doing the wrong thing. And while that's tempting, this approach fails to recognize and employ how powerful encouragement is and affirmation is. A home or a classroom where the wrong is condemned but the right is never commended becomes an oppressive environment, becomes oppressive. And more often than not, the children are going to become frustrated. And they're going to lose the desire to discover. And you know, some parents and teachers honor their children for the wrong reasons. Many times, children are commended for superficial reasons like their looks or what they're wearing. Instead, they ought to be commended for acts of courage, for respect, kindness, diligence, and sacrificial love and service to others. on the trail to discover. If you're hot on the trail of something, they should be commended for creativity, for problem solving, especially if it's self-initiated. If they see a problem and try to solve it themselves, that is definitely something to be commended. Stop everything and commend them. The whole show stops, right? If they present a well-constructed logical argument about something on their own, commend them, compliment them. If they start some kind of entrepreneurial project that they took the initiative to start themselves, that is something to be commended. Okay? We want to commend them for the right things. We want to rebuke and to discipline and correct for the wrong things. And we also need to reward our children in the right way. We have a tendency to even reward our children in the wrong way. And this happens when children are constantly bombarded with gifts that have very little wholesome spiritual or intellectual value. In other words, when children are trained to think that entertainment is the highest reward and the chief purpose for living, then their appreciation for higher values like discovery and dominion, they're going to be dulled. If a child gets rewarded, I mean, I'm not saying this is bad all the time, but it's bad if this is the only reward they get. You get an extra hour of video games because you did so well today. That's cool. I don't mind that. But if that's the only way you reward your student or your child, and there's no video games here at school, then they're going to begin to think that, oh, entertainment is why I should be doing all these things and striving for all these things instead of the thrill of discovery, of learning, and other things. You know, the term leisure. You ever heard the term leisure time? When we all have leisure time? We have more leisure time than ever these days. You know, back in, you know, even 100 years ago, you know, all that most people had time to do was wake up, work all day, and then go to sleep. There was very little time for leisure. But even those who did have leisure time, They defined and saw leisure time much differently than we do today, right? Work time is when you go to the grind, put the food on the table, but leisure time is when the beautiful things were made. Leisure time was when the wonderful books were read. Leisure time is when we had an opportunity to pursue our callings instead of just kicking back and watching TV. Now leisure time is associated with this consumeristic idea of whenever we're done working, oh, it's time to kick our feet back and do nothing and let me consume. But that's not the way leisure time always was. your entire day should be a day of productivity. And that shouldn't be like, you know, a day of, you know, you want to pursue leisure time activities that you enjoy, and that you love, and that you see are making a difference in the world. So that's really important. And to be able to recover that idea, that's when other aspects of really important dominion used to take place, is during leisure time, right? It's weird to even think of it like that, but it's true. Right? And so in order to get that back, because that's basically Christianity and Western civilization, that was one very important aspect of it, we cannot use entertainment solely as the highest reward for doing a good job. That can't be the end of the road. That means, you know, I'm just laying out practical examples. I'm not saying don't ever give your child a screen ever again. I'm not saying that. I'm trying to balance this out a little bit. If that's the only way that you reward your student or you reward Your child, I wouldn't advise doing that because it places in their minds that, oh, well, entertainment is the final virtue and the final way of man to be happy. When it's not, it's not, it's quite the opposite. Okay, I went on a long, see, went on a long rabbit trail there. Okay. Achievement. Achievement. Achievement presents the prime opportunity to speed a student down the path of learning. The Bible considers honorable those who discover knowledge and wisdom. Special honor should be given to children who do the right thing. Achievement obviously can mean different things for different children, right? Everybody's different. You know, I'm going to use another extreme example. For instance, a child with Down syndrome is going to produce a different set of achievements than a child with maybe accelerated abilities in algebra and geometry, right? They're going to be different. But every child, no matter what they're capable of achieving, needs to receive a lot of warm affirmations from those mentors who are closest to him. When a kid gets it, let's say they're struggling with this concept. When they finally get it, The affirmation, like you should just, I don't know, the record needle, it should stop, everything should just stop. And like, you should pour on the affirmation to that student. It should be moving, it should be enthusiastic, and it should be genuine. You should be genuinely excited that they get it, okay? Super important. Honor true achievement. Okay, so far, I have talked about the quest for truth and knowledge as a trail that's followed by an adventurer. Now, many forms of education that's built on the wrong worldview, they're gonna lose the trail for the student. And if the student loses the trail, then he's going to lose direction and the sense of purpose that he has, and he's gonna give up, ultimately. Why do any of this, right? So we need the right worldview, because within a coherent worldview, the parts and the whole are equally important and the one can't be lost in the other. You know there's the whole to part fallacy, the part to whole fallacy, that's immediately what I remember. We don't want to lose each one of those things in when it comes to learning because the parts are interconnected with the whole and they contribute to the whole. And when the parts are viewed as disconnected, the pieces, the facts are disconnected, we're going to lose the trail. That's why one reason, that's one good reason why hard and fast separations between subjects generally isn't a good thing. Now, granted, that's just kind of the nature of the beast. Like we have different subjects and different times for those things, but it'd be really great if you, as a teacher, get creative and learn how to intertwine, interconnect these pieces, these subjects together more and more. I'm not saying completely to where you don't know what time it is. You have no idea what subject you're teaching. That's extreme. But if you had a better understanding of how This math relates to biology or science relates to this or that. Your student is going to have a much better understanding of the whole from learning those parts, right? Learning as defined by biblical worldview isn't sculpting. Now if any of you have seen a sculpture that's being made, at the beginning you have no idea what it is. It's just a block of marble or whatever the medium is, right? And it's not until all the minute features and details are put in that you can even begin to get an understanding of what the sculptor has been making. Learning should not be like that, okay? Learning has to be more organic than that, like the way a tree forms or the way a human body forms. Think about this. When a tree is very small, you can still see it as a tree, right? You know it's a tree. It's just a small tree. But when it's larger, obviously there's more to it, but it's still a tree. A student can see that. You could see that. Same thing with a baby, right? When a baby is in the womb and you see the ultrasound, it's clear that it's a human being, right? Now, its body doesn't have all the features that are clearly defined as it would be when it's 20 years old, but it's clear that what's in the womb is a human being, right? And it's not a dog and it's not a cat. Same thing with learning, right? We can't present to our children parts and pieces of education and then wait until maybe they're 18 years old before they have any idea of what they've been building, right? We can't give them the parts of education like phonics and arithmetic and geography and spelling without seeing how these parts interrelate with one another to make a whole view of life. Right? Imagine this. Imagine that you give an art class to a child over a period of 12 years. Your class each year consists of giving a child one square inch of the painting to view. He never sees the whole painting until he's 18 years old. Boring, right? How frustrating would that be? How boring? In educational systems that present disconnected pieces and don't present the whole, I'm not saying the whole at an 18-year-old's level, a whole at a 5-year-old's level. If they don't do that, then the whole picture is incoherent. Educational systems that present a whole without the pieces, they're arbitrary, they're meaningless. At least that's what the students are gonna think, right? And they're not gonna attach much importance to it. Let's say you gave a child the following pieces of an education. Piece number one, two plus two equals four. Piece number two, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. Number three, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world. Piece number four, God made the world. Okay, we gave them these pieces, but at this point, we have failed to connect them together at their level. What do you think the child is gonna think? They may ask, what good are these isolated pieces of information? If they aren't connected, then they take on a kind of meaninglessness in the mind of a child. How would you connect these? I'll show you how I would connect it. Here's one example. There's a lot of ways to do it. If God made the world, and God told man to take dominion over the world, then it would make sense that man ought to attempt to climb Mount Everest because it is the tallest mountain in the world that God created. Boom, we've connected some pieces together. Now we have meaning and now we have purpose in those otherwise boring and meaningless facts, right? Now, in order to connect the facts into a whole, we, of course, as teachers, we need a clear understanding of God, not a comprehensive one, we won't get that, but we need a good understanding of God or a desire to learn more about God, of course, of man's purpose. What is the purpose of man? What entails man's redemption? And we need to know these things even when our children are very small, right? Even in pre-K, you need to know these things and impart them to your students. Just for fun, what is usually the first catechism question that we teach to our children? Ours is who made you? That's a pretty easy one, right? Who made you? And by the time, yeah, exactly. By the time they're 18 months to, you know, 16 to 18 months old, they know the answer. God, right? That's an example of seeing the whole right then and there. Seeing the whole even when they're very young. They see how writing, math, history, and geography, as they learn more and more, how they connect with the creator and what that creator is doing in this world. Okay? So there you go. Seven ways to start cultivating that sense of wonder in your classroom and with your students. Now, as I wrap up, I mean, it's difficult to imagine anybody disagreeing with any of this. Right? How in God's world could we ever pursue learning without a sense of wonder and honor attached to what we're doing? I don't think there's a teacher alive who would, Christian or not, who would disagree with the importance of this. You know, whoever they believe put the treasure there. At least it wouldn't be consistent. If they're an atheist, who's to say treasure's anywhere, right? But most people aren't consistent with that. You might as well just pack it up and go home. Why even be a teacher? What's the point, right? I don't think there's anybody who would... consistently disagree with this. That's not the issue. We're not ignorant of these facts. We know these things. The problem is that this principle is pushed aside by maybe less important principles or they're pushed aside by erroneous ideas altogether. And look, we can't afford to push this important doctrine aside. This is so important. This principle has to remain at the forefront of our minds and hearts as we set out to construct this quality Christian education discipleship program for our children. Children are born with a sense of wonder. They're born with it. God put that in each and every one of us. A sense of wonder. Because that wonder leads to worship. That wonder leads to giving God glory. And so that wonder by parents and teachers It needs to be nurtured. It needs to be cultivated. It needs to be trained. It doesn't need to be squelched. And look, honestly... If we would cultivate more of a mind of a child ourselves, we would see that it is not difficult to fan this flame of wonder for a child. But at the same time, we could easily douse the flame, too, by failing to take into account the student's individuality, their character, and many of the other principles the Bible gives about education. So if we expect our children to retain a sense of wonder, why not do it with them, right? Amen. Any questions, thoughts, comments? I find it hard to, because those subjects are so specialized and they're you know, they lead into higher education. Like, you know, like what I'm talking about. We have a lot of kids who are not going to be biologists, chemists. We have a lot of young ladies who are going to be mothers. We have a lot of young men who are going to be, you know, entrepreneurs or work, you know, with their fathers, stuff like that. Sure. So how do you frame it for them? I've found with Lucas, specifically I've had a lot of conversations with Lucas, how do you frame it for a kid like that, learning biology? I've told him about the stewardship aspect, like this is a stewardship, whatever you do here is going to translate. into everything else because this is what you're called to do right now, but to really call him towards the excitement of the learning is sometimes difficult. You know, one thing I would say to either a girl or a boy who are asking questions like that is I understand that you may not have that calling as of yet to go into a field like that. First of all, you don't know that for sure yet. That's one thing. The Lord might spark a sense of wonder about these sorts of things later on in your life, and you may have wished, boy, I wish I would have paid more attention to Mr. Jordan's class. That's one thing. Another thing is that in education, the student does not have the license to only think about themselves in this whole thing. Education involves, along with everything else, not only of benefiting yourself, but of service to others. Well, one day, you may not be a biologist, Lucas, but maybe your child might be. or to a girl who's looking to be a wife and mother in that honorable post, staying home and being a homemaker, right? Well, wouldn't it be nice if your child came home from biology class and you actually had a clue of what that child was talking about when they brought their homework home? Wouldn't that be nice? You have a stewardship to, and you may not be directly benefiting from, you may not be like, you know, studying photosynthesis in you know in grad school or anything but your child might and you have to think about them as well so it's important for you to to have a to understand that even though you can't see the treasure at the end of the road I promise you, it's there. And you can even give an anecdote from your own life. When I was 17, I thought exactly like you. What do I need this junk for? But look at me, 10 years later, teaching biology, and I wish I would have learned, I wish I would have paid more attention in so-and-so's class. You don't know. And so that's part of the advice I would give. I mean, it's more, it depends on the person. But you don't only have to, you're not only thinking about yourself in your education, you're learning for the sake of others. And you're 16, you don't know anything. You may be called to this in a couple of years and you just don't know it yet. Be open, at least have the door ready to be open. Even if you may never walk through it, at least it'll be there for you to have. So that's what I would say. We have five-year-olds. I share that story with my five-year-olds. They talk about some of the stuff you said. Let me tell you something, when I got to fifth, sixth grade, I started to hate school. I would have never saw God calling me to be a teacher, and here I am. So you know what God has for you in your lifetime? I was in a home where you went to school to learn so you could get a job, and you could succeed in life, and that's important. But look what God called me to do, 30 years later. And now I have an appreciation for my teachers, because I know the work they do to bring what we bring to y'all every day. So while I was that fifth grader starting to hit school, I had no idea what I was going to go into. And I love it. So don't discount what we're doing today. You might not want to do farm grants. It's OK. But one day. This is going to work. Absolutely. Very good. Any other thoughts, questions, comments? What's one good way to, this is more for my older classes, when we have the one student who likes to ask questions that could be pertinent, but usually are there just to distract, rather than just shutting it down and being like, nope. What's a good way to go down a trail but not a rabbit trail? You have to know the heart of the student. You have to know who they are and why they're asking the question. If they're not asking the question in good faith, and they really just want to sidetrack or steer or control things, then I would not entertain that at all. I would keep moving on. I wouldn't even make a big deal out of it. I would just say, hold that question. You can ask me after class. And after class, if they don't come up to you and they go out to the playground and go play, well, there you go. There it is. That's what I would do. I wouldn't indulge unnecessary rabbit trails. If someone asks a certain question and they're genuinely curious and they genuinely want to know, Of course, go down the rabbit trail. They're like, oh, there's something there. They see there's something there. Let's go find it together. But if they're just doing it just to mess with you or mess with the class or just to get out of doing work that they know is 10 minutes down the road, we got to do seat work 10 minutes down the road and I don't want to do it. I mean, let me distract her with a question. Then no, but you just, you have to, you'll have to know that on your own, depending on the person, depending on the. So it's not necessarily wrong sometimes just to shut it and just be like, no, no no that's why I said earlier any genuine question if they're being genuine and if they they really want to know and they and they really want to know the answer then that's that's fine but you know you'll have to know your student well enough to differentiate whether or you know if you can like go down the rabbit trail, but then turn it around and persuade them during the discourse that this is something worth pursuing, you might have an opportunity to change their minds, and it may be beneficial to the class. It just depends on the question, too. Anything else? All right. Cool. Yeah. Well, let's go to the Lord in prayer. We'll wrap this up and then what time is it? 1030. Okay. Let's, let's pray. Heavenly father, thank you so much again for this wonderful calling that you've given to each of us to help parents educate their kids. Father, help us to do this diligently and with a love for it, with a love for learning. Father, help us to be the best students in our classes. Help us to lead the other students in a sense of wonder and discovery, knowing that you have put treasure, you have put diamonds and gold. every nook and cranny of this universe, and you have given us the task to find it. What a wonderful thing, what a wonderful gift that you've given to us. Father, help us to not take that gift for granted, and help us to show and to persuade the students and their parents that this task of learning is a noble task. It's honorable. It's a high calling that we have been gifted with. Father, foster in us an enthusiasm for learning your Word and your world more and more each day. Father, help us to never see learning or the material that we're tasked to teach as stale or as just, you know, this is all there is. It's not. Each and every bit of subject matter in this world is so infinitely complex, just as you are. And it would help us to see that we can mine these things for our entire lifetimes and barely scratch the surface. Help us to be grateful to know that we have an eternity to do just that. And so, Father, help us to convey this sense of enthusiasm and this sense of wonder and love for learning to our students. It's in Jesus' name I pray, amen.