Choosing a Life Profession
One of the growing problems in the education of young people is the pressure to make early educational and career choices. Before they are even mature enough to know who they are, they must decide what they will study or train for as their life’s profession immediately after high school. The pressure to make this decision is being pushed as far back as the ninth grade. And I think colleges are largely to blame. They have taken the easy way out, a one time test score, usually the SAT or ACT, as the total measure of a student’s acceptance. A numerical cut-off makes the job completely impersonal and fair. But this means that rather than judging a student’s future performance by his past performance (as a student), his life as a college student hangs in the balance of a one time test. The student is no more than a number score to most college admissions departments. There are also the new “balanced” curriculums which are anything but. All they balance is the number of weeks in school and out of school throughout the year. This system (I cannot refer to it ethically as a curriculum) pressures teachers to teach to the test. Students rotate in and out of classes regularly in order to be able to take a battery of state and federal tests. In many of these systems, the teacher’s tenure is tied to student test scores and nothing else. Real education is no longer an end unto itself. It is a means to an end, that of “success” in the world’s terms. Such an assembly line atmosphere is considered desirable if you are Henry Ford and need to turn out a million vehicles with no one varying an iota from the next. Here’s the real irony, though. The College Assessment Companies (who create the SAT and ACT and most others) themselves acknowledge that the poorest performance on any of their tests is in the realm of critical thinking! What’s the Christian parent to do with this cesspool of socialistic thinking? How can your child deal with the tremendous pressure of making these early decisions and spending his entire educational life preparing for one test? God’s perfect will (for each of us) is that we spend our lives seeking His will. I firmly believe that God’s will is not a one event resource. We don’t pull it out of a hat on test day or during a trial period. Notice that when God said we should study (the Scriptures) to show ourselves approved unto God (II Tim 2:15) He put no parameters on how many events, or how many days or years we are to study. It is a life-style habit, much as our daily physical exercise, that guides us through life in the way He would have us to go. Parents need to teach their children this habit early. Parents should expect and teach their children to respect those in authority over them, teachers included. If they take the SAT, they should do their best. But if seeking God’s will is the overriding goal of their life, they will not succumb to the early pressures to make a career choice. They’ve already made the career choice: to seek God’s will. In paraphrasing loosely Oswald Chambers, my utmost desire must be to do God’s will and that will set forth His highest praise but also His highest priority for me.