Teaching, Learning, and Testing
I told you that Ray and I spent last week making videos. That means we have been spending a lot of time on YouTube where we reviewed them after they were edited. We were both a bit intrigued by a thumbnail of an I Love Lucy blooper video we noticed on the YouTube sidebar. What was amazing about the video was not Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s bloopers. What was amazing was that they filmed that show before a live audience and had so few bloopers. Unfortunately, blooper-free is not my style. Just ask anyone who has ever recorded me. Right, Titus?
I didn’t want to look exactly the same in all five of the sessions I recorded. I wore different dresses sometimes. However, for two of the videos, I wore the same dress and added a scarf for one session. I sing a silly song at the end of my talk called “Mothers of Grace.” I wasn’t happy with the way the song turned out so I recorded it again. Videographer Titus can easily splice things together and he did a good job adding my retake of the song. Trouble is, I didn’t have my scarf on during the first part of the video, but I did have it on in the second song take. So, in the video I am speaking merrily along; and “Presto!” when the song starts, I’m wearing a scarf. Oops! Maybe it will get a chuckle.
I’m used to making mistakes — big ones and small ones. I count that as a little bitty one. It is sad that school has become so focused on counting people’s mistakes. Poor kids. I’m glad I don’t get a paper back at the end of every segment of my day with big red X’s on it.
Last week when I was doing research for my class, “Winston Churchill: From Struggling Learner to World Leader,” I found a wonderful quote. Churchill was an abysmal test taker. He said that when he was in school, he wished that teachers would ask him what he knew, but it always seemed like they were trying to find out what he didn’t know instead. Poor guy. Who would have thought way back then when he was in school, that he would become one of the greatest world leaders of the 20th century?
Do you have an abysmal test taker in your house? I wonder what God has in store for him someday when what he does know becomes more important than what he doesn’t.
The Keep Calm and Homeschool On online convention is free! You can sign up here. The convention includes dozens of speakers, lots of classes, and a virtual vendor hall. Ray and I are happy to be presenting a keynote each. Ray’s is “Give Me Your Heart: The Message of Proverbs” and mine is “Homeschooling Without Fear.”
The convention goes live on Friday, March 27, at 9:00 a.m. Classes are to be available free for two weeks. Paid access is to be available for one year. Ray and I share more in this two and a half minute video. If you need some encouragement, you can find it on Friday at Keep Calm and Homeschool On.
Watch invitation from Ray and Charlene
Teaching and learning are more important than testing. Let’s think about that in light of this verse about Jesus.
For God did not send the Son into the world
to judge the world, but that the world
might be saved through Him.
John 3:17