How can we produce disciples who will go on to achieve the full potential God has for them for the rest of their lives? How do we set them up for this kind of success?
We must have staff who understand at a deep level how to do Christian discipleship—which at its core is learning how to follow Jesus in every area of one’s life every day.
We need teachers who can skillfully guide our students toward the truth. In the Personal Studies for New Life in Christ classes, we utilize the Student Learning Contracts to map out the studies a student will do over a one month period. The training for PSNL teachers challenges them to work out a personal contract for each student, to focus on the specific needs for growth for that student.
Some teachers have fallen into an approach that takes less time—they have created standard contracts that are the same for each student. This approach—which is more convenient for the teacher—ends up as a loss for the student.
I would like to challenge those writing PSNL student learning contracts to make them personal for each student. However—even this approach can be very “top down” where the teacher is making all the decisions about what the student will study.
I propose that students be given an active role in making decisions on what they will study in their PSNL classes. The illustration shows the 12 month period a student is in the PSNL classes. The first contract will likely be determined primarily by the teacher. However, with each new contract, I recommend the student be given a greater role in deciding what will be on their contract, so by the time they are 2 to 3 months from graduating, the student is making all the decisions on what will be in their contract. Why? Because we want to equip and empower each student to learn how to learn—to equip them to plan their own learning.
If you as the teacher make all the decisions on what your students will study right up until they graduate, then the students will be less likely to continue this kind of planned study after they graduate. But if you empower each student to make their own decisions on their studies, and challenge them to continue this approach after they graduate from TC, they are much more likely to continue on the path of being a lifelong learner.
