Happy Monday!
Occasionally I’m inspired by my own words, which prompt today’s word-of-the-week…
TEST
We count stuff.
We count money, blood pressure, and the number of trips we’ve made around the sun. Some folks count pounds lost, hours wasted, books read, or golf balls lost. Others count miles cranked on a bike or progress toward some other elusive dream.
It seems like we count everything. Jesus even advised us to count the cost.
As a teacher I learned a lot about assessment. At least a million times I heard, “Will this be on the test?”
It’s not a silly kid question. Skilled teachers know it’s the key question: What will we measure, and how will we measure it?
The answers determine everything that happens in class. Assessment guides every important decision about learning and instruction. I learned that when I talked to students about the test they asked better questions and took more control of their own learning. The questions got harder and the kids did better.
The key to better teaching, it seemed, was writing better tests.
Same choice in life.
What you measure determines the quality of your life. And the cool thing is—you get to decide!
Lots of folks give this power to someone else. They measure life by the size of a bank account, number of Facebook friends, or past failures. They allow someone else to decide what will be on the test, and they’re pretty sure the test is supposed to be mysterious and difficult.
It’s not.
I suggest we begin this week by writing our own test. Let’s ask what’s truly important and make that the stuff we measure.
What’s on the test?
When Jesus talked about counting the cost of following, I’m pretty sure He wasn’t talking about keeping score.
Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted. Albert Einstein
Have a great week.
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