Learn, Lead and Grow

| Photo by Tyler Casey on Unsplash

The opinions reflected in this OpEd are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of staff, faculty and students of The King's College.

We come to school in business casual every day. We pass our classes (APTAP I and Microeconomics notwithstanding). Many of us follow the Honor Code religiously. Yet we, as a student body, are failing King's. 

Some of you may resist the idea that you are failing. You may point to your appearance on the Dean's List last year or your close relationships with professors. Yet, many, if not most, of us fail to use the opportunities we have at King's for what those opportunities are designed to be. Far too often, we seek grades instead of caring about learning. Far too often, we fail to faithfully steward the responsibilities we have. Far too often, we fail to learn and act based upon the extracurriculars we have offered to us. Those all seem like provocative claims. Yet, they accurately reflect the experiences of many students at this school. 

We seek grades instead of learning: 

Last semester, I attended Two Cents. The guests that night were Danielle Callier, who serves as Kings' Director of Guest Experience, and Dr. Hershey. Towards the end of the night, Callier and Hershey took questions from the audience. At one point, a student asked Hershey what his biggest regret in undergrad was. Hershey took a minute to think before responding that he wished that he had loved learning more. He told attendees that he had focused exclusively on his grades and that the scores he earned reflected his desire to study for grades, not a reflection of his love of learning. This failure to love learning was his biggest regret in school.

Hershey's experience reminds me of how many of my peers (and me) act at King's. In my time here, I've seen rampant cheating. In one of my classes last year, nearly half of the students cheated on a specific test. That behavior reflects a student body that wants to score well on the test, not a student body that views the test as a measure of what they have learned. That behavior is essentially acting out the idea that good grades (what students attain through cheating) were more important than accurately learning the material (what students give up when they cheat).

This focus on grades as more important than learning shows up in how students interact with one another. I’m reminded of how I once met someone who was enormously gifted, but had a poor work ethic. Her roommate studied, loved her classes and desired to learn. On the other hand, she rarely did homework, and when she did, it was purely to pass her classes. When I talked to her after the school year had ended, she expressed frustration that her roommate received better grades than her. She was not remorseful that she had not learned much that semester, but instead that she did not receive the grades her roommate got. This was especially painful to watch because there have been far too many times that I have acted the same way — I wasted a full year of high school largely for this reason. 

The point? Students who get the most out of King's will be those who view their classes as an opportunity to learn.

We fail to steward the responsibilities that we have:

One of the unique things about King's is just how much responsibility it places on student leaders. Student orgs, while technically provided a faculty advisor, typically operate almost entirely of their own volition. Students were instrumental in the return of Fall Retreat this year; some Houses operate almost entirely independently. 

Yet, we often fail to rise to the standard that the school expects of us. This year, I'm serving on the exec team of a student org that I am passionate about. We held one event over the first three months of the school year, largely because my other exec team members and I could not track down our president. Periodically, we would text the group chat, asking to meet as an executive team. Often, we would not receive an answer. This president was someone who had signed up to be a leader at King's in an attempt to shape the student org to resemble their ideals.

This experience is not just limited to that one student. I attend a specific meeting every week required for a group of student leaders. Our weekly hybrid meetings have twelve people expected to attend. Often, only about half will show up, even when students are encouraged to Zoom in when they can not make it in person.

Unfortunately, as much as I would love to say that this is entirely the fault of other people, I fall into this trap just as easily. I might show up to the meetings for my student orgs, but I do so at the same time as I am putting off other responsibilities. I am constantly failing to meet subpar standards in the name of doing a lot poorly rather than a little well. 

King's proclaims itself a school that will allow its students to change culture through the lens of Christ. That was a selling point for many of us, especially those who are actively involved in the school. Yet, we fail to change the culture at King's when we have the opportunity. How can we expect to change the culture of the world when we fail to change the culture of our school?

We fail to learn from the extracurriculars we have offered to us:

Last year I attended an optional seminar in the City Room. The talk focused on a Christian perspective on racism and featured some genuinely striking demographics. Approximately 25 students attended, and I was the only male student there. I recognize that more women will be at events than men because there are almost twice as many women as men at King's, but a ratio of 25-1 is extreme. This seminar was a necessary event on a topic that students at King's often struggle through. Three times this semester, I have been called into a meeting where student leadership teams have had to figure out how to be more inclusive in our actions. This was a necessary event, and many of the students, especially the men, decided that it was not necessary.

That's the thing about King's. It is often very good at providing students opportunities to grow and mature if they want to and are willing to make an effort for that growth. Examples include Morning Prayer and Worship, Difficult Discussions, Day of Service and a host of other activities. For those who want to grow as people during their time at school, the opportunities are there. Unfortunately, far too many of us either don’t want to grow or don’t make it enough of a priority to show up to these events.

That leads to the question: Why are students, especially men, failing to take those opportunities?

There's a thing about our actions. They show others what we love:

Think about what these three failures that I have identified tell us about the loves of the students of King's. We seek grades instead of learning, seeking to improve our prospects at getting a good job instead of learning for the sake of learning. We fail to steward our responsibilities, placing our leisure activities ahead of the needs of others. We fail to attend the events that will help us grow as people, valuing time spent on pleasure more than time spent on growth. 

When we think about what King's students love, we see a community of students that love themselves more than they love others. This is evidenced through our selfish actions. We see a community that feels that King's should cater to students. 

Often, this failure in students affects how the school responds to students. Think about how the academic policy of many professors changes as they teach their classes. It is not uncommon that in the first class a professor ever teaches, they do not assign reading quizzes. The professor assumes that students will complete reading assignments because they care about the material. A few classes into the semester, they notice that class discussions are often unproductive. After spending a bit of time searching, many professors learn that students have not been doing the reading. As a response, many professors have instituted reading quizzes, reading summaries or other ways of attaching a grade to the reading instead of creating their courses in a way that promotes a love of learning.

This response to the students' unwillingness to do their work has impacted how students interact with the material at King's. We are part of a school that expects less of its students than it has ever expected before and has a harder time shaping students into mature people — and that's our fault. 

Many of us, in brief moments of wisdom, see the failures of King's. We complain about how King's expects so little of us and does not treat us like the adults that we are. We complain about how King's expects us to not learn for the sake of learning, lead appropriately even when we have expressed a desire to lead or learn from the opportunities that King's has provided us. 

But, when we complain, we fail to acknowledge that the failings in King's have been created as responses to our failures to do those very things. When we act in a way that does not befit mature adults, we lose the ability to complain when King's does not treat us as mature adults.

When we think about fixing these problems, it's easy to say, "Let us just learn for the sake of learning, lead for the sake of leading, and grow for the sake of growing." Unfortunately, it's not that easy to create change. We have arrived where we are because we have failed to do those exact things many times, and a brief change in desire is almost certainly not enough to create lasting change.

Instead, let us hold one another accountable. We have the Honor Code; it is designed to go beyond simply the legalism of preventing people from doing wrong actions, but even more so to help us fight against the desires that create those wrong actions in the first place. Let us utilize the best design of the honor code together, in community. My desire to grow on my own will wax and wane, but it is not likely that three of us who have decided to hold one another accountable will all be waning at once.

Instead, let us grow both inside and outside of King's. We can learn outside of the context of King’s classes. This semester I took five free courses with the Philos Project to better understand Christian engagement in the Near East and, as a result, was able to attend a funded conference to learn even more. Opportunities exist everywhere! We also have the ability to be responsible outside of King's: many of us experience this responsibility in the form of work. We can grow outside of King's. Each of us has the ability to regularly serve in some capacity. This does not mean that you necessarily have to serve on your own, but growing outside of King’s would mean serving outside of the behest of your house.

Instead, let us learn from those wiser than us. I have a mentor that I meet with approximately once a month. In my very first meeting with him, I told him about the sin I struggle the most with and asked him to keep me accountable. He promised to pray for me, in that sin and everything else in my life. He gives me advice about the things heaviest on my heart. He has helped me grow, be responsible and learn. 

Instead, let us repent. My favorite chapter in the Bible is Nehemiah 9, where the Israelites corporately confess their sins and the sins of their fathers. Let us emulate them and admit to our corporate faults as a student body. Instead of saying, "I have never shirked a responsibility," let us say, "I have been part of a culture that has normalized shirking responsibility."

As I wrap up this OpEd, I want to unabashedly steal some thoughts from a friend of mine. Education shapes not only who we are, but also who we are becoming. Education that fails to shape our affections and desires is not really education at all. That leaves us with this question: how do we, as students, impact King’s in a way that makes us good, brave and ready?

Josiah DeBoer is a sophomore RTS major. He is the OpEd editor for the EST. He once left the airport during a layover to go to the beach.