You’re anew teacher at Faithful Christian School. Your students come from Christian homes, say they are Christians, and regularly attend church, Sunday school, and youth group. They behave well, encourage each other, and focus on learning. You like teaching at Faithful Christian, and parents thank you for being a positive role model.

In your English class, you help your students grapple with romanticism and realism, and you ask them to use realism to evaluate romanticism. This involves upper level thinking, and your students do well.

Next, you ask your students to use a biblical perspective to evaluate romanticism, and they don’t do as well as. You are puzzled, particularly since both assignments required a similar skill set. You wonder, “Why didn’t they get it?”

You reflect you what you did. “I used direct instruction to teach romanticism and realism, had them analyze several pieces of literature which reflect each perspective, had them role play each perspective, and finally had them complete a Venn diagram regarding the two perspectives And they got it. They understood romanticism, and they know a lot about the Bible, so why didn’t they get it?”

Why didn’t they get it? In the second example, students did not:

• Receive direct instruction of a biblical perspective of the issues romanticism seeks to address.
  
• Analyze relevant Christian doctrines and Bible passages.
  
• Role play a biblical perspective.
  
• Complete a Venn diagram regarding romanticism and a biblical perspective.

What enabled students to succeed on the first assessment was not provided to students for the second assessment. Please remember that being a Christian who behaves well does not mean that a student proficiently understands and can use a biblical perspective of course content.