The purpose of gifts and ministries is to bring each believer to maturity as measured by the stature of the fullness of Christ. The purpose of bringing each believer to maturity is to provide a house for the Father and Christ. The purpose of providing a house for the Father and Christ is that They might dwell among the people whom They have created and whom They love.

I like to think about goals, and then ways of arriving at the goals. I like to keep ends, and means to those ends, separate in my mind.

In the 1960s a learning model termed "programmed instruction" was introduced to those of us working in the public schools. Programmed instruction sought to make us more conscious of goals and encouraged us to design our methods in terms of clearly stated goals. I did not see wide acceptance of this approach at that time. Perhaps nowadays, since I have left the profession, the situation has improved.

People do not always think in terms of clearly-defined goals. As someone said, "It is easy to forget you were sent to drain the swamp when you are up to your neck in alligators."

Public-school people often are up to their neck in alligators and become so involved in methods and fascinated with them that progress toward stated goals is not measured sufficiently often. The students may be tested at the end of a year and the results may be greeted with applause or dismay—including an element of surprise. The results would not be so startling if progress was tested more often.

The public-school systems in the United States waste tremendous amounts of time and money because they are methods-oriented and not goal-oriented.

Teachers in many instances do not teach what is going to be tested. The concept of transfer of training has been researched again and again, and to my knowledge the investigations have yielded but one answer: learning does not transfer except under specific conditions. You will learn what you have been taught—almost precisely that.

You would think such an idea is so obviously correct it needs no elaboration. This is not the case. How often have you heard it said if we teach children to "problem solve" they will become more proficient in arithmetic?

The professionals toy endlessly with schemes to improve the ability of the child to learn, in a general sense, and then test him on specifics.

In spite of the abundance of research on transfer of training, the practice of teaching generalities in the hope of improving specifics continues.

Any teacher can knock the top off an achievement test by finding out what is going to be tested, not the answers but the specific skills. Then teach the particular skills. Forget about trying to develop a general ability. The rule is, you learn what you practice.

Oh well, I cried in that wilderness long enough with meager results. But I did have fun blowing the top off a test that measured achievement in the operations of arithmetic.

To be continued.