July 7, 2025 • 28 mins
LEARN MORE at http://teach4theheart.com/349
We live in a culture where the spiritual and the academic are often fractured, and even in Christian schools,and even in Christian schools, we can struggle to figure out how to integrate a Biblical worldview with our subject matter. Dr. Roger Erdvig, and Dr. Maggie Pop join Linda to share about their new project for Summit Ministries, a set of Biblical Worldview Standards that will help teachers, administrators, and school staff develop students deeply immersed in a biblical worldview. These practical standards will equip teachers in Christian schools to help students be better prepared for a lifetime of loving and serving Christ.
00:00 Integrating a Biblical Worldview in Education
01:16 Understanding the Biblical Worldview Standards
03:02 Examples of Standards in Action
08:34 Getting Started with the Standards
10:54 Practical Implementation Strategies
17:52 Common Misconceptions and Mindset Shifts
25:38 Final Thoughts and Recommendations
Resources/Links Mentioned:
Worldview Standards: http://summit.org/standards
Planner: https://teach4theheart.com/planner
If you liked this episode, check out episode 327 Helping Students Build Their Identity in Christ at https://teach4theheart.com/327
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
We've heard from so many teachers asking how they can better integrate a biblicalworldview into their classroom, and we are so excited today to be talking about a brand
new tool, biblical worldview standards, that are gonna be a huge help with that.
So welcome back to the Teach 4 the Heart podcast, where we tackle teaching challenges froma biblical perspective.
Why are we here?
Because we don't believe that our spiritual walk and teaching profession should exist intwo separate domains.
(00:25):
Rather, the hope we have in Christ should change how we approach everything, not just athome.
but at school as well.
So join us as we explore both the spiritual and practical sides of key teachingchallenges, integrating them together so we can succeed at teaching, glorify God, and make
a lasting difference in our students' hearts and lives.
This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
(00:46):
Today I'm so excited to be joined by Dr.
Roger Erdvig and Dr.
Maggie Pope to be talking today about the brand new uh biblical.
integration and worldview standards from Summit Ministries.
Thank you guys so much for being here with us today.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah, great to be here again.
So we're gonna start off just by talking about what are these standards, how do they work,what grades are they for?
(01:11):
So Maggie, could you give us a little bit of an introduction of what exactly thesestandards are?
Sure, and you know, you actually hit upon some of the rationale and some of the thinkingabout the standards in your intro, because all across the nation, as we've interacted with
teachers, we hear that they want to do this, they want to do it well, they want to immersetheir teaching in their classroom in a biblical worldview.
(01:35):
So there doesn't seem to be any separation between God's kingdom and some other kingdomthat would exist apart from him, which we know would not be the case.
So the standards are learning standards that are designed for students from pre-K all theway up to 12th grade that operationalize the things that we can harness in the classroom
(01:57):
for worldview formation based on what we know about how worldview forms.
So in teacher speak, we use the approach like a backward design approach where we takekind of an end goal, um the behaviors, the habits, the skills,
that young adults with a strongly maturing biblical worldview would have.
(02:18):
And then we work backwards and we say, okay, what can we do in the classroom to helpcreate experiences, to help build the skills and the behaviors and the thinking of a
biblical worldview while they're in our classrooms.
And that can be done as early as pre-K all the way up to 12th grade.
(02:38):
Yeah, that's awesome.
do you have an example?
Can one of you guys give me a little bit of an example of one of the standards?
Because when I first heard about them, like, this is so interesting.
And then I went on the website and I actually, like, started reading through them.
And I was like, yes, I see now, like, how this could work.
um you have them?
I don't know if you have them in front of you, if you've worked with them enough that youknow some of them and can maybe give us an example of what this might look like.
(03:02):
Yeah, we do have them in front of us and we're glad you asked that because one of thethings that most people think is, biblical worldview standards, great, our Bible
department needs these.
And that's part of the kind of the misunderstanding that people have when they first thinkabout biblical worldview formation standards.
Now they are designed to be used in Bible class, but they are not Bible content standardsper se.
(03:27):
In other words,
Okay, learn about, you know, David and Goliath here and then learn about postmodernismhere in this age or this class.
So rather they are designed to work with every single subject area, including Bible, butalso including chemistry and economics and literature.
Any course that's taught in your school can benefit from these because as Maggie said,they're designed to harness every kind of normal learning experience.
(03:56):
but to use those for biblical worldview formation.
So, uh let me give you an example.
They're based on six domains of worldview formation that we at Summit have developed.
And so the first one is heart orientation, which is where we're concerned with the desiresand the aims and the yearnings of our students' heart.
(04:16):
So all the way back in pre-K, we can help them do that.
Now the standards are built on 20 anchor outcomes.
that really conforms sort of like expected student outcomes in this realm of worldviewformation for students in a school.
And so the first uh anchor outcome is that a student, ideally a graduating senior, woulddisplay biblical virtues that reflect a heart aligned with what God values.
(04:46):
So that's like the big picture anchor outcome.
Now here's the question.
How do I use my arts and crafts in pre-K to move that way?
So here's an example of a pre-K standard that's related to that outcome of displayingbiblical virtues.
So in pre-K, you can have your students to name biblical virtues demonstrated in learningand daily interactions.
(05:13):
So see how that's, that's like real basic, but you're building this idea of understandingand aligning one's own life to biblical virtues.
So in the pre-K world,
As you're going through your day, you're always looking for opportunities to literallyname biblical virtues that have been demonstrated in what the kids are doing.
(05:34):
So you're asking your students, Hey, what just happened here?
Was Suzy kind?
And you think, well, every preschool teacher does that.
But we find when preschool teachers do that and recognize that they can actually harnessthose typical pre-K things that they would do for worldview formation.
like their joy and their motivation skyrockets as a teacher because they're like, oh, Ican actually contribute to what my school wants.
(06:00):
So let me give you an example from a higher grade.
So in the six to eight, and we have five grade bands pre-K, K to two, three to five, sixto eight, nine to 12, that we have a specific uh standards listed.
So this one would be kind of the, the several steps ahead for helping a pre-K student justto be able to identify biblical virtues in the classroom.
(06:23):
So in grades six to eight, we would encourage teachers to have their students to classifysituations, ideas, and human interactions based on the presence or absence of biblical
virtues.
So, I mean, that can be applied to any subject area where you're just asking yourstudents, classify the presence or absence of biblical virtues in a situation.
(06:47):
Wow, yeah, and I love what you just said there too about how this can really help motivateteachers.
this is not necessarily, in some cases, it might be doing something a teacher hasn't beendoing, but it also in some cases is taking what a teacher is doing or is doing a piece of
and giving it intentionality and focus and connecting it.
(07:08):
It's like I'm like two thirds of the way there.
I just need to bring it around and connect it.
Is that kind of a little bit of what's happening here?
Yeah, absolutely.
Which is actually one of the reasons we're so excited about these things becauseoftentimes when teachers start the school year or they're on a professional development
(07:30):
day and somebody says, hey, we've got this thing, it always feels like one more thing.
And what we're saying is this isn't an additional thing.
This is how we can take uh one additional step that's going to bring us
much deeper into biblical worldview formation because of that intentionality that you'retalking about.
So absolutely, we believe that a lot of teachers will look at this and say, wait, I'malready doing this.
(07:55):
This doesn't seem like rocket science, but I can see how if I'm more intentional aboutnaming these things instead of just saying, are you being kind to your friend that we can
articulate and name those things, which we know we can then build on in subsequent grades.
so that we are moving towards that anchor outcome that Roger talked about in his examplethat he gave.
(08:20):
Yes, it makes so much sense.
And so if I have a teacher right now and I'm thinking, okay, this is really interesting,I'm intrigued, ah you know, I want to learn more.
Obviously the first thing they need to do probably is go, would you recommend to just goand check out the standards themselves?
Like where would someone start, Roger?
Yeah, we so there's a web page and it's just summit.org forward / standards and really theplace to start.
(08:43):
There's some for explainer videos right at the bottom where they can hear the heart behindthem, how they're created.
And we really recommend that teachers or administrators actually download the standardsand then watch through those four videos.
Do not just jump into reading through the standards because the explainer videos, they'renot long.
There are, you know, five minutes each.
think what's the longest, like seven minutes or something.
(09:05):
So just watch those as kind of like your orientation to the standards.
Because again, we know people come at standards with all different backgrounds of ideas ofwhat they're like.
They've used state standards for math.
They've used Bible standards for their Bible curriculum, but they've never really thoughtabout biblical worldview formation standards that transcend and apply in every subject
(09:25):
area in every class.
Right, okay, and we'll definitely make sure that we link to that at teach4theheart.com /349 so that you guys can easily get to that link.
So yeah, I love that that you have the standards there and I assume, and you know, to thegrade levels and then the videos to watch it.
Can you give us a little bit of a preview of that?
Like what are some of the things, what are some of the recommendations you would have forsomeone that's saying, okay, I wanna do this, how would I go about actually incorporating
(09:53):
these into my classroom?
Well, I think there's a few ways that you can do that.
And we tried to anticipate the fact that teachers kind of have their own rhythm for how toapproach standards and schools have their own rhythms for doing that.
So like Roger mentioned, we do think that the first step would be to go download them andto watch some of those explainer videos.
(10:14):
And they're short.
The videos are designed to give you kind of the grand overview of the standards and thepurpose of them.
And then we also
go through some of the very practical pieces of the standards document.
So how do I navigate this?
What areas do I really want to focus in on?
Because we know teachers have so much going on and there's this packet of standards andwhere do I start?
(10:37):
And so this will just walk you through so that by the time you're done watching thesevideos, you're going to have an idea of where you need to focus in on.
then from there, what do I do next?
Well, there's quite a few different things that you can do.
First of all, we do offer for schools some support.
(10:57):
If they're looking for somebody to come alongside them, uh they can sign up for differentlevels of support where we would come in and talk with the leadership team so that the
leadership team can help with the implementation of the standards uh and then also eventraining for the staff.
But you know, Linda, we believe that just like other areas of professional development,oftentimes teachers really just appreciate being able to sit down m and talk through
(11:27):
something with their peers so they can say, what does this practically look like?
So although we do try to give some examples of how this practically plays out in thoseexplainer videos, we know there's such a value of somebody saying, OK, I teach second
grade, you teach second grade.
What can this look like in our day to day life?
So we definitely encourage
there to be a collaborative approach to these standards.
(11:51):
And then there's even elements as far as curriculum mapping.
How does this fit with my curriculum mapping that we can support you on?
But we believe that then a teacher can sit down once they've gone through this overview ofthe standards, maybe once they have the support of somebody near them or their school has
done that, and literally just look at their lesson plans and say, okay, my next lesson isto teach about, and then.
(12:14):
whatever it is in whatever subject area at whatever grade level if I'm going to beteaching about the civil rights movement and I want to think about how can I go ahead and
squeeze everything I can out of what I'm already doing and harness that for biblicalworldview formation then I can look at these different domains that Roger talked about and
(12:40):
I can begin thinking about what is it that I see
as a natural connection em to the work that I'm doing.
So what does God already say about this or what skills can I go ahead and harness and tapinto even more?
And again, that's gonna all be kind of walked through and explained in those videos andthen hopefully we'll be very clear.
(13:02):
And I will say this one last thing.
em Each one of these domains has kind of a teacher talk area where we just feel like wewanted to...
to step away from standards language, step away from the theoretical or research basis ofit, which is important, but then say, okay, how does this happen in our classroom?
(13:23):
Here are the things that we wanna look for.
This is what we mean by this.
And we believe that that's gonna be a really easy way for teachers to connect and turn onthat light bulb where they can then use what they already know because they're
professionals and they've dedicated their lives to that to then move forward forimplementation.
Yeah, and I would just add, Linda, as teachers approach it or as leaders approach it, theyoften think, okay, we're going to get into the nitty gritty of all comparative worldviews
(13:51):
and secularism and critical theory.
That's very appropriate, but you probably already have a class that's doing that.
So really, I just want to reemphasize that these are really not about as much what you'reteaching, but how you're teaching it.
And that's where, again, we find teachers get really excited because, as you mentioned,it's a lot of what they're already doing and didn't know that they could actually harness
(14:16):
those things.
So that's the biggest thing.
And take time to actually read through that teacher talk.
Take time to read through some of the research-based kind of theoretical sections toreally understand it.
that's, I would kind of, you know, sum that up nicely by saying, don't just jump right tothe standards, say, how can I apply these?
Because if you don't quite get what's going on, it would be like, yeah, what?
Yeah, every teacher does this.
(14:36):
Why am I doing this?
So it's really helpful to understand that big picture.
Yeah.
And this is a great time in the summer to take a few minutes and be able to sit down andactually digest it and have a little bit of time to think about it.
That's awesome.
one of the things you said, Maggie, about, you know, I'm teaching a lesson and I can lookat these standards once you understand how they work.
That makes so much sense of how helpful that is because I know sometimes you're staring ata lesson and you're like, okay, I need to have some type of, you know, connection,
(15:02):
worldview, biblical concept here.
And I'm just kind of coming up blank.
Being able to go back and look at
I would imagine that would give you lot of ideas, you know, if you're reading through, oh,okay, yeah, I see a connection here.
So rather than having to come up with it on your own and being a totally blank slate,these are kind of providing the connection points between what you're already doing m and
connecting that to biblical worldview.
(15:23):
Yeah, and I think that we also believe that it's gonna help teachers feel like they'redoing it so more authentically.
If I'm a first grade teacher and I'm gonna talk about herbivores and carnivores and I'mthinking, okay, so I've gotta think about how to do this biblical integration thing.
I'm just gonna say, God made all the creatures, right?
And even the teachers kind of feel inherently like that.
(15:45):
It may be true, but I feel like there should be more here.
em So one of the standards in that K to
to domain in the cognitive realm.
em Actually, before I tell you the standard, let me tell you the anchor outcome.
So the anchor outcome is to interact with ideas and people with alternative worldviews viaa biblical approach to engagement.
(16:07):
Well, a first grade teacher is not thinking, how can I train my first graders to go aheadand approach somebody with a secular worldview and be able to have a discussion with them,
right?
That's for the high school teachers.
That's what we think.
But then when you look at the K to two standard, it says compare two things by writing outlists, reasons, or characteristics for each item.
(16:30):
Wait, that's something that I always do as a first grade teacher.
So now when I'm talking about herbivores and carnivores, I'm approaching this with a morethorough approach to why am I comparing these?
Why am I listing these out?
Because I am teaching them the beginning stages of how I can approach two very differentideas or somewhat similar ideas.
(16:50):
and do so in a very clear way that's going to eventually add to those skills, lead them toa place where they can have those conversations in a positive and rational way.
This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
The Herzog Foundation puts on retreats and trainings throughout the year to equip teachersto share their faith and grow in their profession.
(17:15):
If you are looking for inspiration and encouragement connected with apologetics,athletics, the arts, reading, special education, or engaging with parents, there is a
retreat for you.
Visit teach4theheart.com / Herzog Retreats to sign up and learn more.
That's teach4theheart.com.
Now, back to our program.
(17:39):
Roger, do you particularly see any mistakes or like things that you would encourageteachers to like, don't think about it this way or like you might want to avoid this um as
people kind of or misunderstandings that people run into with this?
Yeah.
First of all would be to not only think in terms of the content of what I'm saying.
(18:00):
And here's what I mean by that.
When we talk about biblical worldview formation in the classroom, we always get questionslike, yeah, but how do I bring the Bible into my class?
It feels so contrived.
It feels like I'm just filling out a column on a curriculum map.
And so one of the mistakes is to kind of fixate just on that.
(18:20):
Now,
We do believe that bringing scripture into class is super important and that can be donein very winsome and natural ways.
But biblical worldview formation is so much more than just about having the right Bibleverse that addresses a particular issue.
And that's kind of the failing, that's been some of the part of the failing of theChristian school movement in the past to actually build a biblical worldview.
(18:45):
Cause we've just focused on just getting
these Bible verses or specific things into our classrooms, which is so much a part of it,but it's only really one part of it.
So not to approach it looking for help specifically to do that, although it will help youdo that with what we call microproposition.
So we do believe you need to figure out what God has to say about your subject area andshare it with your kids.
(19:09):
um
But that's only one part of it.
And I think that's the biggest mistake people even come to a conference.
We, you know, we just came off of a two day conference, biblical worldview immersionconference.
And I'm telling you, if you were to ask every person that's coming in, the first thingthey would say, yeah, I'm looking for how to do the Bible better in my, you know, world
languages class.
We help with that.
But really in our model with these six domains, that's only one sixth of biblicalworldview formation.
(19:35):
So just, just having a bigger picture perspective.
And then when they actually get in to start
reading the standards to not just say, kind of like Maggie alluded to, oh, well, I alreadydo this.
What's the big deal?
You know, this isn't rocket science, but to really think through and like that examplethat Maggie just gave about, you know, comparing two things by writing out lists.
(19:57):
That's kind of a fundamental skill that you need to in, let's say 12th grade.
Analyze alternative worldviews using essential worldview questions.
You can't do that kind of heavy lifting cognitively until you've learned how to make acouple lists and compare and contrast them.
Every good teacher worth their salt in K to 2 is doing that anyway because it's probablyin your state standards, but we're saying, ah, approach this with this excitement that,
(20:23):
oh, when I'm doing that, even though I may not be quoting the Bible, I'm doing biblicalworldview formation.
Like, come to it with kind of that excitement to see
how some of the things you're already doing.
If you do them for a refined reason and with a different motivation, they actually worktowards biblical worldview formation.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
(20:44):
Can you dive just for a second, just a little bit deeper into what you just said beforeabout how this teacher's coming in with this idea of like, okay, I need the Bible verses,
I need to have more of that and that's a good thing, but you're like, there's so much moreto that.
Can you give them a short little mindset shift?
What should they be thinking beyond just that?
I will, and I'm going to ask Maggie to tell her story from when she moved from publicschool to Christian school, but before she does that, because it's a really great little
(21:11):
story.
um
When we talk to teachers and we get into hundreds of classrooms a year, because part ofwhat we do is classroom observations where we give leaders feedback on what we see
teachers doing.
When we talk to those many hundreds of teachers in hundreds of classrooms, uh again, theirfirst mindset is always the intimidation of that column in their curriculum map or that
(21:36):
they have to do something biblical worldview in every classroom.
And so teachers have actually developed an aversion to biblical worldview formation.
And what they often do is just say, you know what?
I'm just going to pray at the beginning of class and that's the best I can do.
I'm going to do devotions and it's going to be really good devotion.
I'm going to take, you know, three minutes at the beginning of class to do some biblicalprinciple.
(21:57):
And that's the best I can do.
And then I'm going to go on to the rest of my class and do the real work of educating mykids.
That's the biggest mind shift that people need.
changed.
And again, we see that mind in many, many teachers.
So Maggie, tell your story and kind of that, how that dovetails with this.
Yeah.
So I started off in public school and taught in public school for about six or seven yearsbefore I moved over to Christian school.
(22:23):
And when I came, I was lesson planning early, early on, and I saw that little box in thelesson, you know, in Renweb or facts, and I saw a biblical integration.
I didn't know what to do with that.
So I walked across the hall to a veteran teacher and I said, okay, hey,
Can you help me with this?
(22:43):
I don't really know what to put here.
She said, yeah, super easy.
There's this website, go to this website.
Then go to the search bar on this website and just kind of put in some keywords for yourtopic of whatever it is that you're teaching.
And it's gonna give you a lot of verses that are somewhat related.
Just pick the one that sounds the best for you and put that verse in your lesson plan.
(23:06):
And I was like, oh, is that it?
Is that all I do?
Yep, that's it.
and you can put it on the board if you want, you know, and that was the extent of it.
And so what that really did is just kind of foster this idea that there's the Bible overhere and then there's all my content and my teaching over here.
And we were sometimes referred to that as a two story view.
(23:28):
And so what teachers really have to wrestle with em is that two story view.
And there's actually a quote that Roger and I love.
We talk about it.
all the time, it's Abraham Kuyper's quote, where he says, there's not a square inch in thewhole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign overall, does not
(23:50):
cry mine.
And so that is the basis of what we're saying when we're talking about this idea that it'snot just a Bible verse, and that doesn't mean we're cheapening anything, because we
believe that all of the human domain is Christ's.
Then when we study English,
then we are studying the great creation of English that God made.
(24:12):
When we study science, we are studying God's creation.
And this is a way of not only just learning more about Him, but worshiping Him throughthat.
And so that's the mind shift.
It's not just saying, okay, I'm making a list and I'm comparing two things, so I'm good togo.
It's me saying, okay, as a teacher, if I really want to do worldview formation, and I knowthat this is a foundational piece,
(24:34):
for them to then eventually talk about things.
I need to let the kids wrestle with this listing of things, not me just tell them.
I need them to learn to talk to their peers about identifying these things because that'sgonna be something that they need to do.
So, you the phrase whole child is very familiar in Christian education.
And so, or in education, and we're thinking in Christian education, it has to be the wholechild in a whole new way.
(24:58):
We have to recognize that our worldview is not just what we think, but it's what wedesire.
It's the way that we live our lives.
It's what we em own in our lives.
It's the thinking that we do.
And so that is what the standards do is tap into those areas and remind us that we are notjust a collection of the things that we believe to be true or the verses that we have
(25:19):
memorized.
And if you've been in Christian education long enough, you know that because there's a lotof kids that can give us the right answer to the right, to the questions that we ask.
And then we watch them walk out the doors and it's like, what happened?
It didn't hit.
So.
That's what we're excited about about these standards is just to get us to be thinkingabout the whole worldview of a child.
Yes.
thank you so much for sharing that.
(25:40):
think that's super helpful.
Yeah, that difference between just like the Bible is over here, but doesn't necessarilyconnect with all of this and really showing how, like you said, is, nothing is outside his
domain.
It connects to everything.
And these standards can help teachers see those connections, make those connections, andthen make them for their students.
That's awesome.
(26:01):
Any final um words of advice or recommendations as we wrap up, Roger?
And can you also just share that URL one more time with people?
Just as you're talking, it reminds me to just keep in mind the way these work is we havedeveloped a model for how a worldview forms in young adults, which is like the critical
years for worldview formation.
(26:22):
We took that and said, given that this is accurate, how should I then teach as a preschoolteacher, as a first grade teacher?
So always keep in mind, there's a long-term goal in mind, which we often won't see in ourstudents until
actually after they graduate years later, we'll see those worldview formation thingstaking uh root and bearing fruit later.
(26:46):
Um, so that's just, I think super important for teachers and leaders to think about, butyeah, it would be summit.org forward / standards and it's all free.
You can just download it and start using it next year.
And of course, we'd love to help support.
uh have a team that does that, just really can walk alongside with leadership teams.
(27:09):
The last thing I would say as a recommend to a teacher is don't do this alone.
ah Whether it's just grabbing your third grade cooperating teacher and doing it together,or even better,
really have a conversation with your academic dean, your academic director, your head ofschool, your principal, whoever it might be, to say, hey, this is something I'd love to do
in my classroom, but I know for it to be most effective, it's got to be a pass off from mygrade to the next, to the next, to the next.
(27:34):
So I can do some things in isolation, but they are designed for school-wide, subject-wideadoption.
That's fantastic.
Well, thank you guys so much and I hope you guys will definitely check out thosestandards.
Get involved, talk to your administrator.
That's just wonderful.
Once again, all the notes and links in this episode, you can find them atteach4theheart.com / 349.
(27:55):
This episode has been brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
All views and opinions are our own and don't necessarily reflect those of the HerzogFoundation.
Well, we look forward to being with you again soon.
In the meantime, to remember God is at work in you and through you and he's using you tomake a difference.
Keep your eyes on him.
and teach for the heart.
We've heard from so many teachers asking how they can better integrate a biblicalworldview into their classroom, and we are so excited today to be talking about a brand
new tool, biblical worldview standards, that are gonna be a huge help with that.
So welcome back to the Teach 4 the Heart podcast, where we tackle teaching challenges froma biblical perspective.
Why are we here?
Because we don't believe that our spiritual walk and teaching profession should exist intwo separate domains.
(00:25):
Rather, the hope we have in Christ should change how we approach everything, not just athome.
but at school as well.
So join us as we explore both the spiritual and practical sides of key teachingchallenges, integrating them together so we can succeed at teaching, glorify God, and make
a lasting difference in our students' hearts and lives.
This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
(00:46):
Today I'm so excited to be joined by Dr.
Roger Erdvig and Dr.
Maggie Pope to be talking today about the brand new uh biblical.
integration and worldview standards from Summit Ministries.
Thank you guys so much for being here with us today.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah, great to be here again.
So we're gonna start off just by talking about what are these standards, how do they work,what grades are they for?
(01:11):
So Maggie, could you give us a little bit of an introduction of what exactly thesestandards are?
Sure, and you know, you actually hit upon some of the rationale and some of the thinkingabout the standards in your intro, because all across the nation, as we've interacted with
teachers, we hear that they want to do this, they want to do it well, they want to immersetheir teaching in their classroom in a biblical worldview.
(01:35):
So there doesn't seem to be any separation between God's kingdom and some other kingdomthat would exist apart from him, which we know would not be the case.
So the standards are learning standards that are designed for students from pre-K all theway up to 12th grade that operationalize the things that we can harness in the classroom
(01:57):
for worldview formation based on what we know about how worldview forms.
So in teacher speak, we use the approach like a backward design approach where we takekind of an end goal, um the behaviors, the habits, the skills,
that young adults with a strongly maturing biblical worldview would have.
(02:18):
And then we work backwards and we say, okay, what can we do in the classroom to helpcreate experiences, to help build the skills and the behaviors and the thinking of a
biblical worldview while they're in our classrooms.
And that can be done as early as pre-K all the way up to 12th grade.
(02:38):
Yeah, that's awesome.
do you have an example?
Can one of you guys give me a little bit of an example of one of the standards?
Because when I first heard about them, like, this is so interesting.
And then I went on the website and I actually, like, started reading through them.
And I was like, yes, I see now, like, how this could work.
um you have them?
I don't know if you have them in front of you, if you've worked with them enough that youknow some of them and can maybe give us an example of what this might look like.
(03:02):
Yeah, we do have them in front of us and we're glad you asked that because one of thethings that most people think is, biblical worldview standards, great, our Bible
department needs these.
And that's part of the kind of the misunderstanding that people have when they first thinkabout biblical worldview formation standards.
Now they are designed to be used in Bible class, but they are not Bible content standardsper se.
(03:27):
In other words,
Okay, learn about, you know, David and Goliath here and then learn about postmodernismhere in this age or this class.
So rather they are designed to work with every single subject area, including Bible, butalso including chemistry and economics and literature.
Any course that's taught in your school can benefit from these because as Maggie said,they're designed to harness every kind of normal learning experience.
(03:56):
but to use those for biblical worldview formation.
So, uh let me give you an example.
They're based on six domains of worldview formation that we at Summit have developed.
And so the first one is heart orientation, which is where we're concerned with the desiresand the aims and the yearnings of our students' heart.
(04:16):
So all the way back in pre-K, we can help them do that.
Now the standards are built on 20 anchor outcomes.
that really conforms sort of like expected student outcomes in this realm of worldviewformation for students in a school.
And so the first uh anchor outcome is that a student, ideally a graduating senior, woulddisplay biblical virtues that reflect a heart aligned with what God values.
(04:46):
So that's like the big picture anchor outcome.
Now here's the question.
How do I use my arts and crafts in pre-K to move that way?
So here's an example of a pre-K standard that's related to that outcome of displayingbiblical virtues.
So in pre-K, you can have your students to name biblical virtues demonstrated in learningand daily interactions.
(05:13):
So see how that's, that's like real basic, but you're building this idea of understandingand aligning one's own life to biblical virtues.
So in the pre-K world,
As you're going through your day, you're always looking for opportunities to literallyname biblical virtues that have been demonstrated in what the kids are doing.
(05:34):
So you're asking your students, Hey, what just happened here?
Was Suzy kind?
And you think, well, every preschool teacher does that.
But we find when preschool teachers do that and recognize that they can actually harnessthose typical pre-K things that they would do for worldview formation.
like their joy and their motivation skyrockets as a teacher because they're like, oh, Ican actually contribute to what my school wants.
(06:00):
So let me give you an example from a higher grade.
So in the six to eight, and we have five grade bands pre-K, K to two, three to five, sixto eight, nine to 12, that we have a specific uh standards listed.
So this one would be kind of the, the several steps ahead for helping a pre-K student justto be able to identify biblical virtues in the classroom.
(06:23):
So in grades six to eight, we would encourage teachers to have their students to classifysituations, ideas, and human interactions based on the presence or absence of biblical
virtues.
So, I mean, that can be applied to any subject area where you're just asking yourstudents, classify the presence or absence of biblical virtues in a situation.
(06:47):
Wow, yeah, and I love what you just said there too about how this can really help motivateteachers.
this is not necessarily, in some cases, it might be doing something a teacher hasn't beendoing, but it also in some cases is taking what a teacher is doing or is doing a piece of
and giving it intentionality and focus and connecting it.
(07:08):
It's like I'm like two thirds of the way there.
I just need to bring it around and connect it.
Is that kind of a little bit of what's happening here?
Yeah, absolutely.
Which is actually one of the reasons we're so excited about these things becauseoftentimes when teachers start the school year or they're on a professional development
(07:30):
day and somebody says, hey, we've got this thing, it always feels like one more thing.
And what we're saying is this isn't an additional thing.
This is how we can take uh one additional step that's going to bring us
much deeper into biblical worldview formation because of that intentionality that you'retalking about.
So absolutely, we believe that a lot of teachers will look at this and say, wait, I'malready doing this.
(07:55):
This doesn't seem like rocket science, but I can see how if I'm more intentional aboutnaming these things instead of just saying, are you being kind to your friend that we can
articulate and name those things, which we know we can then build on in subsequent grades.
so that we are moving towards that anchor outcome that Roger talked about in his examplethat he gave.
(08:20):
Yes, it makes so much sense.
And so if I have a teacher right now and I'm thinking, okay, this is really interesting,I'm intrigued, ah you know, I want to learn more.
Obviously the first thing they need to do probably is go, would you recommend to just goand check out the standards themselves?
Like where would someone start, Roger?
Yeah, we so there's a web page and it's just summit.org forward / standards and really theplace to start.
(08:43):
There's some for explainer videos right at the bottom where they can hear the heart behindthem, how they're created.
And we really recommend that teachers or administrators actually download the standardsand then watch through those four videos.
Do not just jump into reading through the standards because the explainer videos, they'renot long.
There are, you know, five minutes each.
think what's the longest, like seven minutes or something.
(09:05):
So just watch those as kind of like your orientation to the standards.
Because again, we know people come at standards with all different backgrounds of ideas ofwhat they're like.
They've used state standards for math.
They've used Bible standards for their Bible curriculum, but they've never really thoughtabout biblical worldview formation standards that transcend and apply in every subject
(09:25):
area in every class.
Right, okay, and we'll definitely make sure that we link to that at teach4theheart.com /349 so that you guys can easily get to that link.
So yeah, I love that that you have the standards there and I assume, and you know, to thegrade levels and then the videos to watch it.
Can you give us a little bit of a preview of that?
Like what are some of the things, what are some of the recommendations you would have forsomeone that's saying, okay, I wanna do this, how would I go about actually incorporating
(09:53):
these into my classroom?
Well, I think there's a few ways that you can do that.
And we tried to anticipate the fact that teachers kind of have their own rhythm for how toapproach standards and schools have their own rhythms for doing that.
So like Roger mentioned, we do think that the first step would be to go download them andto watch some of those explainer videos.
(10:14):
And they're short.
The videos are designed to give you kind of the grand overview of the standards and thepurpose of them.
And then we also
go through some of the very practical pieces of the standards document.
So how do I navigate this?
What areas do I really want to focus in on?
Because we know teachers have so much going on and there's this packet of standards andwhere do I start?
(10:37):
And so this will just walk you through so that by the time you're done watching thesevideos, you're going to have an idea of where you need to focus in on.
then from there, what do I do next?
Well, there's quite a few different things that you can do.
First of all, we do offer for schools some support.
(10:57):
If they're looking for somebody to come alongside them, uh they can sign up for differentlevels of support where we would come in and talk with the leadership team so that the
leadership team can help with the implementation of the standards uh and then also eventraining for the staff.
But you know, Linda, we believe that just like other areas of professional development,oftentimes teachers really just appreciate being able to sit down m and talk through
(11:27):
something with their peers so they can say, what does this practically look like?
So although we do try to give some examples of how this practically plays out in thoseexplainer videos, we know there's such a value of somebody saying, OK, I teach second
grade, you teach second grade.
What can this look like in our day to day life?
So we definitely encourage
there to be a collaborative approach to these standards.
(11:51):
And then there's even elements as far as curriculum mapping.
How does this fit with my curriculum mapping that we can support you on?
But we believe that then a teacher can sit down once they've gone through this overview ofthe standards, maybe once they have the support of somebody near them or their school has
done that, and literally just look at their lesson plans and say, okay, my next lesson isto teach about, and then.
(12:14):
whatever it is in whatever subject area at whatever grade level if I'm going to beteaching about the civil rights movement and I want to think about how can I go ahead and
squeeze everything I can out of what I'm already doing and harness that for biblicalworldview formation then I can look at these different domains that Roger talked about and
(12:40):
I can begin thinking about what is it that I see
as a natural connection em to the work that I'm doing.
So what does God already say about this or what skills can I go ahead and harness and tapinto even more?
And again, that's gonna all be kind of walked through and explained in those videos andthen hopefully we'll be very clear.
(13:02):
And I will say this one last thing.
em Each one of these domains has kind of a teacher talk area where we just feel like wewanted to...
to step away from standards language, step away from the theoretical or research basis ofit, which is important, but then say, okay, how does this happen in our classroom?
(13:23):
Here are the things that we wanna look for.
This is what we mean by this.
And we believe that that's gonna be a really easy way for teachers to connect and turn onthat light bulb where they can then use what they already know because they're
professionals and they've dedicated their lives to that to then move forward forimplementation.
Yeah, and I would just add, Linda, as teachers approach it or as leaders approach it, theyoften think, okay, we're going to get into the nitty gritty of all comparative worldviews
(13:51):
and secularism and critical theory.
That's very appropriate, but you probably already have a class that's doing that.
So really, I just want to reemphasize that these are really not about as much what you'reteaching, but how you're teaching it.
And that's where, again, we find teachers get really excited because, as you mentioned,it's a lot of what they're already doing and didn't know that they could actually harness
(14:16):
those things.
So that's the biggest thing.
And take time to actually read through that teacher talk.
Take time to read through some of the research-based kind of theoretical sections toreally understand it.
that's, I would kind of, you know, sum that up nicely by saying, don't just jump right tothe standards, say, how can I apply these?
Because if you don't quite get what's going on, it would be like, yeah, what?
Yeah, every teacher does this.
(14:36):
Why am I doing this?
So it's really helpful to understand that big picture.
Yeah.
And this is a great time in the summer to take a few minutes and be able to sit down andactually digest it and have a little bit of time to think about it.
That's awesome.
one of the things you said, Maggie, about, you know, I'm teaching a lesson and I can lookat these standards once you understand how they work.
That makes so much sense of how helpful that is because I know sometimes you're staring ata lesson and you're like, okay, I need to have some type of, you know, connection,
(15:02):
worldview, biblical concept here.
And I'm just kind of coming up blank.
Being able to go back and look at
I would imagine that would give you lot of ideas, you know, if you're reading through, oh,okay, yeah, I see a connection here.
So rather than having to come up with it on your own and being a totally blank slate,these are kind of providing the connection points between what you're already doing m and
connecting that to biblical worldview.
(15:23):
Yeah, and I think that we also believe that it's gonna help teachers feel like they'redoing it so more authentically.
If I'm a first grade teacher and I'm gonna talk about herbivores and carnivores and I'mthinking, okay, so I've gotta think about how to do this biblical integration thing.
I'm just gonna say, God made all the creatures, right?
And even the teachers kind of feel inherently like that.
(15:45):
It may be true, but I feel like there should be more here.
em So one of the standards in that K to
to domain in the cognitive realm.
em Actually, before I tell you the standard, let me tell you the anchor outcome.
So the anchor outcome is to interact with ideas and people with alternative worldviews viaa biblical approach to engagement.
(16:07):
Well, a first grade teacher is not thinking, how can I train my first graders to go aheadand approach somebody with a secular worldview and be able to have a discussion with them,
right?
That's for the high school teachers.
That's what we think.
But then when you look at the K to two standard, it says compare two things by writing outlists, reasons, or characteristics for each item.
(16:30):
Wait, that's something that I always do as a first grade teacher.
So now when I'm talking about herbivores and carnivores, I'm approaching this with a morethorough approach to why am I comparing these?
Why am I listing these out?
Because I am teaching them the beginning stages of how I can approach two very differentideas or somewhat similar ideas.
(16:50):
and do so in a very clear way that's going to eventually add to those skills, lead them toa place where they can have those conversations in a positive and rational way.
This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
The Herzog Foundation puts on retreats and trainings throughout the year to equip teachersto share their faith and grow in their profession.
(17:15):
If you are looking for inspiration and encouragement connected with apologetics,athletics, the arts, reading, special education, or engaging with parents, there is a
retreat for you.
Visit teach4theheart.com / Herzog Retreats to sign up and learn more.
That's teach4theheart.com.
Now, back to our program.
(17:39):
Roger, do you particularly see any mistakes or like things that you would encourageteachers to like, don't think about it this way or like you might want to avoid this um as
people kind of or misunderstandings that people run into with this?
Yeah.
First of all would be to not only think in terms of the content of what I'm saying.
(18:00):
And here's what I mean by that.
When we talk about biblical worldview formation in the classroom, we always get questionslike, yeah, but how do I bring the Bible into my class?
It feels so contrived.
It feels like I'm just filling out a column on a curriculum map.
And so one of the mistakes is to kind of fixate just on that.
(18:20):
Now,
We do believe that bringing scripture into class is super important and that can be donein very winsome and natural ways.
But biblical worldview formation is so much more than just about having the right Bibleverse that addresses a particular issue.
And that's kind of the failing, that's been some of the part of the failing of theChristian school movement in the past to actually build a biblical worldview.
(18:45):
Cause we've just focused on just getting
these Bible verses or specific things into our classrooms, which is so much a part of it,but it's only really one part of it.
So not to approach it looking for help specifically to do that, although it will help youdo that with what we call microproposition.
So we do believe you need to figure out what God has to say about your subject area andshare it with your kids.
(19:09):
um
But that's only one part of it.
And I think that's the biggest mistake people even come to a conference.
We, you know, we just came off of a two day conference, biblical worldview immersionconference.
And I'm telling you, if you were to ask every person that's coming in, the first thingthey would say, yeah, I'm looking for how to do the Bible better in my, you know, world
languages class.
We help with that.
But really in our model with these six domains, that's only one sixth of biblicalworldview formation.
(19:35):
So just, just having a bigger picture perspective.
And then when they actually get in to start
reading the standards to not just say, kind of like Maggie alluded to, oh, well, I alreadydo this.
What's the big deal?
You know, this isn't rocket science, but to really think through and like that examplethat Maggie just gave about, you know, comparing two things by writing out lists.
(19:57):
That's kind of a fundamental skill that you need to in, let's say 12th grade.
Analyze alternative worldviews using essential worldview questions.
You can't do that kind of heavy lifting cognitively until you've learned how to make acouple lists and compare and contrast them.
Every good teacher worth their salt in K to 2 is doing that anyway because it's probablyin your state standards, but we're saying, ah, approach this with this excitement that,
(20:23):
oh, when I'm doing that, even though I may not be quoting the Bible, I'm doing biblicalworldview formation.
Like, come to it with kind of that excitement to see
how some of the things you're already doing.
If you do them for a refined reason and with a different motivation, they actually worktowards biblical worldview formation.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
(20:44):
Can you dive just for a second, just a little bit deeper into what you just said beforeabout how this teacher's coming in with this idea of like, okay, I need the Bible verses,
I need to have more of that and that's a good thing, but you're like, there's so much moreto that.
Can you give them a short little mindset shift?
What should they be thinking beyond just that?
I will, and I'm going to ask Maggie to tell her story from when she moved from publicschool to Christian school, but before she does that, because it's a really great little
(21:11):
story.
um
When we talk to teachers and we get into hundreds of classrooms a year, because part ofwhat we do is classroom observations where we give leaders feedback on what we see
teachers doing.
When we talk to those many hundreds of teachers in hundreds of classrooms, uh again, theirfirst mindset is always the intimidation of that column in their curriculum map or that
(21:36):
they have to do something biblical worldview in every classroom.
And so teachers have actually developed an aversion to biblical worldview formation.
And what they often do is just say, you know what?
I'm just going to pray at the beginning of class and that's the best I can do.
I'm going to do devotions and it's going to be really good devotion.
I'm going to take, you know, three minutes at the beginning of class to do some biblicalprinciple.
(21:57):
And that's the best I can do.
And then I'm going to go on to the rest of my class and do the real work of educating mykids.
That's the biggest mind shift that people need.
changed.
And again, we see that mind in many, many teachers.
So Maggie, tell your story and kind of that, how that dovetails with this.
Yeah.
So I started off in public school and taught in public school for about six or seven yearsbefore I moved over to Christian school.
(22:23):
And when I came, I was lesson planning early, early on, and I saw that little box in thelesson, you know, in Renweb or facts, and I saw a biblical integration.
I didn't know what to do with that.
So I walked across the hall to a veteran teacher and I said, okay, hey,
Can you help me with this?
(22:43):
I don't really know what to put here.
She said, yeah, super easy.
There's this website, go to this website.
Then go to the search bar on this website and just kind of put in some keywords for yourtopic of whatever it is that you're teaching.
And it's gonna give you a lot of verses that are somewhat related.
Just pick the one that sounds the best for you and put that verse in your lesson plan.
(23:06):
And I was like, oh, is that it?
Is that all I do?
Yep, that's it.
and you can put it on the board if you want, you know, and that was the extent of it.
And so what that really did is just kind of foster this idea that there's the Bible overhere and then there's all my content and my teaching over here.
And we were sometimes referred to that as a two story view.
(23:28):
And so what teachers really have to wrestle with em is that two story view.
And there's actually a quote that Roger and I love.
We talk about it.
all the time, it's Abraham Kuyper's quote, where he says, there's not a square inch in thewhole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign overall, does not
(23:50):
cry mine.
And so that is the basis of what we're saying when we're talking about this idea that it'snot just a Bible verse, and that doesn't mean we're cheapening anything, because we
believe that all of the human domain is Christ's.
Then when we study English,
then we are studying the great creation of English that God made.
(24:12):
When we study science, we are studying God's creation.
And this is a way of not only just learning more about Him, but worshiping Him throughthat.
And so that's the mind shift.
It's not just saying, okay, I'm making a list and I'm comparing two things, so I'm good togo.
It's me saying, okay, as a teacher, if I really want to do worldview formation, and I knowthat this is a foundational piece,
(24:34):
for them to then eventually talk about things.
I need to let the kids wrestle with this listing of things, not me just tell them.
I need them to learn to talk to their peers about identifying these things because that'sgonna be something that they need to do.
So, you the phrase whole child is very familiar in Christian education.
And so, or in education, and we're thinking in Christian education, it has to be the wholechild in a whole new way.
(24:58):
We have to recognize that our worldview is not just what we think, but it's what wedesire.
It's the way that we live our lives.
It's what we em own in our lives.
It's the thinking that we do.
And so that is what the standards do is tap into those areas and remind us that we are notjust a collection of the things that we believe to be true or the verses that we have
(25:19):
memorized.
And if you've been in Christian education long enough, you know that because there's a lotof kids that can give us the right answer to the right, to the questions that we ask.
And then we watch them walk out the doors and it's like, what happened?
It didn't hit.
So.
That's what we're excited about about these standards is just to get us to be thinkingabout the whole worldview of a child.
Yes.
thank you so much for sharing that.
(25:40):
think that's super helpful.
Yeah, that difference between just like the Bible is over here, but doesn't necessarilyconnect with all of this and really showing how, like you said, is, nothing is outside his
domain.
It connects to everything.
And these standards can help teachers see those connections, make those connections, andthen make them for their students.
That's awesome.
(26:01):
Any final um words of advice or recommendations as we wrap up, Roger?
And can you also just share that URL one more time with people?
Just as you're talking, it reminds me to just keep in mind the way these work is we havedeveloped a model for how a worldview forms in young adults, which is like the critical
years for worldview formation.
(26:22):
We took that and said, given that this is accurate, how should I then teach as a preschoolteacher, as a first grade teacher?
So always keep in mind, there's a long-term goal in mind, which we often won't see in ourstudents until
actually after they graduate years later, we'll see those worldview formation thingstaking uh root and bearing fruit later.
(26:46):
Um, so that's just, I think super important for teachers and leaders to think about, butyeah, it would be summit.org forward / standards and it's all free.
You can just download it and start using it next year.
And of course, we'd love to help support.
uh have a team that does that, just really can walk alongside with leadership teams.
(27:09):
The last thing I would say as a recommend to a teacher is don't do this alone.
ah Whether it's just grabbing your third grade cooperating teacher and doing it together,or even better,
really have a conversation with your academic dean, your academic director, your head ofschool, your principal, whoever it might be, to say, hey, this is something I'd love to do
in my classroom, but I know for it to be most effective, it's got to be a pass off from mygrade to the next, to the next, to the next.
(27:34):
So I can do some things in isolation, but they are designed for school-wide, subject-wideadoption.
That's fantastic.
Well, thank you guys so much and I hope you guys will definitely check out thosestandards.
Get involved, talk to your administrator.
That's just wonderful.
Once again, all the notes and links in this episode, you can find them atteach4theheart.com / 349.
(27:55):
This episode has been brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
All views and opinions are our own and don't necessarily reflect those of the HerzogFoundation.
Well, we look forward to being with you again soon.
In the meantime, to remember God is at work in you and through you and he's using you tomake a difference.
Keep your eyes on him.
and teach for the heart.
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