I have always hated that companies produce “student versions” of curriculum. They are always, simply put, less than the “adult” version. The presuppositions are that students are not capable of the full version due to “adolescent” learning ability and that the full version somehow may not be appropriate for younger audiences.
First, adolescence is a debatable stage anyway. See David Black’s The Myth of Adolescence.
Second, after teaching students for nearly 23 years, I’ve noticed that they can learn anything they want to learn. The key is getting a student to want to learn not ability. I teach high school students systematic theology straight out of Grudem. No tricks. No gimmicks. Just straight theology. We have fun. I’m a big kid, but we do real study, and they learn it because they can. I teach 7th grade boys too. We drop serious theological truth on them with nothing held back. Literature, history, bible, theology. They get it. My class is their favorite. Could it be that students can learn anything? Could it be that we need to change our delivery methods and have our presuppositions transformed by the Manual? Could the problem be that we try to teach eternal truth with godless strategies handed to us by a government agency that has no fear of God in their presuppositions and, therefore, their methodologies? Maybe we Christians should not be taking our methods from their play book.
Finally, have you ever noticed that sin and rebellion does not come in “student version”? It just comes in “ruin your life” version.
So, here is my Easter thought: why do we undersell our students in what and how we teach them when the rebellion has no regard for their age and the content that they will bring to our students? Porn is full-blown porn to the 7th grader who looks it up on his phone as it is to the 30-year-old doing the same. No “student versions” available.
Perhaps we have brought Nerf guns to a real war and our students are being slaughtered while we pander the cure to them in cute doses.
Jesus died and rose to break the curse and provide real life not cute “student versions”.
Theology in the Dirt 
Right on !
LikeLike
Mitch, You hit this one right on the head. Our educational system continues to upgrade the curriculum to college level material, but our churches want a youth pastor who will dumb down the Bible because they are afraid tha the teens just can’t get Biblical Truths. Our Society tells our teens that it is alright to do “adult things”, such as get into physical relationships. If you talk with teens today, they really believe that is is okay to have pre-marital sex, drink socially(however, drinking socially for them is partying very hard), and use recreational marijuana. And the sad thing is that parents are sometimes blind to, or okay with, this mindset.
LikeLike