The Outline
When I was a girl, I never learned to outline properly. I don't know if it was poor foundational teaching in my early grades or if I'm deficient in thinking clearly in outline form. I really think it's a deficiency on my part. But I don't remember much about outlining in grade school language classes.
However, I do remember that in high school biology, I had the choice to either dissect a frog or outline the book Microbe Hunters. I chose the outline. I was so bad at it! I practically rewrote the book. But I really couldn't dissect a frog or any other animal.
So, now I'm looking over my college classwork on the Bible book of Romans before I shred it. I have very fond memories of my study of Romans. I remember how I delved into it deeply and enjoyed digging out truth in those sometimes complicated sentences that Paul wrote. I learned a lot of theology in that class and I still relate the understanding of many of those verses to what I learned in my study with Dr. Don Kenyon. And yet, I see on these papers that my teacher wrote, "Outline-fair; Questions-good". This was the comment consistently.
I'm not sure now. Is good better than fair? I would think it might be. I know outlines were really hard for me. But I ask you, should I be graded on my grasp of the book of Romans on how well I can outline? Shouldn't my evaluation be based on how well I understood the doctrines which Paul was teaching in that book? And then I wonder how a teacher could know what I understood without a conversation with me.
I don't even remember what my final grade for the course was. But I wonder, if Dr. Kenyon could talk to me about Romans today, would he still want to know how well I can outline it? Or would he be interested in how much I am living it.
And there goes the class assignment pages, with their comments about the fair outline, right into the shredder.
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