A Theory On Expectations

I saw on Facebook a recent photo of one of the students in the youth group I led at the first church I worked for. It brought back a great memory. One Sunday morning, as I was checking in with the other teacher who also had a high school Sunday School class at our church, I encountered the most amazing interaction.  The other teacher asked a high school student about what wild and crazy party action he had gotten up to the night before.  The student in the most deadpan face replied “I led a man to the Lord”. Now, part of me thought of the arrogance of the statement but I also was (in the weirdest british phrase) “dead chuffed”.  I was laughing inside because that particular teacher expected that most high school students were out “living it up” every weekend and the last thing he expected to hear was a serious reply expressing a deep devotion to Christ.  Had he actually led someone to the Lord?  Well, I had no idea, but the response was so unexpected it made me laugh internally.  To be “chuffed” is to be very pleased.   I did not laugh out loud.  My laughter was about the low expectations of the teacher. Why did he assume that all students were partying every weekend?  Why was he so shocked by the response? It seemed that he did not expect that students would be actively sharing their faith on a weekend. Instead he thought they all would be living it up as he had done when he was their age.  Why such low expectations and what are the results of low expectations?

At one point during my time at this church I had a conversation with the local Young Life Area Director that was rather eye opening.  We met often for lunch but this time was different and was the beginning of the end of our relationship.  I confronted him on the number of students that had left Young Life and entered our youth ministry because the Young Life students were prone to partying (as in drinking heavily) every weekend.  His reply was that teens will be teens. He further justified his position by sharing what he was like as a high school senior and Christian. That did not sit well with me and the relationship was pretty much over.  Why such low expectations?

My wife teaches sex education and the program is meant to be abstinence based.  Some however object to this approach because they expect that kids will be having sex so they feel that we must teach them about safe sex.  It does not fly with me.  Why?  Because the expectations are too low!  If we think that kids will be having sex, we do more than teach them about condoms. I’ve seen sex ed videos that are shown in classrooms where the expectation is that kids will have sex.  They don’t encourage abstinence at all. Why do we think they are ready for sex? Why such low expectations?

Are low expectations due to our own experiences?  Is it possible that we simply don’t expect the next generation to behave better than we did as teens? So often I’ve heard the argument that “I did it and I turned out fine”. Did they really turn out fine? Are they are hiding their regrets? Was their view of sex diminished or distorted by the experience they had and therefore they have a different view about things?

I remember as a teen having a theory about peer pressure.  People tend to pressure others into doing illegal or immoral things when they are doing them themselves, so that they won’t feel guilty or ashamed.  If everyone is doing it, no one feels it’s wrong. I discovered this while attending drinking parties in college. The guy who chose not to drink made others uncomfortable. They would not relax unless I took a sip of what they were drinking.  Was it because they knew deep inside they were doing wrong and my abstaining was making that obvious to them? Did they feel judged by the choice not to drink? No one can look down on anyone else when everyone is doing it. Is this possibly why so many adults have low expectations of teens? Would that YL leader feel guilty about his past if all the teens he worked with abstained from drinking? Would those who object to abstinence based sex education feel guilty about their past if many in the next generation of teens were not having sex? I do wonder about these things.  More on low expectations to come…