Education or Bumblification

From Glenn Arbery in Teaching The Teachers, Broadening the Vision, an introduction to the Dallas Institute:
Our current, well-meaning educational reform, I am afraid, tends to prefer the fixed; it wants standards, and it bucks against what might yet turn out to be one of the wisest and best omissions of the United States Constitution: its [...]

What a Teacher Needs

Great Literature, as those of us who love it thought, is alive and vibrant with the capacity to change people’s lives. Similarly,… teachers need not so much techniques and strategies as participation in things of great substance. But even more… those who choose teaching as a vocation, whatever their experience, whatever their measurable abilities, have [...]

Why History Class Must Die!

Currently, the Peanuts comic strip by the late Charles Shulz stands out as a source of great wisdom and insight in our culture. I say this with partial sarcasm, only partial.
One particular strip showed Sally in Sunday School class, her teacher before her. He began, “Today we are going to discuss Church history. What do you [...]

Loving the Truth

For many, the quest to know the truth is a purely rational quest. Thus, for example, Rene Descartes resolution to begin by doubting everything – all that he was told, and everything he perceived with his senses. Only by reasoning could he come to know the truth.
It’s easy to see why we would think this [...]

Life Lessons from a One-year-old

A little over one year ago, I became blessed and immersed into fatherhood.  From what I have been told, it is always this way – overwhelmed by joy and terror, hope and responsibility.  The thought of all I must teach and instill in my daughter regularly traipses across my mind.  Yet, in the midst of [...]