Reflections on God … Man … Life
Just a quick commentary today on education. How many times have you heard educators say, “Don’t tell children what to think, but teach them how to think”? I understand the concept, really. I want my students to learn how to think also. Yet aren’t there some things we have to tell them first? Aren’t there some building blocks that must be in place before they can launch out and do their own thinking? This is applicable at the college level… Read more »
I post on the subject of education quite often; that’s to be expected from someone in my profession. I share the concerns voiced about the Common Core initiative and have read many of the critiques with respect to the specifics of Common Core. I agree with most of what I have read. Yet there are political conservatives who support this approach because they are enamored with the promise of enforcing a basic education for all, particularly when they perceive, quite… Read more »
In order to stave off misunderstanding, before I get to my main point today, let me assure any and all readers that I really do like new technology. I mean, I’m using a computer right now, and there are still some who haven’t crossed that barrier. I’m not one of them. How I wish I’d had a laptop back in 1981 when I was completing my master’s thesis. Try typing a 138-page paper in time for graduation, knowing that if… Read more »
Have you heard that changes are afoot again with the SAT tests? You know, those examinations by which you try to get into college? Already there have been changes since the 1960s that have “recentered” the scores. What that means in the real world is that a score today that is the same score one might have received along about 1963 is not really the same score—a 1200 today, for instance, would have come out lower back then. We’re making… Read more »
I spent a number of years researching Noah Webster, who became the subject of my doctoral dissertation. He’s known primarily for two things: his Speller, which taught Americans to read and write correctly; his dictionary, a monumental effort of about twenty years of his life, and which defined terms in the context of his Biblical worldview. Webster started out his career as a devotee of the Enlightenment, that movement of the eighteenth century that gave far more credit to human… Read more »
Charles Finney had a lot to say about the effective means of communicating a message, particularly the most important message of all—the Gospel. He was continually criticized by other ministers for using plain language in his messages; he should show off his learning with superb rhetoric, they argued. Finney argued back in this way in his autobiography: The captain of a fire company, when a city is on fire, does not read to his company an essay, or exhibit a… Read more »
Another semester comes to a close tonight with the fall commencement at Southeastern University. I’m in my twenty-fifth year of teaching at the college level and have now witnessed a multitude of these. As I watch the graduates cross the stage and receive their diplomas, I hope that the four years they have invested were worth all the effort and the money that was spent. At least I have a higher comfort level at a university like SEU, knowing that… Read more »