This will be my last posting on this blog, until further notice.
I want to focus more of my efforts on setting up the Hudson Education Center (HEC).
The vision for HEC is to:
* Provide free tutoring and classroom instruction to children
* Empower parents as full education partners
* Have an arts focus
* Recruit the best teachers anywhere, and pay them like true professionals
* Use free market instruments to raise our funds
* Protect the intellectual integrity of all of our stakeholders
* Teach children how to think, not what to think
* Build our communities
* Attain K-8 accreditation
I will continue to blog on the Ning site that is under development, dedicated to HEC.
Thanks for reading, thinking, and commenting . . .
Free Thought - Free Schools - Free Markets
Friday, December 12, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Subject Concordance - A Help for Truth Seekers, by George J. French
This pamphlet, from Advent Christian Publications, is a handy guide that addresses only the distinctive doctrines held by all Advent Christians. It deals with man's nature, the definitions of death, soul, heaven, immortality, resurrection, eternal punishment, and the big one: docrtines of the return of Christ at the end of the age.
The Advent Christian Church was the first to join the National Association of Evangelicals when it was formed some fifty or so years ago. Today it enjoys fellowship with most mainstream evangelical denominations.
There are no narratives in this booklet. It is only 18 pages long and is a quick read.
But, you would not want to read this through, as a novel. You would use it for personal Bible study, or as a resource for lesson or sermon planning.
For my friends that are not Advent Christians, it would be an interesting thing to study.
The problem with those that disagree with our AC conclusions, is that they could not come up with a similar booklet, with anywhere near the volume of Scriptural references in this pamphlet, to support their view. The orthodox views of immortality soulism, heaven and hell, and judgment tend to lean on a certain quality of text, one or two here and there, that bolster their views. But if the Bible student wishes to have a lengthy list of Scriptures to support this or that doctrine, it would be hard to top this collection.
I recommend this book to all Christians, and even to non-Christians that might be surprised to find that there are some among us, with such odd beliefs as these! And such a discovery may even, God willing, lead a person to Christ!
The Advent Christian Church was the first to join the National Association of Evangelicals when it was formed some fifty or so years ago. Today it enjoys fellowship with most mainstream evangelical denominations.
There are no narratives in this booklet. It is only 18 pages long and is a quick read.
But, you would not want to read this through, as a novel. You would use it for personal Bible study, or as a resource for lesson or sermon planning.
For my friends that are not Advent Christians, it would be an interesting thing to study.
The problem with those that disagree with our AC conclusions, is that they could not come up with a similar booklet, with anywhere near the volume of Scriptural references in this pamphlet, to support their view. The orthodox views of immortality soulism, heaven and hell, and judgment tend to lean on a certain quality of text, one or two here and there, that bolster their views. But if the Bible student wishes to have a lengthy list of Scriptures to support this or that doctrine, it would be hard to top this collection.
I recommend this book to all Christians, and even to non-Christians that might be surprised to find that there are some among us, with such odd beliefs as these! And such a discovery may even, God willing, lead a person to Christ!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Teaching Problems and the Problems of Teaching
This book, by Magdalene Lampert, is one of my textbooks from my teaching certification program at the University of Michigan (MA, Educational Studies, 2006).
I had always wanted to go back and re-read it, more carefully, not subject to the pressures of a course syllabus. The book is primarily a set of reflections on teaching math to a classroom of 5th graders. It covers the year, from September to June.
Lampert uses transcripts of actual recordings made while she taught, to drive the content of the book. She covers such things as how to establish a classroom culture, preparing for lessons, working with students independently, leading whole-class discussions, teaching to cover the curriculum, etc.
There is simply no way to read a book like this casually. There is too much in it, that needs to be filed away for easy retrieval. The best use of this type of teaching instructional book is to refer to it constantly in your own group of upper-elementary kids.
This type of teaching resource, however, is not my favorite. The format, where the teachers narrates his or her own moves and behaviors in a live classroom, always struck me as rather self-absorbed. Ms. Lampert is indeed an excellent teacher, that can share much to new teachers. But the "I, me, mine" emphasis throughout becomes a distraction rather than a help.
But she will focus on one specific problem, and address her handling of it, in several chapters, covering various teaching situations and concepts.
She builds her approach on a triangular model, where the teacher, the students, and the content are at the end-points, and the area in the center is the teacher's "practice", that area where the teacher must manage infinite different scenarios of personality, curriculum, social situations, learning needs, etc.
As I read through the book, I found myself formulating my own model, a four-square grid like Covey's Priority quadrants - where the quadrants are based on: Student can/can't do the work; and student does/doesn't "get it". Your goal will be to move the kids up to the quadrant where they both can do the work, and "get it." (I was a math student that could do the work, but never got it until I was an undergrad in calculus).
I felt that Lampert quite overdoes the interactions with a student named "Saundra", where she makes a sort-of project out of not letting the class leave for recess until Saundra sees where she made a mistake in a fractions word problem, and will admit it publicly while saving face. There are a lot of layers of concern here, for the teacher, and Lampert handles it well. But I found myself thinking "Let the kids go to recess - Saundra will get it eventually - let it go!"
In the modern push for educational reform, we have ample research-based models to guide the teacher. We know more about human behavior and development than ever before. But somewhere lost in the mix is the idea of just letting kids be kids, letting them relax and find their own pace for learning.
I will refer back to this book again and again, throughout my teacher career. But I will keep in mind that there are no super-human teachers, and that even exceptional teachers like Magdalene Lampert have much to learn.
I had always wanted to go back and re-read it, more carefully, not subject to the pressures of a course syllabus. The book is primarily a set of reflections on teaching math to a classroom of 5th graders. It covers the year, from September to June.
Lampert uses transcripts of actual recordings made while she taught, to drive the content of the book. She covers such things as how to establish a classroom culture, preparing for lessons, working with students independently, leading whole-class discussions, teaching to cover the curriculum, etc.
There is simply no way to read a book like this casually. There is too much in it, that needs to be filed away for easy retrieval. The best use of this type of teaching instructional book is to refer to it constantly in your own group of upper-elementary kids.
This type of teaching resource, however, is not my favorite. The format, where the teachers narrates his or her own moves and behaviors in a live classroom, always struck me as rather self-absorbed. Ms. Lampert is indeed an excellent teacher, that can share much to new teachers. But the "I, me, mine" emphasis throughout becomes a distraction rather than a help.
But she will focus on one specific problem, and address her handling of it, in several chapters, covering various teaching situations and concepts.
She builds her approach on a triangular model, where the teacher, the students, and the content are at the end-points, and the area in the center is the teacher's "practice", that area where the teacher must manage infinite different scenarios of personality, curriculum, social situations, learning needs, etc.
As I read through the book, I found myself formulating my own model, a four-square grid like Covey's Priority quadrants - where the quadrants are based on: Student can/can't do the work; and student does/doesn't "get it". Your goal will be to move the kids up to the quadrant where they both can do the work, and "get it." (I was a math student that could do the work, but never got it until I was an undergrad in calculus).
I felt that Lampert quite overdoes the interactions with a student named "Saundra", where she makes a sort-of project out of not letting the class leave for recess until Saundra sees where she made a mistake in a fractions word problem, and will admit it publicly while saving face. There are a lot of layers of concern here, for the teacher, and Lampert handles it well. But I found myself thinking "Let the kids go to recess - Saundra will get it eventually - let it go!"
In the modern push for educational reform, we have ample research-based models to guide the teacher. We know more about human behavior and development than ever before. But somewhere lost in the mix is the idea of just letting kids be kids, letting them relax and find their own pace for learning.
I will refer back to this book again and again, throughout my teacher career. But I will keep in mind that there are no super-human teachers, and that even exceptional teachers like Magdalene Lampert have much to learn.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)