Bethany University in California has had some tough times. Unfortunately, it appears they are closing.
But when one door closes, as they say, another one seems to open up. The school where I teach is offering help to those students. Being totally biased, I love what North Central is offering.
Interesting interview on should kids go straight to college?
I will say this as an adjunct professor: Those who have been out of high school and had a couple of years working, or traveling, or doing a missions trip, are FAR more ready to hit the books than most kids coming straight from high school into college.
David Brooks is easily one of my favorite columnists. This column on the power of books is tremendous. It emphasizes the need to read. Real books help. (We can have the debate of ebooks vs. hard copies as well.) The point is: READ.
We already knew, from research in 27 countries, that kids who grow up in a home with 500 books stay in school longer and do better. This new study suggests that introducing books into homes that may not have them also produces significant educational gains.
I wish I could say that 100 percent true, but it’s not. Our home has easily 1000 volumes and it hasn’t seem to have made a difference in my own boys. I grew up in a home where we didn’t have many books at all, and consumed them voraciously through school and public libraries.
But there was one interesting observation made by a philanthropist who gives books to disadvantaged kids. It’s not the physical presence of the books that produces the biggest impact, she suggested. It’s the change in the way the students see themselves as they build a home library. They see themselves as readers, as members of a different group.
When we finally get the nerve up to pick up a book and read, we truly enter a different world. It’s different than the internet experience. It’s different than videos. It’s different than gaming. It’s a world of imagination. And it’s far more imagination than just watching someone else do a phenomenal job with video in a movie.
We’ve come to a point where the child’s imagination just doesn’t come into play anymore. I work part time at Sears and just get aggravated that there is a video game of Legos! Really? We can’t just put Legos together anymore and imagine a battle scene? No! We need to put the Lego figure into a video and make it do cool stuff!
Reading steps us into a place where our brains must be engaged. The more we read, the higher we climb. As Brooks points out, it takes years. The beautiful thing about reading is there is always time to grow. I can move from a “beach read” book to a deep theological work in my progression. I can pace myself. I can quicken my pace. I can force myself to pick up my vocabulary rate.
You can’t do that in video. You have to wait for the next generation of gaming to come out. You depend on someone else to invent the newest and greatest thing. You have to wait for Steve Jobs and his geniuses to bring out the next big i-invention.
Not so in reading. Great books await. They have been written. They are still being written. The climbing rate is up to us.
But, that is too hard. It is far easier to whine about a stupid video game and yell at the company for making an “inferior” product. We can yell at the movie screen because the video effects are so lame. (But did WE go learn how to do it better? NO. It’s much easier to sit and just whine.)
Grab some books. Read. Take in the amazing world around you. Take in the amazing history that brought you to this point. Pick up and read.
I put this in because I am wrapping up a semester of teaching and have had it with my generation trying to protect the next generation from “hardships.” As a result I am watching students struggle and fade because of the smallest adversities. Then, they expect favors to help avoid the pain.
We need losses in our lives. It teaches us. Failure is an instructor. I love wins. I learn from failure.
I am reading a book with my church staff about the “Me Generation.” It is a study, with some very funny sharp opinions, about our current generation. There are some very admirable things about this current generation. One thing I was admittedly surprised about was they seem to have high goals. The downside is they don’t seem to want to work for them. AND, it’s about notoriety. It’s about the 15 minutes of fame and the American Idol mystique.
This article about Supreme Court Justice Byron White is superb. He was incredibly skilled as an athlete AND a scholar. He was also a WWII hero.
He also hated fame. His actions as a WWII hero were enough to gain him incredible fame. Add to that his accomplishments as a football player in his era, and then on top of that his incredible intellect… and he simply avoided the media. What was wrong with that guy?
It’s a great story and a great lesson. Enjoy.
Usually it’s the Republicans who are bashed for hurting the poor. It turns out the Democrats are equal opportunity cutthroats as well.
Note this:
Once again, politics prevails; the poor and downtrodden are forced to bow before the vested interests. No wonder there’s a surging populist revolt in America. No wonder the ordinary, hard-working American taxpayer is offended by the arrogance of the cultural elite.
We are too often good at talking a good game, and then not following through. Everyone of us. And who gets left out? The poor.
One of my greatest challenges, personally, is doing what I know to do at the best of my ability… when it’s not noticed. As a pastor, I must do ministry well, though I receive no award because I don’t have huge numbers, big buildings, or large budgets. Just pastor people well.
As a teacher, I must teach well. I have that ability, so I must deliver to the best of that ability. Leave behind something, whether I get my own idea of “recognition” or not. Do things well.
This next semester I get the shot at teaching a subject I have been desiring to teach for quite some time: CHURCH HISTORY. I get to teach one section covering the early church to the Reformation, then another section covering the Reformation to today.
I want to cover key figures in both sections.
Church History I — Augustine, the Desert Fathers (my key area of interest), the Seven Church Councils, Constantine’s conversion, the forming of the Canon, the East/West split, possibly Anselm, and definitely Aquinas.
Church History II — Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Wycliffe and the English translations, early American revivals, the Wesleys, American revivals (Finney, Moody, etc.), and 20th Century missions.
That’s not exhaustive, but key.
What would YOU cover in either section of history? I remember another professor at my school that was upset because his son had gone to the school and couldn’t remember hearing about Luther or Calvin ONCE. I know we’re more of a “liberal arts” school now, but REALLY? We require students to take a LOT of Bible classes and we couldn’t fit in Luther and Calvin?
If your child was going to learn church history, what do you want to make sure they do not miss?
“No one has ever been — no one can ever be — educated in school or college. The reasons is simply that youth itself — immaturity — is an insuperable obstacle to being educated. Schooling is for the youth. Education comes later, usually much later.” (Mortimer Adler)
I am realizing this more and more in my own life and in the lives of students I teach in college. In earlier stages of my life I thought I had an education. All I received at that time was information and knowledge. The importance of receiving that “schooling” cannot be underestimated. It helped form my education. My education has continued. Now, as I strive to finish another degree in seminary, I see education in my life. What I thought I had learned before I realize I was now applying it. Seminary has helped me realize the formation of a new education in my life. Yet, I sit with fellow students who are not yet in ministry. While they are learning the same things I am learning, they are only being “schooled” to a point because they do not have the same frame of reference. Their education in the church is still ahead.
At the college level, the students I have really have more to learn. This is part of my education as well. When I get frustrated with their lack of progress in common sense, I am reminded by a mentor of mine that when I was that age I thought I had it all together, too! My education continues. I must “school” the college students. I must prepare them for their future education.
