Throughout my teaching career, I’ve made bold claims about my students and my beliefs about who they are. I’ve often said things like, “I believe my students are unique image-bearers of God, created with individual gifts, talents, strengths, and weaknesses.” Do you believe that about your students? Have you ever made a similar statement about them? But is it enough … Read More
Critical Thinking: A plea for less problem “saying” and more problem “solving”
So much has been written about the realities (positive and negative) of the digital information age. Information is disseminated at increasingly higher speeds, granting the end user unprecedented access to the seemingly most up-to-date information. Social media and blogs create platforms for posting and re-posting ideas, perspectives and opinions. It could be argued that society, in one sense, is more … Read More
Saving Money for Public Education through Christian Schooling?
Jeff Spalding, former CFO for the City of Indianapolis and current director of Fiscal Policy and Analysis at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, published an interesting blog post last week titled If you think expanding school choice is expensive. I found his examples intriguing as they stimulated some good discussion around the question of whether we can really fund school choice in North … Read More
The Teacher Effect
There was a motorcar company commercial that ran in our local television market, coining the phrase “The Eide Effect”. According to their website, this meant that their company built a business on the values that takes one beyond the “business as usual” transaction. This company wanted customers to know that they cared about the human connection and that this “Eide … Read More
How might Christian schools and Churches Partner?
While we likely all agree that parents share the primary responsibility for the faith nurture of their children, the Christian school and the church can play major supporting roles. Sometimes it has problematically felt like the Christian school and the church have been competing for the time and attention of the children and young adults they are attempting to serve. … Read More
Another Look at Why Parents Choose Christian Schools
Tony Kamphuis, Director of Niagara Association for Christian Education, sent CACE a link after reading More Than Scores – An Analysis of Why and How Parents Choose Private Schools, the Friedman Foundation’s paper documenting their findings on why parents choose private schools. A similar discovery paper was funded by the Society for Quality Education and published by The Fraser Institute … Read More
People, Process, Product
I was listening to NPR radio last week when a phrase caught my attention: People, Process, Product. This phrase, from my quick search, was first used by Motorola in their development of Six Sigma, the set of techniques and tools they developed for process improvement in the late 1980’s. Six Sigma hit the big time when Jack Welch used it … Read More
CACE Introduces Senior Fellows
The Center for the Advancement of Christian Education (CACE) at Dordt University is pleased to announce the hiring of three senior fellows: Dan Beerens, Chad Dirkse, and Paul T. Neal. As recognized experts in the philosophy and practice of Christian schooling, CACE senior fellows represent a variety of fields and capacities. Fellows will assist in CACE’s mission of helping innovate, … Read More
Why CACE? Why Now?
Good questions for sure! And, ones I have been asked a few times this past month. My personal response reflects two thought paths. The first comes from Philippians 2:1-4: Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united in Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then … Read More
Content Knowledge
There are countless of quotes floated about attributed to Albert Einstein. I’m sure many of them–probably most of them–are authentic. Some are probably not. To his credit, he did have a lot of good stuff to say about a great many topics beyond physics. I think the above is a good example, and a worthy admonishment for all educators. Of … Read More
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