The Biblical Integration Conference is designed for Christian school leaders and educators to explore the idea of biblical integration in a thoughtful and theological way with colleagues committed to doing Christian education well. The setting is on Cairn’s suburban Philadelphia campus for nearly three days of thought leadership, interaction, and presentations on a significant subject ripe for serious consideration. Christian schools … Read More
Biblical Integration Conference: Integration is Personal
The Biblical Integration Conference is designed for Christian school leaders and educators to explore the idea of biblical integration in a thoughtful and theological way with colleagues committed to doing Christian education well. The setting is on Cairn’s suburban Philadelphia campus for nearly three days of thought leadership, interaction, and presentations on a significant subject ripe for serious consideration. Christian schools … Read More
Approaches to Christian Education: From Elusive Towards a Larger and Deeper Approach
“This article originally appeared in the March 2016 issue of Pro Rege.” “Despite thirty years of talk about integration of faith and learning, and despite a half-dozen best-selling books that call on Christians to take intellectual life more seriously, the idea of Christian scholarship remains elusive for women and men who teach at and who lead Christian colleges and universities.” This was the conclusion of Michael Hamilton, … Read More
Helping Children Grow – Are We Forming, Are We Informing, or Is It Both?
I have several grandchildren who are in the early years of involvement in a number of different Christian schools. As I watch them develop through different experiences, challenges, and opportunities, I’m impacted again by the glorious privilege and honor we have as Christian parents and teachers to unpack the mysteries and wonder of God’s creation with our young ones. When we have … Read More
Virtual Christian Education?
Higher education has used virtual schooling for years. And with so much of culture already customized, individualized and in the grips of isolating technology, it shouldn’t surprise us that K-12 education would discover and promote virtual schooling. Whether or not this is a good thing – particularly for those parents desiring a Christian education – remains to be seen. Perhaps … Read More
Reformed Critical Realism as A Dynamic Intellectual Paradigm for Christian Educators
It’s wonderful when you observe Christian educators make the giant leap forward in realizing that education is not neutral but is always driven by beliefs, as they come to understand the domineering influence, even in Christian schools, of the religion of secularism on pedagogical theory and practice. It then often turns to distress when you observe these same educators running … Read More
Who Is Ultimately Responsible for Learning?
How long will we continue to limit the learning of our children by our need to be in control of it? The new ELSE Education Act replacing NCLB, should have included an apology from the Congress for all of the mischief that the NCLB led to in spite of its good intentions. It was an inappropriate response to a misunderstood … Read More
A Typology of Paradigms for Improving School
After thirty years of significant criticism, perhaps it is time to go back to the past in search for future thinking about our schools. In 1846, Horace Mann’s 12th annual report to the Massachusetts Board of Education affirms, “… the absolute right of every human being that comes into the world to an education.” It required a national commitment to … Read More
There is No Neutrality – True Education Primarily is A Relationship-Driven Activity
There is No Neutrality – True Education primarily is a relationship-driven activity Richard Edlin comments: The reflections below from Scot McKnight (prof of NT at Northern Seminary, Lombard, IL) echo the focus that Jamie Smith, Benson Kamary, Roy Atwood, Doug Wilson, myself, and many others put on the key dynamic that education is not primarily the transfer of information. It … Read More
A Letter to my Daughter on her Graduation from Christian High School
Dear Katie, Graduation Day at last! Congratulations! Bravo! Well done! Hurrah! I’m so filled with love and pride right now I’m about to burst. Many times I’ve come into your room late at night and found you toiling over algebraic equations, or struggling to plumb the depths of Dostoyevsky, or trying to think clearly and Christianly about the big questions of life. I … Read More