I’m pleased to announce the release of a new resource for children’s missions education: Ready! Set! Go! Children on Mission Throughout the Church Year. The book was written by the students in my Teaching Children course, co-taught by Barbara Massey, Minister to Children at the River Road Church, Richmond, VA.

[Read more...]

Today’s brain and learning concept: the brain perceives and creates parts and wholes. The brain has two separate but simultaneous tendencies for organizing information. One is to reduce information to parts. The other is to perceive and work with information as a whole or series of wholes. These simultaneous tendencies spring from the brain’s organization and have important implications for teaching and learning.

[Read more...]

Today’s brain and learning concept: emotions are critical to learning. Generally, educational enterprises tend to separating emotion from thinking. Though the importance of emotions to learning has been acknowledged the connection between emotion and cognition remains, by and large, unaddressed. In recent years, more and more researchers are seeing emotions as important to higher order thinking and meaningful learning.

[Read more...]

Mark Henderson revisits the question about nurture vs. nurture in The Times (March 28, 2009). The piece is titled “Nature v nurture? Please don’t ask.” He claims to have an answer. Here’s an excerpt:

[Read more...]

We’ve just added a link to the School of Christian Ministry at BTSR on our Organizational links listing. The School of Christian ministry provides quality continuing education courses, programs, and events for clergy and lay church leaders. Many convenient online learning opportunities here! Check out their offerings, there’s probably one you need. You can register online.

I sometimes share with my students the phenomenon of what I’ve come to call “The Jay Leno Jaywalking Effect.” If you’ve ever watched Jay Leno’s man-on-the-street interview segment called “Jaywalking” you’ve seen the phenomenon. Leno will ask a passerby a question. If the person interviewed does not know the answer, the person just makes one up. But the more interesting thing that happens is when Leno follows up and it becomes apparent that the person immediately comes to believe that the answer he or she just made up is true!

[Read more...]

During a conversation among parents about their children—now adolescents and young adults the issue of children and money came up. There were the usual rants about children not appreciating the value of money, anxieties about paying for college expenses, the astronomical increase in auto insurance when adding a teenager to the policy, etc. Most parents shared frustrations, and worry, about their teenage and young adult children not being able to handle their finances.

I asked the group of parents if they talked about money, finances, and stewardship with their children when they were young. All said that no, they hadn’t. That being the case, I wondered at their surprise that their grown children were unprepared to handle money as adults.

[Read more...]

Experience has its advantage: perspective. Being on this side of having reared children who are now grown I’m often amused at the things parent get anxious about. Many of the things parents get upset about related to their children’s behaviors fall under the category of what I call “kid stuff.” But, I can appreciate that living through the adventure of parenting, things can seem huge when one takes on the illusion of being responsible for the fate of one’s child.

[Read more...]

Yesterday I heard President-elect Obama speak at a news conference where he introduced the new education secretary, Arne Duncan, head of the Chicago school system. One point Obama stressed was that we needed to increase our expectations about student performance. I agree wholeheartedly.

[Read more...]

I was intrigued by overhearing a common phrase last week. Overheard several times was the phrase, “I don’t want to do that.” It’s a common enough phrase (anyone who has ever had a three or four year old around the house has heard a variation of that uttered hundreds of times). What intrigued me was that while the content was the same, the context and source related to where and who uttered that phrase made a world of difference. It was a good example of the importance of focusing on process and not content.

[Read more...]