The new book by GRACE members Israel Galindo and Marty Canaday, Planning for Christian Education Formation: A Community of Faith Approach (Chalice Press) is immediately available in print and e-book format.
[Read more...]
We’re just at the start of the new fall Christian Education year in our churches. But it will not be long before most resident Christian education staff and program leaders will begin to hear complaints about the curriculum. Most of those complaints will be along the lines of “It’s too hard to use,” “The kids don’t like it,” “I don’t like it,” etc. Admittedly, while whether one likes something or not does not necessarily have anything to do with whether it is effective, the pragmatic reality of having a volunteer corps of teachers means that one needs to give due attention to such complaints.
[Read more...]
I was able to make the last meeting of the GRACE group monthly meeting for the year (we’re on hiatus for the summer). Schedule conflicts have prevented me from attending this year. It’s ironic that now living in Richmond I’m having trouble making the meetings. When I lived two hours away in Northern Virginia I hardly ever missed a meeting over the course of six years. The friendship and rich discussion served only to remind me how much I’ve missed this monthly gathering with peers.
[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.
One of the topics in my current online course is educational assessment in the congregational setting. The students are reviewing a model for rigorous assessment of Christian education that my friend Marty and I present in our forthcoming book.* One issue students have raised, legitimately, about the issue of assessment, and the model offered in particular, is that putting a rigorous assessment process in place in the congregation will be a challenge and will seem daunting. I think that’s a valid statement.
[Read more...]
A local church educator sent me this e-mail, a common dilemma: “I am in need of some real advice. I have a Sunday School teacher who is in her middle to late 20’s and has been teaching our senior high girls class for two years now, but is very distant from her class. Parents are now complaining to me that she spews out her opinions, but does not allow others to share theirs. The girls are disinterested and some have quit coming to class. There are other issues involved but this is the crux: how do you fire a volunteer without losing them totally?”
[Read more...]
I receive an e-mail from a church staff member about that perennial problem: the pushy parent. It comes in all forms. Parents want allowances or exceptions for their “special” child, their “superior” child, or their “tender” child. They want the child advanced a grade, put in the “smart” class, held back a grade, or, put into the same group with their “special little friends.” Once, when I was a school principle a parent insisted on us putting her twin daughters in the same class all through grade school—and, requested that they always sit next to each other. There was no thought about encouraging individuation on the part of that mom!
[Read more...]
Every once in a while I get a chance to visit congregations with large Sunday School or Sunday morning Bible classes. Some of these classes have over 100 persons in regular attendance. While that may seem like a sign of success to some, others see those large classes as something to be wary of. Large Sunday School classes were, for a previous generation, both a goal and a measure of success. But even with the more contemporary emphasis on small groups (with 20 people in a group considered already too large) there remain pockets where bigger is better despite everything we know about how large teacher-focused classes are pedagogically ineffective.
[Read more...]
The following is from the book Myths: Fact and Fiction about Teaching and Learning by Israel Galindo. How well do you know fact from fiction?
Fiction: You can tell the age of a tree by counting the rings in a cross-section cut of the trunk.
[Read more...]
The following is from the book Myths: Fact and Fiction about Teaching and Learning by Israel Galindo. How well do you know fact from fiction?
FICTION: The Florida Everglades is an extensive swamp.
[Read more...]