The kid graduates

Posted on May 20, 2007 by Israel Galindo

Yesterday my youngest son graduated from his university’s school of engineering. When they called his name to walk across the stage I heard my father’s name echo in my son’s middle name, Thomas Samuel Galindo. My father was never able to start college, much less finish it. Circumstances in his native war-torn country and a decision to emigrate to a foreign land for the sake of his family—and its later generations—-meant personal sacrifices of opportunities, and of dreams deffered. My father loved learning. Despite his lack of formal education we grew up in a home full of books. (That’s an environment rarer than I realized until years later. Even as an adult, visiting many homes as pastor or as hospice chaplain I was always surprised at the lack of books people had in their homes). Continue reading →

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Avoiding program proliferation

Posted on May 18, 2007 by Israel Galindo

When I was a school principal we had an annual fundraiser in which our small army of 800 elementary school students sold hundreds of dollar candy bars. You know the ones, those one dollar, delicious, long bricks of chocolate and almond kids used to sell door-to-door but which today get sold by helpful (often eager and overfunctioning) parents in their offices and workplaces. While I suspect that I’ll be doing hard time in Purgatory for that shameless and unconscionable use of child labor I must admit that it was our most profitable fundraiser. We consistently cleared around $10k after expenses. As any private school bookkeeper will tell you, that’s nothing to sneeze at. Continue reading →

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Is BFST valid?

Posted on May 17, 2007 by Israel Galindo

On ocassion I run into a skeptic that challenges the validity of Bowen Family Systems Theory (BFST). I typically don’t spend a lot of energy trying to “convince” people of something or other. But when there’s evidence that a person is genuine in his or her critique or is genuinely interested in learning and dialogue I’ll invest the time.

My typical response is to argue that the issue is not whether BFST is “true” or not. We’re dealing with a theory and not a philosophy, in other words. Unlike philosophies, which seek to arrive at truth, theories are speculative but disciplined explorations of discovery that try to arrive at conclusions about the nature of things. And I tell them that what makes BFST “valid” is that it is characterized by all of the components that make any theory valid (those which make distinguish a theory from an ideology, for example): Continue reading →

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Leaders know how to listen

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Israel Galindo

One of the most important traits of an effective leader is his or her ability to listen. While hearing is a natural ability listening is an acquired skill.

Listening involves more than just the capacity to understand what is said and how it is said. The act of listening happens on several levels, the most important of which is being able to listen for the emotional process behind the words and the give and take of dialogue. In other words, leaders know how to distinguish content from emotional process. Effective communicators have that quality of “emotional intelligence” that allows them to address emotional process through empathy and intuition. Continue reading →

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I used to believe . . .

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Israel Galindo

I’ve always found it fascinating to see how difficult it is for adults to appreciate children’s cognition. It seems as if when the brain makes those leaps from one stage of cognition to another we develop a sort of cognitive amnesia arelated to how we used to perceive the world at a previous stage. Unless one is trained or working in a field that involves daily contact with children it often becomes a challenge to appreciate the mind of the child. As Paul the Apostle wrote, “When I was a child I thought like a child, reasoned like a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things.” Continue reading →

Posted in children, Christian Education, teaching, world view | 1 Comment

Leadership lessons from the Dog Whisperer

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Israel Galindo

Full disclosure and legal disclaimer: I’m not a pet person. I’ve never been a dog owner, don’t have cats, and don’t understand what having pets around the house is all about. The most I’ve tolerated was allowing the kids to have hamsters and gerbils during their tender formative years—partly because those critters tend to have a limited lifespan and so become good opportunities to teach the kids “first lessons” about death. My opinion about dog owners has not been helped by my experience of them on walking trails or jogging lanes, but that’s a rant for another day.

Given that attitude you can understand how puzzled my family is that I’m such a fan of Cesar Milan, “The Dog Whisperer.” Milan has a TV show on the National Geographic channel that I try to catch as often as I can–even the repeats. My kids don’t get my behavior. The typical exchange goes like this: Continue reading →

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What Bruner said

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Israel Galindo

In 1966 Jerome Bruner, Harvard psychologist and educator, wrote:

There is a dilemma in describing a course of study. One must begin by setting forth the intellectual substance of what is to be taught, else there can be no sense of what challenges and shapes the curiosity of the student. Yet the moment one succumbs to the temptation to “get across” the subject, at that moment the ingredient of pedagogy is in jeopardy. For it is only in a trivial sense that one gives a course to “get something across,” merely to impart information. There are better means to that end than teaching. Unless the learner also masters himself, disciplines his taste, deepens his view of the world, the “something” that is got across is hardly worth the effort of transmission.*

Bruner’s challenge relates to education in a global sense, but he provides a challenge that is at the heart of Christian education. The phrase “there are better means to that end than teaching” suggests that at the heart of teaching is the relationship between teacher and student that “shapes” the persons involved in the enterprise of learning. Continue reading →

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You learn what you need at the time you need it and not before

Posted on May 10, 2007 by Israel Galindo

I often start my workshop presentations by saying, “Don’t take notes. It won’t help you.” (in fact, I start out most of my seminary class sessions that way). I tell the participants to trust themselves to learn what they need to learn during our time together, and that what they need to learn is probably just ONE thing. But it will be the one thing they need, so that’s all that really matters.

Most folks are able to relax and settle in for the presentation without pen in hand. A few are not able to break old “schooling” habits and try to scribble down every word I say or every point on the presentations slides. My hunch is that those are the ones who’ll likely not learn much of anything. At the end of the presentation they’ll walk away with copious notes which will get filed away somewhere in their studies and never looked at again until the next cleaning day. Then those notes, never read, get thrown out with the rest of the clutter. Continue reading →

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Teaching concepts

Posted on May 9, 2007 by Israel Galindo

Concepts are some of the most powerful components of learning. In fact, concepts attainment is necessary for deep understanding—if you don’t grasp the concept, you don’t really understand. This is a challenge in teaching in part because most people don’t recognize a concept when they see it. Further, concepts are abstract and therefore, hard to grasp. And yet, the “stuff” of faith is comprised of abstract concepts.

Concepts consist of a category (a class or a set) and attributes by which to tell whether or not an object belongs in the category. Concepts, then, require the ability to build taxonomies, discern likeness and difference identify qualities, and to name or create categories. No small feat for any learner, yet even young children are doing this when they learn a new concept. Continue reading →

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How NOT to explain things

Posted on May 8, 2007 by Israel Galindo

In a previous post (“On metaphors, analogies, and rigid thinking”(April 20th, 2007) I wrote about the limitations inherent in metaphors. I stated that while metaphors can be helpful to introduce a concept we do people a disservice in leaving them with the metaphor and not moving on to a more rigid understanding of the concept or principle under consideration. I wrote that when teaching a concept or principle we should avoid the trap of providing anthropomorphic, normative, and teleological explications—all of which lead to “fuzzy” thinking or confuse cause with reason.

My friend Bill asked that I provide examples of those three categories of explications we should avoid. Avoiding these three traps is most important when teaching principles (or what are called “Law-like statements” or “Law-like principles”). It’s easy to fall into these traps because principles, by nature, are causal. Continue reading →

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