Happy New Year Resolutions

It is time, once again, to make our new year's resolutions, or so we all think. Have you ever wondered from where this tradition came?

The Romans originally dedicated this day to their god Janus, the god of gates, doors, and beginnings (Interesting!). After Julius Caesar reformed the widely accepted calendar of the day in 46 BC he was then murdered. The Roman Senate responded to his murder by voting to deify him on the 1st January 42 BC in honor of his life and his newly revamped calendar. The month originally was named after the deity Janus, who had two faces, one looking forward and one looking backward.

A New Year's Resolution is generally a goal someone sets out to accomplish in the coming year. Some examples include resolutions to donate to the poor more often, to become more assertive, or to become more responsible. A key element to a New Year's Resolution that sets it apart from other resolutions is that it is made in anticipation of the New Year, and new beginnings. As Christians, we should understand this whole idea of new beginnings. In Christ, the old things have gone and new things have come. We, in Christ, are all new creations, and each year draws use closer to the coming Lord who will complete our transformation. Each year we close the door of the past year and open the door to the new year. My prayer is that all of our new resolutions would be rooted not who we are but in our Lord and for His glory as we step through the door to a brand new year!  I warmly wish all of you a extremely Happy New Year. May God be glorified!

 

Waiting for "Superman"

Here is a link to the trailer for the film, Waiting for "Superman." If you don't have time to see the film then please give at least two minutes of your time to view this trailer. Regardless of your allegiances to public, private or homeschooling, one issue comes forth... we had all better come together for the sake of our children. I have posted international literacy scores on this blog for years, and can confirm that the scores referenced in this video are accurate. Be warned, this is a public video and will have advertisements on it. Clicking the upper right hand corner X will remove the ad. Thanks for watching!

A Finnish Education

A Finnish education is the best education in the world, according to many. What makes it excellent? Dr. Pasi Sahlberg, a Finnish educator and author, has our answer for us in an article from Jenny Anderson in the New York Times.

"In his country, Dr. Sahlberg said later in an interview, teachers typically spend about four hours a day in the classroom, and are paid to spend two hours a week on professional development. At the University of Helsinki, where he teaches, 2,400 people competed last year for 120 slots in the (fully subsidized) master’s program for schoolteachers. “It’s more difficult getting into teacher education than law or medicine,” he said.
Dr. Sahlberg puts high-quality teachers at the heart of Finland’s education success story — which, as it happens, has become a personal success story of sorts, part of an American obsession with all things Finnish when it comes to schools."


Students from Finland outperform peers in 43 other nations and that includes the United States, Germany and Japan, and they do it in mathematics, science and reading skills. The performance of this small and remote European nation has a direct correlation to its educational policies enacted 40 years ago. A summary of those policies can be found in this article. In sum, here are a few of the ones I think are most important.

All kids start at the same level, regardless of their socio-economic background.

Teachers are highly respected and appreciated in Finland because all teachers need a master’s degree in order to qualify to teach in Finland.

Since the 1960s all political authorities, regardless of political affiliation, have seen education as the key to surviving and thriving in an increasingly competitive world.

The government takes care of all costs because of their commitment to free education for all.

Schools receive full autonomy in developing the daily delivery of education services. The ministry of education in Finland continues to believe that teachers, together with principals, parents and communities know best how to provide the best possible education for their children and youth.

As I close, I recommend the movie, Waiting for Superman, to all who want to get a glimpse of what is taking place in our public sector schools. Particularly noteworthy, is the two teacher unions and their responses, particularly to Michelle Rhee in our nation's capital. Education is our future, and yet, we have swallowed the lie. We believe "self" is more important than the child. If we are going to create an educational system in this country that properly prepares our students for the future, then "self" will have to take a back seat. Geoffrey Canada has a powerful quote in that film about adults being more important in a U.S. education than the child. Until we right that upside down equation, there will be little change in the majority of education choices we offer our children in this country. Blessings to all!

Christmas

Christmas... a time of the year when everyone agrees to slow down to a stop for a day or two. Traveling on Christmas day is an odd experience as even the busiest roads are eerily inactive. As I reflect on my own Christmas experiences in the past, I am forced to consider current Christmas and its lost meaning.

In today's world, everyone celebrates Christmas no matter belief or worldview because we have all come to embrace Christmas as a time of getting. The laws of budget and constraint become suspended at this time of the year as we spend more than we have for the purpose of giving so we can make sure we all get something.

Is Christmas about getting? The time is set aside to honor the birth of the Christ-child. The exact time of his birth is not the 25th of December, but does it really matter? Whether you believe in Christ or not is not the issue; the issue is the original meaning and purpose behind Christmas... giving. God gave His one and only Son to the world so that the world would not be without hope. Through His Son, the world, His creation, has a way back to the Father. Those who believe in the Son will be with the Father in worship forever as was the purpose for the Father in creating all of us in the beginning. This account is littered with the action of giving. God, the Father, gave; Jesus, the Son, gave. God even gave the Holy Spirit to us to assist us in coming back to Him. And, what are we to give in all of this? We are to give ourselves to Christ for the purpose of eternal life! Even in our giving in this process, we get... we get everything by giving to Him who deserves so much more.

Christmas, in my opinion, is about giving. It has become distorted because we have turned the process upside down and made it about us, as is always our tendency. It is a time of the year when we are to model God the Father and give... give... and give. But, as is so often the case, we tend to distort messages and turn them inside out so they fit our purposes. The message of giving has become the message of getting and the spirit of Christmas has become muddied and confused. The commercial side of our country as pushed this idea of getting inside this idea of self and worked it to the point of convincing all of us that Christmas is a time to ensure that at least one time during the year we get what we deserve. What we have lost is this: the reality is that if we are given what we deserve gifts and wrapping paper are the least of our worries.

My prayer is that those of us in Christ would lead the charge in taking back Christmas for its original purposes... giving. Be wary though, if you give there will be no guarantee of a return gift, but that is part of the true spirit of giving. God the Father gave, understanding that in His divine providence some would not be saved. There are no guarantees in life; that is a concept man invented in order to try and have it all. We can not have it all on this side of heaven. We only get it all when we put our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Then, those of us in Christ, will truly have all that we need... forever.

I warmly wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Higgs Boson Particle

Scientists claim that they are close to discovering the Higgs Boson particle. Lots of hype came out of the science community anticipating a ground-breaking announcement, and all that was announced, really, was that scientists are now closer than they have ever been, but still have found nothing. What exactly is this Higgs Boson particle?

British physicist Peter Higgs in the 1960s postulated a theory hypothesizing that a lattice of sorts, that he referred to as the Higgs field, fills the entire universe. Imagine an electromagnetic field that affects particles as they move through it. We know that when an electron passes through a positively charged crystal lattice of atoms, the electron's mass will increase. That same principal might be true in the Higgs field; particles moving through any field create distortion. The Higgs Boson particle is thought to be tied to a field thought to be responsible for giving all other particles their mass. The operative word is "thought" as scientists do not have any details about the mass of the Higgs Boson particle. Because scientists know nothing about the mass of this "supposed particle," they have no specific parameters for its location. It has been like looking for a needle in a haystack. Supposedly, scientists have now eliminated enough possibilities to consider the Higgs Boson cornered as most agree that the Higgs Boson particle's mass lies in a range between 115 and 130 gigaelectronvolts (GeV).

According to Guido Tonelli, we are still a good distance away from discovering this particle, and there is still a good chance it does not exist at all.

"The excess is most compatible with a Standard Model Higgs in the vicinity of 124 GeV and below, but the statistical significance is not large enough to say anything conclusive," CMS experiment spokesperson Guido Tonelli said in a statement. "As of today what we see is consistent either with a background fluctuation or with the presence of the boson. Refined analyses and additional data delivered in 2012 by this magnificent machine [Large Hadron Collider] will definitely give an answer."

The question of mass has always been puzzling, and has left many wondering if the Higgs Boson was the missing particle in the Standard Model, the widely accepted theory of nuclear interactions. The Standard Model effectively describes three of nature's four forces of particle interaction: electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Scientists have learned much more about the strong force, which binds the elements of atomic nuclei together, and the weak force, which governs radioactivity and hydrogen fusion (from the sun). Electromagnetism describes fairly well how particles interact with photons, which are tiny packets of electromagnetic radiation. The weak force does a good job describing how two other entities interact with electrons, quarks, neutrinos and other sub-atomic particles. However, there is one very important difference between these two interactions: photons have no mass, while the masses of the other two entities are large in comparison. In fact, they are some of the most massive sub-atomic particles known to scientists today.  

The first assumption, and in science an assumption can be a very bad thing, is to assume that the two entities exist and interact with other particles in normal ways. Here lies our problem according to almost all scientists, the math does not add up; the giant masses of the two entities raise inconsistencies in the Standard Model. In order to make sense of this, scientists postulate that there must be at least one other particle -- the Higgs Boson - to account for the inconsistency.  As I read about the Higgs Boson I  wondered, could this also be explained according to the distortion created as particles move through any field, but according to what I have read, most scientists believe this would not add enough to explain the inconsistencies in the Standard Model; there has to be something more, and that something more would be the Higgs Boson. Some believe that there is only one Higgs, and others believe there maybe more than one. Either way, most believe it is the missing piece and worth all the money, effort and time. And, there you have the reason for all the hype in the last month.

What will they find? I am confident it will be more proof pointing to a Creator! Blessings!

Perspectives or Worldviews

We no longer live in a world that builds worldviews; instead, I believe we are entering a new era. It will be an era where everyone will live according to their own perspective.What does this mean? A worldview, by definition, is an overall perspective from which one interprets the world; a collection of beliefs about life and the universe. A perspective, on the other hand, is the state of one's ideas, the facts known to only one.

The idea of perspective is an important one to us because of the absence of one dominant worldview. In the past, there was one dominant worldview, the Christian worldview; it was an important piece of culture because it served as the moral compass for culture. Even when the Christian worldview came under attack, other worldviews came forward and became dominant. All was still well because these worldviews, while not Christian in doctrine, still were very much Christian in nature and ethos and continued to serve as a moral compass for the culture. The dominant worldview always provided a venue for morality and for each new perspective to become incorporated into old ones and become part of the coming dominant worldview, which always had enough morality to keep culture on track; it is how the cycle worked for many years, but today none of that is needed. The idea of a worldview has been deconstructed and taken apart in search for that piece which welcomes all views of the world. Worldviews are too neat, ordered and consistent for today's world. To live inside a worldview, ideas have to relate in some small way  in order to form a framework, even if in the end there is no relation.Worldviews will still be moral in nature because they began that way, but a perspective is different. Each one is unique and different; there is no need to relate one to another because they all stand alone, and best of all for the world, morality is not required.

A perspective is one's own ideas, and they need not relate to any other idea because all ideas are now welcome. Here lies our problem, and, to be quite honest, most see it not as a problem but as a fringe benefit. I am not sure anyone understands the true severity of this problem. In order to explain this properly, I will use the graphical idea of linear perspective as it helped me understand the issue at hand.

Linear perspective works by representing the light that passes from one scene through an imaginary rectangle, to the viewer's eye (as shown in the diagram in this post). It is similar to you looking through a window and painting what is seen directly onto the windowpane as you see it. If I view it from the same spot that the windowpane was painted, the painted image would be identical to what I saw through the unpainted window when the scene was painted. Each object painted in this manner is a flat, scaled down version of the object on the other side of the window, but each part of the painted object lies on a straight line from the viewer's eye to the equivalent portion of the real object it represents. Those who view it cannot perceive any difference between the painted scene on the windowpane and the view of the real scene, providing that the painted scene is that good and those that view stand still in the spot the scene was painted. All perspective drawings have to assume that the viewer is a certain distance away from the drawing for them to work. Objects are scaled relative to the original viewer. Now, here lies our problem; objects are often not scaled evenly: a circle often appears as an ellipse and a square can appear as a trapezoid. This distortion is referred to as foreshortening, and represents the problem with perspective.

Perspectives are always representing the view of the viewer and each viewer has a slightly different perspective. Perspectives are never true views collectively and never a view of three dimensional reality. Despite how real one perspective looks, it only takes a slight movement on our part to discover the truth; that it is only a painting and not real. What we are looking at is an interpretation of reality but not reality itself, even though it looks very much like the real thing. In much the same way any perspective representation of a scene that includes parallel lines has one or more vanishing points in that drawing so too do real perspectives. Discovering and identifying true perspectives from false ones will become impossible since all of them will be built the same way, defined in the same manner and painted in a one dimensional view by a stationary artist. Perspectives take three dimensional truths and reduce them down to a one dimensional view for the sake of art. Perspectives, in essence, reduce what is being painted to an insignificant part of the process of painting. What is important from a perspective standpoint is the painting not the scene being painted. And there lies are issue - God's creation is being replaced by man's creation.

We Christians fall into this trap as well when we try to put our spin on what scripture says.
A good example of this can be found in Eve when she responded to the snake's question regarding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis.

    "Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
    He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate."
   
(Genesis 3:1-6 ESV)

Eve did not answer the snake according to the worldview the Lord God gave her; instead, she answered according to her perspective. Adam and Eve's answer reflected that flat scaled down view of the tree. They viewed the tree according to their sight; it had fruit that they wanted to eat, and it was beautiful so, naturally, they wanted to touch it... perspective.This highlights the biggest difference between perspective and worldview; perspective is always rooted in self and worldview is not. And, when you root your view of the world in yourself, you fail to see the world as it was created because you are only interested in seeing the world as you painted it. Do we need another reason why perspectives are dangerous? We need to not usher in perspectives; instead, we must demand a return to worldviews where God's creation reigns supreme. Blessings!

The End of Christian Education?

K. A. Smith, in his book, Desiring the Kingdom, suggests the following axiom, "behind every pedagogy is a philosophical anthropology." In lay man's terms, Smith is saying behind everything we do educationally is an assumption about the nature of who we are as people. Smith writes, "Thus a pedagogy that thinks about education as primarily a matter of disseminating information tends to assume that human beings are primarily "thinking things" and cognitive machines."

In that same sense, an education that is strictly focused on content and the replication of that content in one form or another promotes assumptions centered on the fact that everyone is equal and the same. The focus on content elevates content above people and attempts to push people down to a point where they will all be the same, and all in the name of equity and tolerance. The truth is that not everyone is the same or equal.

Looking around with open eyes and an open mind will quickly reveal a world of differences. There are rarely two people who look alike; there are no two people who share the same fingerprint. Even when examining twins, that examination will reveal two separate personalities. Everyone is different in some way which brings forth the following question: why the intense push to make everyone the same?

A focus on content is the only way to achieve equity, and it is done by lowering expectations and standards. No one wants to finish last, but only one can finish first. When we try and fix the rules so no one finishes last we have effectively eliminated anyone from finishing first, and we have made a statement regarding our belief concerning the nature of who we are. Smith writes, "In contrast, a pedagogy that understands education as formation usually assumes that humans beings are a different kind of animal. It is not that we don't think, but rather that our thinking and cognition arise from a more fundamental, precognitive orientation to the world."

That orientation is one that is rooted in the world as presented in the scriptures and not rooted in the randomness the current world presents. There will be those who finish first and those who do not. In the current world, there are consequences... if we are citizens of this current reality. Those of us in Christ are not. We know and understand our current reality in a way that only those with the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit can, but we also understand where our real citizenship lies. Scripture teaches that the first shall be last and the last shall be first which is a bit abstract unless you understand the truth of the gospels. Our future is not dependent on how much we know or where we finish; our future is rooted in a belief in the King, our Savior, Jesus Christ. This statement does not diminish the importance of education. That is a separate discussion. Our discussion today has to do with our assumptions as presented in the way we teach and instruct.

Smith is right... behind every pedagogy is an assumption. Pedagogy is often related directly to teaching, but a closer examination of the definition reveals a closer tie to the art of instruction. Defined, it has more to do with the principles and methods of the action of instruction than instruction itself. These are rooted in what we believe more than what we teach, and the little secret is that we transfer most of those beliefs in our instruction all the time. As we argue over pedagogy and educational choices, are we also arguing over the future of Christian education? A good question that must be considered! Blessings!

IndoctriNation

Here is the trailer for a very interesting video. I have only see the trailer, which I will post here along with the following quote from Cal Thomas,

"Every Christian parent with a child in a government school should see this [movie] and be forced to confront their unwillingness to do what Scripture requires for the children on loan to them by God. A mass exodus from government schools is the only way to preserve the souls and minds of our children." Cal Thomas

IndoctriNation Trailer from IndoctriNation on Vimeo.