Teaching as Vocation—Part III: Formulations to RealityPosted on August 13, 2013 by David RhoadsThe following excerpts of David’s upcoming book, Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach: Reflections on Education as Transformation through Dialogue (Fall 2013 ), are used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.To a person, my elementary, middle, and high school teachers in the small western Pennsylvania town of Hollidaysburg were conscientious and cared about us.Depressurizing StudentsI recall one typifying moment in which I went to a ninth grade history teacher, saying that I was afraid I might be having a nervous breakdown—going to school, doing homework, working 25 hours a week in a barber shop as an apprentice, being in the school band, and practicing for a school play at night. What Miss Ruck said to me (words I clearly recall) was unbelievably liberating and healing…
ACE Series Part IV: Writing ACE Commentary, or Everything I Need to Know About Arguing I Learned from Billy Madison!Posted on August 13, 2013 by Richard NewtonMy research deals with the scriptures people use to orient their lives. This interest may have begun in adolescence. Much to the chagrin of my youth group directors, my friends and I had a wider canon than the authorized version of any denomination out there.Our central text was the Adam Sandler film, Billy Madison (dir. Tamra Davis, 1995). To us it was a cult classic to be quoted chapter and verse. This movie made those awkward teenage years some how more bearable. For every situation, there was some line from the film available for application. And for whatever reason, when I think of ACE commentary, this film clip comes to mind….
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the ForumPosted on August 12, 2013 by Jim PapandreaIn ancient Rome, some emperors decided to try to enforce their authority by building a new forum, under their control, with their own statues, and temples dedicated to the gods of their ancestry. Imagine how hard it must have been to get people to stop going to the ancient forum—the one they were used to—and start going to the new one.Now, when the emperors of the classroom (the professors) want to create an online space where meaningful interaction and discussion will happen, what do they do? They build a new forum, in Moodle or Blackboard, and then try to get their students to go there….
Teaching as Vocation—Part II: A Time to LovePosted on August 6, 2013 by David RhoadsThe following excerpts of David’s upcoming book, Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach: Reflections on Education as Transformation through Dialogue (Fall 2013 ), are used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.Biblical language distinguishes between two different experiences of time. Chronos time is the linear experience of time in hours, days, weeks, and so on. By contrast, kairos time is “opportune time” or “occasion time.” Perhaps it is best captured by the well-known verse declaring that “For everything there is a season. . . a time to plant and a time to pluck up . . . a time to weep and a time to dance . . . .”Times Zones of TeachingWhen class is going normally, I consider myself to be on linear syllabus time, moving along with the subjects and methods that need to be dealt with. However, when one of these special moments presents itself, I immediately think of myself as being on kairos time, “opportune time”—a time that comes when it comes and we have to be open to it….
ACE Series Part III: Good Evidence Must ACE the BS Test—It’s the Law!Posted on August 6, 2013 by Richard NewtonWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…Some of my students think that they are Thomas Jefferson. They will write paragraphs with assertions they hold to be self-evident. And while I laud their desire to write revolutionary words, they must first learn that no one, not even the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, can get away with offering evidence-less assertions.Mock academic politics all you want, but higher education at least claims the democratic notion of fair criticism. It’s a place where anyone should be able to call BS on an unsupported assertion at any time. And its participants should get the opportunity to challenge a point’s validity and qualify it with amendments—the 13th, 14, 15th, and 19th in Mr. Jefferson’s case….