Habit Training during Online Distance Learning

Everything changed a couple months ago when school went online. At-home learning has caused every school to attempt schooling in new and creative ways. We can also get creative about habit training during online distance learning. I shared my new eBook on habit training in the classroom about a month before we stopped meeting in classrooms. So here is a brief update where we consider how habit training might work while doing school online. The Method of Habit Training Doesn’t Change Even though our classrooms are online and it feels like everything has changed, the method of habit training doesn’t

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Teaching Confident Faith in an Age of Religious Uncertainty

Christianity, as a global religion, is at a crossroads. On the one hand, it remains the largest religion in the world: 31% of the world’s population is Christian, and sociologists predict this percentage to increase to 32% by 2060. [1] On the other hand, the religion is experiencing notable decline in the West. In 2010, 75% of Europeans and 77% of North Americans identified as Christian, practicing or non-practicing. The percentages in both continents are expected to decrease to 65% by 2050. [2] If Christianity is projected to increase globally, but decrease in the West, in what parts of the

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old iron levers

The Problem of Technicism in Conventional Education

Technicism is not simply an over-fascination with technology as a means of stimulating learning out of students, though that problem plagues conventional education as well. Instead, I use the term ‘technicism’ to refer to a broader ideological approach to education that has become captivated by quantitative measurements and the economic evaluation of success. In technicism education has been reduced to something that can be measured in numbers alone. Teachers are made into technicians, who simply pull the levers and push the buttons assigned to them by the ruling technocrats. Technicism focuses on quantities and techniques, rather than quality and values.

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Education is Life: A Philosophy on Education

The study of education is the study of life. At least that’s the way it should be. Too often educational thought seeks precision in the use of the techniques and technology brought into the classroom. Have one’s lesson plans fully articulated all of the learning objectives spelled out in the curriculum? What is the new feature in the student management software? A flurry of activity surrounds the art and craft of teaching, so much so that we might miss the opportunity to observe life occurring right before our eyes.  One of my favorite podcasters, Brian Johnson who put out a

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The Importance of Courage and Curiosity for School Leaders Today

If you were to make a short list of some of the most important traits for school leaders, what would you include? You might start with confidence. Confidence affords leaders the ability to stay calm under pressure and remain focused on a course of action when the going gets tough. Or perhaps humility comes to mind. The quality of humility enables a leader to see beyond her own well-being in order to seek the well-being of others. Along with confidence or humility, you might think of perseverance. Perseverance is that invaluable leadership trait that propels a leader to never give

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The Benefits and Drawbacks of Online Learning: 6 Hacks to Mitigate the Drawbacks

I am no expert on online learning. Before the pandemic and social distancing, I was about as old school a teacher as one could be. True, I required students to type essays in MLA format and even used a PPT to teach them proper formatting on Microsoft Word. But that’s about it. My main technologies in the classroom were whiteboard, marker, books, pen and paper. If that weren’t enough, I have criticized and countenanced criticism of online classes and courses, including those prominent classical education ones. Years ago, when my former head of school told me his grand plan for

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The Black Death and an Educational Renaissance

An infectious disease causes a pandemic that decimates the major urban centers in northern Italy. Doctors are recognized by their masks. The economy is disrupted through the loss of a workforce. The social order is overturned. Many turn to religion as a response to the pandemic, yet dogmatic norms are questioned. The pope issues indulgences for both those who must practice social distancing as well as for those who are deceased.  The parallels are stunning. It’s truly hard to tell if we’re talking about the 14th century or the 21st century. The parallels, though, enable us to comprehend our own

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Cultivating a Community: Wisdom for Parents Educating at Home Amidst the Present Crisis

In the last few weeks, life has changed dramatically for families across the globe. For families living in some parts of the United States, the most predictable elements of their busy schedules—the nine-to-five work day, daily school routine, church commitments, soccer practice, piano lessons—have vanished from the calendar. For perhaps the first time since the holidays, last summer, or never, families finally have the chance to breathe.  But will they? How will families adapt in such a crisis? And how will they ensure their children’s learning continues while at home, far removed from the influence of their teachers? The Stoics,

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the love of learning from old books

The Flow of Thought, Part 9: The Lifelong Love of Learning

The ‘love of learning’ is one of those phrases that is so overused in education that it feels like it has been beaten to death with a stick. Every educator and every educational model claims to promote the ‘lifelong love of learning’ for their students. I challenge you to find an engaged teacher who doesn’t endorse this goal. Side note: There are still unengaged teachers, who are only in it for the job or who will openly claim that they don’t care about their students. I had a few of those in public high school. But that’s another story…. I

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Charlotte Mason and the Liberal Arts Tradition, Part 2: Educating the Whole Person

What has Charlotte Mason to do with classical education? In my first blog in this series, I began exploring this question through a close reading of Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain’s The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education. In this book, Clark and Jain offer a paradigm for understanding classical education as it exists within the broader liberal arts tradition. According to these thinkers, the purpose of classical education is to cultivate virtue in body, heart, and mind, while nurturing a love for wisdom under the lordship of Jesus Christ. This is a comprehensive purpose statement to

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