Tag: hierarchies of authority

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New to School: 5 Principles for Starting the Year Well

Have you ever been new to a school? Often there are awkward days trying to find new friends. You feel like there’s an opportunity to turn over a new leaf. Every school has its own culture that needs to be learned and navigated. Whatever succeeded at your previous school might not work here. The temptation to be something you are not is a serious pull.  I am joining a new school this fall, moving from Providence Classical Christian Academy in St. Louis to Clapham School in Wheaton, Illinois. Truth be told, it’s not exactly new to me. I will be

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an old and traditional school room

Rules for Schools?: An Interaction with Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life (Part 1)

Chaos is all around us. Education certainly has its element of chaos, given that we are dealing with multiple human beings in the classroom, each bringing his or her own indeterminacy and potential. With this in mind, we could say that the teacher’s role is to cultivate order in the midst of chaos. Order and chaos go together, we cannot have one without the other. I liken this to architectural and organic structures. For instance, in gardening we use trellises for plants such as clematis or roses to climb. Beauty is created through a combination of organic chaos as the

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baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in stained glass

John the Baptist as Teacher – Jesus as Learner

I’ve been exploring the life of Jesus from the vantage point of his teaching ministry in order to gain insight into methods that would inform our own pedagogy. Interestingly, this exploration took me to Jesus as learner, especially during his formative pre-ministry years as a disciple of John the Baptist. In considering John the Baptist as teacher and Jesus as learner, there are some interesting ideas worthy of consideration as philosophers of education. John the Baptist as Teacher John the Baptist lived an austere lifestyle. He adhered to asceticism, wearing garments made of camel hair and restricting his diet to

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