Tag: modern research

STEM careers scientist in a lab lost in flow of thought

The Flow of Thought, Part 4: The Seven Liberal Arts as Mental Games

There’s a lot of talk these days about the war between STEM and the liberal arts (which we are meant to understand as the humanities generally). Often this gets posed as a trade-off between a utilitarian education—training our future engineers, scientists and programmers—vs. a soft education in human skills and cultural awareness. Given the hype for STEM, defending the value of the humanities (as Martin Luther did, for one) is an important move in the broader education dialogue. And it’s one that’s not very hard to make, when there are articles like this one on how Google was planning to

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Rules for Schools?: An Interaction with Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life (Part 3)

I have been interacting with Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life over the past few weeks. This is now the third and final installment. Part 1 looked at habit formation and deliberate practice, while part 2 considered several of Peterson’s rules in conjunction with the idea of discipline. At the heart of Peterson’s book is a concern for truth and meaning. Taken together these have a bearing on our philosophy of education, particularly in what we are trying to produce in the lives of our students. Truth Peterson grounds truth in the biblical conception of the Divine Logos as the creative force behind

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children playing on swing

Rules for Schools?: An Interaction with Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life (Part 2)

Last week I wrote part 1 of my interaction with Jordan Peterson. Here is part 2, grouping several of his 12 rules for life. Discipline is one of the hardest aspects of life as a teacher. Discipline for parents can be quite difficult. But discipline is even harder when you are dealing with other people’s kids. Peterson addresses discipline in his 5th rule, “Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.” In this, my second reflection on Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, I will dive into discipline. We are adults – for many of us,

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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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lightbulb idea with a sky background

The Role of Ideas in Education

Ever the provocateur, Charlotte Mason, the late 19th century British educator, raised the question of the role of ideas in education. After mentioning the importance of ideas in both common life (“I have an idea!”) and the history of philosophy, she castigates the educational establishment of her day for neglecting ideas: “There is but one sphere in which the word idea never occurs, in which the conception of an idea is curiously absent, and that sphere is education! Look at any publisher’s list of school books and you shall find that the books recommended are carefully dessicated, drained of the

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Plato and Aristotle in the Lyceum

Welcome to Educational Renaissance

Welcome to Educational Renaissance! Here you will find thoughtful engagement with educational ideas. Jason and I have devoted ourselves to the craft of teaching, accumulating hours in the classroom (sometimes together), providing oversight and mentoring as administrators, and exploring important ideas as speakers. We believe educational renewal can occur as we thoughtfully understand the great thoughts of past educators and engage with the educational ideas of today. Thanks for joining us, and we hope you find our contributions helpful as you work on your own teaching as a craft. Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally

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