With Written on Their Hearts: Writing, Worship, and Spiritual Formation in the Life of the Mind, Dr. Royce Francis began a new series on writing with a new format for the ESN blog, i.e., Masterclass. Like a Masterclass in music or performance, it provides the opportunity to learn skills from an expert, as well as exercises designed by that expert to help you deepen those skills in your own academic life. In this series, which will run for the length of the spring semester, Royce will weave together theological reflection and practical suggestions on becoming a skilled writer in general and within your field. He will also provide exercises each week to give readers a way to put the ideas in the series into practice. Join ESN for a Masterclass in writing. Questions and conversation are welcome—feel free to use the Comments section to express them, or email them to http://www.intervarsity.org/contact/emerging-scholars-network. [Read more…] about Discipline Produces Freedom (Masterclass in Writing, Part 4)
freedom
Journalism Notes: Afflicting the Comfortable
Image: Journalists’ Memorial, Newseum, Washington DC
Adding to the 11 journalists who have died in the line of duty this year, NPR photojournalist David Gilkey and his interpreter, Zabihullah Tamanna, were killed June 5 when their Humvee, part of an Afghan army convoy, was hit by rocket propelled grenades during a Taliban ambush.
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How Schools Fail Democracy
Do schools fail democracy, as argued by E.D. Hirsch Jr., in How Schools Fail Democracy (The Chronicle Review, 9/28/2009)? Personally, I have been frustrated by public education’s emphasis on skill development for check-lists, competitions, and test-taking with low reference to exposing students to common culture, core values, and must reads (i.e., classics). As a parent, I have slowly come to own the counter-cultural responsibility of intentionally teaching our common knowledge, but ironically it demands a lot of effort to share who we are (and our roots) while still maintaining ties to the larger culture!
Stepping back to look at the big picture, how do educators come to agreement upon the truths/reality which are to be imparted by schools in the United States of America, e.g., what books are to be read over the course of one’s fifteen minutes of reading per day at home?* Do Education degree programs have a shared culture on which they can agree and impart to their students as the foundation from which our future direction emerges? Can they, along with concerned parents/communities, challenge the common cultural definition of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness before the consequences run over us (if they already have not done such)?
Too many Americans are in the linguistic shadows now—possibly close to a majority. Despite intense efforts driven by the No Child Left Behind Act, the language abilities of our 17-year-olds have remained stuck at the steeply declined levels of the 1970s, while the language gap between white students on one side and black and Hispanic students on the other remains distressingly and immovably large. [Read more…] about How Schools Fail Democracy