Ray Fowler .org » Education

Free Amazon Prime for College and Seminary Students

Ray Fowler — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:23:00 +0000

Amazon is offering free Amazon Prime memberships to college and seminary students with a student.edu email address. Amazon Prime gives you unlimited free two-day shipping on most orders or overnight shipping for just $3.99. The cost of an annual membership is usually $79 so this is a great deal for students. If you are looking for textbooks, you can visit their textbook page here.

Preparing Christian Students for College

Ray Fowler — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 04:13:22 +0000

This is helpful information for teens, parents, youth groups and youth leaders. The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (CPYU) interviewed a number of college students as part of their College Transition Initiative. They asked them the following questions:

What was the biggest adjustment you faced transitioning to college?
Were you able to get connected to a church or campus ministry fellowship? If so, how did you get connected? If not, why was it difficult to get connected? Or, why did you choose not to get connected?
As you reflect on your church youth group experience, what are some things you wish your youth group would have done more of to prepare you for college?
Understanding the challenges that college life brings, what are some things you wish your youth group would have done less of?
What advice would you give college bound high school students who are thinking about the college transition?

You can read their answers at the Student Interviews page. Or, you could interview your own Christian college students and have them share their answers with the youth at your church.

HT: Stand to Reason

C. S. Lewis’ Homeschool Schedule

Ray Fowler — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:05:13 +0000

As a child C. S. Lewis attended a number of schools (which he hated), but in 1914 he moved to Bookham at Surrey to study privately with his father’s former tutor, William T. Kirkpatrick. Lewis homeschooled under Kirkpatrick for the next two years before receiving a scholarship to Oxford in December of 1916. In a letter dated October 12, 1915, Lewis described his typical day of schooling to a friend. (Lewis was 16 years old at the time, soon to turn 17.)

Typical Schedule:

Breakfast and a short walk
Thucydides and Homer
15-minute break
Tacitus
Lunch at 1:00
Free time until tea
Tea at 4:30
Plato and Horace
Supper at 7:30
German and French until 9:00 p.m.
Free time until bed (usually about 10:20 p.m.)

As soon as my bed room door is shut I get into my dressing gown, draw up a chair to my table and produce, like Louis Moore, note book and pencil. Here I write up my diary for the day, and then turning to the other end of the book devote myself to poetry, either new stuff or polishing the old. If I am not in the mood for that I draw faces and hands and feet etc for practice. This is the best part of the day of course, and I am usually in a very happy frame of mind by the time I slip into bed.

(Source: They Stand Together: The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves, edited by Walter Hooper, p. 84)

So, any homeschoolers out there who follow the same schedule? Anyone who wants to?

HT: The Scriptorium

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German Home Schoolers Granted Asylum in USA

Ray Fowler — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:49:38 +0000

From The Christian Institute:

A Christian family from Germany have been granted political asylum in the US after facing the threat of prison for home schooling their children. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, who are evangelical Christians, were forced to flee Germany as they wished to educate their five children at home.

Home schooling is still illegal in Germany under laws introduced during the Nazi era. The German law means that parents who choose to home school their children can face fines or even imprisonment … The family endured harassment from the authorities, and on one occasion police officers came to the family’s home and forced the children to attend school. The family fled to the US after Germany’s highest court ruled that in severe cases of non-compliance social services could remove home schooled children from their parents.

Describing the case, Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman said that “the rights being violated here are basic human rights that no country has a right to violate”. He added: “Homeschoolers are a particular social group that the German Government is trying to suppress. This family has a well-founded fear of persecution…therefore, they are eligible for asylum…and the court will grant asylum.”

The Romeike family were represented by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).

HT: First Thoughts

News and Notes – 6/17/2009

Ray Fowler — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:27:57 +0000

SCHOOL DAYS EDITION.

Ejected. Umpire Don Briggs ejected the entire crowd at a high school baseball game. He said he had no problem with the players but ejected the crowd of over 100 for being unruly, yelling and arguing.

Charming. Would you send your child to this school?

Children in this Indian village attend snake charming school as early as age two.

Vacation Delay. Officials at Dickson Elementary School in California announced that students would have to attend an additional 34 days of school this summer due to a clerical error. Thursday, June 17, was supposed to be the last day of school. Now the students will have to wait until July 31. The error? Their early release days were five minutes too short to count as official school days.

Economic Crisis Hits Seminaries

Ray Fowler — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:18:05 +0000

Christianity Today reports on how the current financial crisis is affecting seminaries in the United States. Salt Lake Theological Seminary in Utah officially closed in October, although faculty and staff are continuing to work on a volunteer basis to allow graduating seniors to complete their degree programs. Larger seminaries are also feeling the pinch, including my own alma mater, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

With the stock market dropping 50 percent by November from its October 2007 peak, schools that rely on endowment income remain the most vulnerable. Dennis Hollinger, president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, said the school lost $600,000 in endowment income in 2008. Some restricted endowment gifts have gone “under water,” meaning they are now worth less than the original gift, and the seminary cannot spend from the principal.

Hollinger said the Massachusetts school has cut close to $1 million from its budget of $20 million by canceling activities, realigning programs, and declining to replace departed staff. The school also closed its full-service bookstore, though a smaller shop will continue to sell textbooks.

Other schools discussed in the article include Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS). Please continue to pray for families, churches, seminaries, students and businesses during this time of economic stress.

HT: Between Two Worlds

Failing Christianity

Ray Fowler — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:05:20 +0000

Piedmont College professor Barbara Brown Taylor laments her Christian students’ lack of knowledge of church history and tradition.

They never noticed that Matthew and Luke tell different stories of Jesus’ birth, or that Mark and John tell no such stories at all. They never imagined that the first Christians did not walk around with New Testaments in their pockets. No one ever told them about Constantine, Augustine, Benedict or Martin Luther. They never thought about what happened during the centuries between Jesus’ resurrection and their own professions of faith. In their minds, they fell in line behind the disciples, picking up the proclamation of the gospel where those simple fishermen left off …

College students in all other regards, they remain fifth graders in religion. How, when they meet someone who asks them intelligent questions about their faith, will they come up with equally intelligent answers? Keep your class notes, I tell them. You never know when you may need them.

FAQ for SAT, PSAT and NMSQT

Ray Fowler — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:03:18 +0000

Dr. James Stobaugh has put together a helpful series of posts answering frequently asked questions about the SAT 1 (Scholastic Aptitude Test), PSAT (Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test), and the NMSQT (National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test).

Freqently Asked Questions – I
1) What is the SAT 1?
2) Should I take practice Sat I tests?
Frequently Asked Questions – II
3) What are the PSAT and NMSQT?
4) Should I Take the PSAT?
Frequently Asked Questions – III
5) How important is stress reduction?
6) How is the 2005 SAT 1 different from other SATs?
7) What About Learning Disabled Students?

Stobaugh also offers his personal recommendations for the day of the SAT:

Here is one example of a typical test-day schedule. Times will vary depending on the actual time of the test, how far away the test site is, etc.

Homeschool Ruling Vacated

Ray Fowler — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:07:51 +0000

The California ruling that appeared to declare most homeschooling in that state illegal has been vacated, and the case will be re-heard. Pacific Justice Institute has the details.

Pacific Justice Institute has just received word that the court ruling which declared most forms of homeschooling unlawful in California has been vacated. This means the Rachel L. decision, which has sparked a nationwide uproar, will not go into effect as it is currently written. The Second District Court of Appeal has instead decided to re-hear the case, with a new round of briefings due in late April. It would likely take the court several additional months to schedule oral argument and issue another decision.

HT: The Point

The Intellectual Devotional

Ray Fowler — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:23:32 +0000

I thought this looked pretty interesting:

The Intellectual Devotional is … a collection of 365 lessons that will inspire and invigorate the reader every day of the year. Each nugget of wisdom is drawn from one of seven fields of knowledge: History, Literature, Philosophy, Mathematics & Science, Religion, Visual Arts, and Music.

I would prefer to call this a Daily Reader rather than a Devotional. Still, the concept is neat, and this looks like a great resource for strengthening your knowledge in a variety of fields.

The book presents information from a different discipline for each day of the week. Here are the links to the bibliographies for each section:

HT: Fire and Knowledge