To John Mark: An Open Letter of Thanks

Dear John Mark,

Somewhere approaching six years ago, I had my first interaction with you. It was a terrifying moment in my life. I didn’t have a clue who you were, except that you were interviewing me for admittance into the Torrey Honors Institute. You introduced yourself, but I was not aware of your position in the program. I won’t go into the details of the conversation, but I do remember backing myself into a corner, saying what I realize now were naive things, and you let me into the program, for some reason or another.

Unexpected Blessings

As I geared up for what was looking to be a moderately busy week before finals, I was preparing myself for a long week of reading and memorizing complicated answers to a final that had me quite worried. There was only class I was concerned about, and this test was going to make or break my semester. And then, my professor cancelled the final.

Guest Post: The Government is in Education

Continuing the guest series on Education (which started quite awhile ago, just click on the category ‘Guest Posts’ to see all of the previous guest entries), a fellow blogger of mine over at Push of Pikes enters into the arena. Nathan Bennet is a man who always has two boxing gloves up, but seems to be winking at you between them. His sharp wit and impeccable ability to make a pun out of anything and everything have amused me for the last few years, while his caring and understanding personality have met me in some of my darkest hours. I’ve appreciated his friendship, and am honored to blog alongside him regularly, and even more so grateful to have him post here at my own blog. His post may strike the readers as a bit different than the other posts, but this is no surprise to anyone who knows Nathan. Without further introduction, enjoy the post. Christ Abide.

Guest Post: More than Just the Facts Part 2

Last week’s blog post covered the necessity of changing education’s goals fromimparting facts about subjects to developing paradigms. Specifically, we want a paradigm bywhich students view their whole life. This week continues that theme by examining currentcurriculums, and determining what a curriculum must include to achieve this mature paradigm.

Guest Post: More than Just the Facts

The guest series continues, this time with a post from one of my roommates, Bryant Stone. If you missed the first few posts, you can find them here and here. I threw my own hat into the ring last week, which you can read here. I asked Bryant to write a post for this series because he had the privilege of studying philosophy of education with Dr. Paul Spears, who is an expert on the subject as well as one of my former professors. Bryant has always provided stimulating conversation and more of my own blog posts here have been influenced by him than he likely realizes.