The students take charge of the furniture

This was my science class yesterday:

Note the creative way they are using the chairs. Not really what I had in mind, but they seemed to be comfortable, and more importantly, they seemed to be getting work done.

We'll have to see if this is just a fad or if it has staying power. This morning in Bible class they were still using their chairs this way.

At first I was going to tell them to sit on their chairs properly, but hesitated. I took a course at my own school this past summer and had to sit in those chairs for hours. They are NOT comfortable. So, if this was a way for students to be comfortable and still learn I was willing to try it.

We'll have to see what happens.

(Note the standing tables at the back, those have been well used, another way of thinking differently about how we use the space we have!)

A "Free" Bike update

I blogged earlier about the "free" bike we picked up for my son.

Last night we went out and picked up this bike for $30:

It works. No major repairs needed. I might need to change the brake pads.

I've also learned that I'm just not that good at repairing bikes.

Sometimes it's just better to go and spend the money and effort to buy something that works, rather than to cobble it together yourself.

How experienced are we?

Just the other day I heard a statement that really struck me.

"None of our teachers have more than 8 years experience, no matter how long they've been teaching. Too many things have changed in education."

This statement startled me. I've been teaching for 17 years. (or something like that. I keep forgetting. I have to ask my 7 year old daughter how old I am because she knows better than I do. And don't you dare ask me how long I've been married. The correct answer is, "It isn't long enough, my wife is too awesome.)

This statement suggests that most of that experience just doesn't count.

I think I agree. Too much has changed for us to rely on years of experience beyond 8. I even wonder if 8 years is too long.

Mind you, I think elements of that experience do matter. Elements of understanding of human nature, of how to build connections with people, and experience of that nature last. Compassion, relationship, and nurturing matter and include skills that last forever.

But the minute we start talking about pedagogy, curriculum, content, and other similar topics experience does not have the same value it once did.

Or at least that's what I think.

Cost of Textbooks

Link to where I found this.

When I saw this graph it made me smile.

But it also made me think. What role are textbooks going to take in the future?

I've seen the steady growth of the Software As A Service model. Just witness the growth of Google Suite in Education.

I wonder if the same kind of thing is going to happen to textbooks.

A "Free" Bike!

So my wife found this bike at the side of the road:

She took it home and asked me if I could fix it.

I like to imagine that I am pretty handy so I said, "Of course!"

The rear wheel had a flat tire. I remembered changing a tire back when I was 16 so I was pretty certain I could do that.

I started by taking the rear wheel off. That took a little bit of finicky work, but I got it.

As I was doing that I noticed that the chain was pretty rusted. I did some work on chains last summer so I figured I could replace that pretty easily. I also noticed that the gears on the rear wheel were pretty badly rusted. If I was replacing the chain why not replace the gears? It couldn't be that hard could it?

So I went shopping for spare parts. The bike shop in town wasn't open on a Saturday (?) so I ended up driving to the next town over. I got a new chain, a new set of gears, a new inner tube, and a couple of tools.

I proceeded to try to take things apart. Youtube helped, but mostly I discovered that trying to make do with the tools I had wouldn't work. I needed to go buy some specialized tools. It was late in the day, so I stopped. I also broke my chain tool.

During the next week I went shopping again, found out I had purchased the wrong set of gears, got the correct tools and the correct parts.

Next Saturday I started in on the bike again. After an hour of fighting with the old wheel, I gave up. Drove back to the store for the third time and bought a new wheel. They guy in the store asked me if I wanted him to put the wheel, tube, tire, and gears together. I said, "Sure!" I watched him assemble, in fifteen minutes, what I had been struggling with for two weeks. Then I took the wheel home, mounted it on the bike, put the new chain on, and got the bike working.

My son was riding the bike on Sunday and it worked.

His "free" bike only cost:

• 3 trips to the store
• 6 hours of work (I think!)
• A new wheel, inner tube, freewheel gear sprocket, and chain
• A busted old tool
• 4 new tools, one of which was stripped while working on it.

What's more, the front wheel is really rusty and I'm afraid it may have a leak, the gear shifters don't really work all that well, in fact he only has access to about 6 of the 21 gears, the rear brakes don't work great, and the seat probably should be replaced too.

Quite frankly, I think that if I had put the same effort into Kijiji I bet I could have bought a decent used bike for the same amount of money I spent fixing up this free one and done it in less time.

Now, this blog isn't about fixing bikes, it's about Christian education.

I wonder if the same mentality as I used when approaching this bike infects Christian Education. We look at our tight budgets and try to do things as cheaply as possible, not realizing that in the long run it costs more and we end up with a "product" that isn't as good as it could be. (I don't love the word "product" here! But that's another story.)

I think this applies in quite a few places in our schools, but there's one place in particular that I've been spending a lot of time thinking about.

Curriculum.

There are so many free tools and options out there that it's really easy to turn to teachers and tell them to go a build something themselves using whatever they can find. It can be done, I know, I've been doing it for years. So have lots of other teachers.

But I think we can do better. In fact, we have, in the past. I think it's time we do it again.

The Case for Christ Student Response #10

In the first term of this school year my grade 7/8 class has read The Case for Christ: Student Edition by Lee Strobel. At the end of the study of the book each student was asked to answer one of the questions posed in the chapters of the book. I told that I would be sharing their responses online. So, throughout the rest of the year I will be posting their work. Please note, I have not edited these responses, they are exactly what the student handed me.

Did Jesus fake his death?

“Did Jesus fake his death?” Over the course of history this question has been commonly asked and has brought forward many different theories from both believers and non believers alike.  There are many people who believe that Jesus never existed.  Some believe he existed but did not die on the cross and therefore was not resurrected, another belief is that Jesus purposely faked his death! It is my belief along with many christians that Jesus did die on the cross and was resurrected.  Through my readings and research I found evidence to support my belief.  

The swoon theory states that Jesus was still alive when he was removed from the cross and that he just appeared dead because he had been stunned and was in a state of shock.  In the popular book “The Passover Plot” they state the belief that Jesus enlisted the help of few important variables to help him accomplish an elaborate hoax fooling the Romans into believing he had actually died.  They believe that the Jesus could have been drugged when he was given a sponge with liquid on it while he was on the cross.  The liquid or drug could have been something to put Jesus in a coma like state.

Could any of these above theories be true, did Jesus fake his death?  In order to disprove these ideas you have to look carefully at all the historical events surrounding Jesus’s death.  Especially the details of his flogging and Crucifixion.  The idea that Jesus tricked people into believing he had died goes against what most people believe because all the stories of Jesus in the bible portray him to have been a highly moral person.  Thus I do not think it would have been in his character to do this.

Could Jesus have survived the flogging and the crucifixion and have been just stunned or in a coma?  It is hard to imagine someone surviving these horrible acts as they are very harsh and violent and were carried out by roman soldiers.  The Roman Soldiers were very experienced at their jobs.  They performed numerous crucifixions daily and had to identify when people were dead on a daily basis.  They were brutal soldiers who carried out their duties with confidence.  The flogging was a ruthless form of whipping in which the soldiers used short whips with sharp pieces of metal, rocks or bones tied to the ends in order to lash their victims.  Jesus would have endured many many lashes which he would have likely been close to death even before his crucifixion.  When Jesus was on the cross, the nails went thru his wrists likely severing nerves and arteries and it is explained that once someone can no longer push up with their feet they cannot breath and die a slow death by asphyxiation.  Even if Jesus had been alive up till this point, one of the roman soldiers put a spear in Jesus side.  It was witnessed by the apostle John that he saw blood and water come out of the spear wound.  The blood and water is indication of a life threatening injury as the watery fluid coming out indicates that the spear entered Jesus lung causing a medical injury which is named “pericardial effusion.”  

Following all the brutality Jesus was put into the tomb with a rock slab over him that weighed a ton.  If he had been alive at this point he would have had to escape the burial wrappings and roll away the extremely heavy stone as well as get passed numerous guards unnoticed.  After suffering all the trauma Jesus came to the disciples who witnessed him in full healthy form with no blood or injuries.  Not one disciple but many witnessed this.  For all the above reasons I believe that Jesus did not fake his death and that he died on the cross and was truly resurrected from the dead.

Bibliography:

@AiG. "The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Faking Death." Answers in Genesis. N.p., 29 Mar. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

Cut2thetruth. "Did Jesus Fake His Death?" Cut2TheTruth. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.

Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998. Print.

The Case for Christ Student Response #9

In the first term of this school year my grade 7/8 class has read The Case for Christ: Student Edition by Lee Strobel. At the end of the study of the book each student was asked to answer one of the questions posed in the chapters of the book. I told that I would be sharing their responses online. So, throughout the rest of the year I will be posting their work. Please note, I have not edited these responses, they are exactly what the student handed me.

Did Jesus Fake His Death?

Did fake Jesus His death? What evidence do we have proving that He resurrected? During this unit we were studying the book The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Person Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus.  And one of the chapters was Did Jesus Fake his Death? I'm going to explore deeper in this subject.

We know that multiply people saw Jesus after supposedly He rose again. Now some people can argue that they were just imaging it, like a hallucination. The thing is many people saw Him at the same time and it's very unlikely for more than one person to have the same hallucination at the same time. Some of the causes for hallucinations are illness, chemicals or drugs (both legal and illegal), accidental poisoning, or lack of sleep. I don't think that the disciples were poisoned or on drugs but the lack of sleep is a possibility.

Was Jesus just in a coma or in a swoon state? Was Jesus not dead at all? So people believe Jesus never died He was just in a swoon state and then got put in the tomb while in that state and then removed the stone and acted as if He had risen. Jesus by the time He died was in very bad shape, He had been beaten with a whip and had the crown of thorns digging into His skull. And He was on the cross, even though He wasn’t on the cross for very long He still would been pretty weak. In his condition He would not be able to move the stone even if He woke up. Some of the causes for comas are intoxication, poisons or damages or disease of the nervous system. He could of been in a coma because of damages from being whipped which could of exposed his insides. But I think a lot of people forget or don't know that jesus was stabbed in the side in the lungs to make sure he was dead. So he was in fact dead.

As a christian in this world people will question our faith. We need to be ready for this and be able to talk about it. We need to have a reason for our faith and why we believe it. Knowing that Jesus didn’t fake his death is probably the biggest point you can make. When people doubt our faith we don't want to be left standing with no idea why you believe. And through this unit my belief has grown.  

Bibliography:

"Coma." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

"Hallucination." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2016.

Strobel, Lee, and Jane Vogel. The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: ZondervanPublishingHouse, 20

The Case for Christ Student Response #8

In the first term of this school year my grade 7/8 class has read The Case for Christ: Student Edition by Lee Strobel. At the end of the study of the book each student was asked to answer one of the questions posed in the chapters of the book. I told that I would be sharing their responses online. So, throughout the rest of the year I will be posting their work. Please note, I have not edited these responses, they are exactly what the student handed me.

Did Jesus Fake his death?

Did Jesus Fake his death? For many centuries people have wondered “Did Jesus fake his death?” Yet Christianity says that Jesus did in fact d`o that. According to the New testament in the bible Jesus got “run over” by the roman government, which lead to some horrifying punishments for that day. Jesus’s body lay dead for 3 days, Then according to the bible instead of his body decomposing, he resurrected and came back to life.

Before a person can be resurrected from the dead, they need to be dead. So the first question that some people may ask is, “Did Jesus really dies on the cross? Or he might have faked his death. And the resurrection that appeared to follow?”

One solution to the problem of a dead person coming back to life from the dead is the suggestion that maybe Jesus really didn’t die on the cross to begin with, but maybe he fainted from the exhaustion on the cross or he took a drug that could make him look dead. Then he revived in the cold and damp air of the tomb.

I did some research and I found a website that had some information about the topic of “Did Jesus Fake his death?” And here is what it had to say (in my own words). Whether Jesus did fake his death, survived his death, or died on the cross, nobody knows that with the evidence that we have, but one thing that we know is certain, He didn’t die and then come back to life 3 days later just to fly up to heaven and disappear from the whole population of Jerusalem. But as I already mentioned there is no reliable evidence that can prove if Jesus did live, die and come back to life, or not.

Bibliography goes here:

Works Cited

Cut2thetruth. "Cut2thetruth." Cut2TheTruth. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2016.

Strobel, Lee, and Jane Vogel. The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: ZondervanPublishingHouse, 2001. Print.

Coasting in class

I recently received a though provoking comment on an earlier blog post. Here's the second half of the comment asking about my flipped classroom teaching: "As each year begins, do you have formal discussions with students to strategize how to learn and assimilate new material independently?"

The answer is yes.

The students who enter my classroom have never experienced learning the way I ask them to. I have to spend multiple classes teaching, in the old style, how to learn in this new style. (Although I have created a series of videos that explain how my class works. I send them to students and parents in the summer before school even begins. Some of them even watch them!)

It does not come easily to the students. By the time they've reached my classroom they've already had 6-8 years of schooling in the traditional style. They've already got some pretty ingrained habits and expectations about what school is and how it works.

I typically end up seeing three groups of students.

Group 1. These students love the subject. They're already good at it. In the traditional classroom they are bored out of their minds because they have to wait for the rest of the class to catch up. In my class they are free to move as fast as they can. They rise to the challenge and love it.

Group 2. These student struggle with the subject. It is hard for them, they often hate it and think they can't do it. They've already spent years struggling to keep up. At first they will often have a hard time with this new way of learning. But at some moment they realize that they can watch the video lesson 3 times over if they want to, they can ask me a hundred questions, have me do 20 examples with them, redo work they don't get yet, and they don't have to take a test until they feel they are ready to. Once this gets into their heads, they love it. It doesn't make the subject easier, but it makes it possible.

The final group is the one that I have the most trouble with.

You see Group 3 is pretty good at the subject, maybe even really good at it. They've spent the last bunch of years, showing up in class, sitting there listening to the teacher, picking up enough in class that they can pass the test. They don't need to do any homework, or anything else really. They just show up and wait.

In my class they do horribly. See, they have to go and get the learning, they can't coast because I check every question, and they don't get to write any tests until they've actually done all the work and studied every topic. It's up to them to get the work done. They have to engage and work and keep up. These students inevitably end up falling behind and I get to have conversations with their parents about doing homework every night. Some of them end up being made by their parents to do math homework over Christmas break in order to get back on track. This is also the group who's parents get the most upset with me as a teacher.

You see, one of the most important things our students can learn is the skill of how to learn on your own. So, I build my classroom to encourage this. If you want to learn you can, but you're the one who has to do the work, not me.

The Case for Christ Student Response #7

In the first term of this school year my grade 7/8 class has read The Case for Christ: Student Edition by Lee Strobel. At the end of the study of the book each student was asked to answer one of the questions posed in the chapters of the book. I told that I would be sharing their responses online. So, throughout the rest of the year I will be posting their work. Please note, I have not edited these responses, they are exactly what the student handed me.

Did Jesus really fake his death!!!!!!

The main question is how could Jesus really fake his death because in the book it said that Jesus got whipped with a whip that had bones attached. It also said that when the whip got embedded to the skin it makes the skin rip and tear. Then they put a big crown on his head that was with thorns and they pressed it on his head and he was bleeding. And then they made him carry a big cross and also they nailed him to the cross. Did you know that the nails were about 7-9 inches and they nailed him in his wrists. He also couldn't fake it because it really hurts and there was a lot of people and there was roman soldiers watching him die and the bible said that when he was dying red blood came out and water. So  how could Jesus possibly  fake a death when he had to go through this many punishments for us.

Why would Jesus fake his own death

Jesus is God’s Son and God sent him to die for our sins so why would Jesus fake his death if he knows that he is going to be risen in three days.

And if Jesus didn’t die for us we would be in hell because Jesus died to save each and everyone of us he went through the pain for us. It said in the bible that every drop of blood was every sin that we all committed.