Recently in Education Category

Oh my heck! This is the speech that the right had a cow over? I can't see anything in it that they could object to, in fact, it's the same things they've been saying for years: the importance of personal responsibility.

Now, atheists on the hand might object to the fact that Obama mentions God in front of public school children in fact he says, "God bless you, and God bless America." Oh my, what happened to the separation of church and state? Sounds a little like W and Reagan, doesn't it?

BTW, it's well done and I gave credit to Obama for encouraging the kids to stay in school and not let their problems overcome their need for a good education. I'm glad he's using the power of his office and his popularity to encourage kids to make goals and then make the effort to see them through.

Here's the president's prepared remarks:

The President: Hello everyone - how's everybody doing today? I'm here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we've got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I'm glad you all could join us today.
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it's your first day in a new school, so it's understandable if you're a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you're in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could've stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn't have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday - at 4:30 in the morning.
Now I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I'd complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."
So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I'm here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I'm here because I want to talk with you about your education and what's expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now I've given a lot of speeches about education. And I've talked a lot about responsibility.
I've talked about your teachers' responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I've talked about your parents' responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don't spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I've talked a lot about your government's responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren't working where students aren't getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world - and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a good writer - maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper - but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor - maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine - but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life - I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You'll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You'll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You'll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don't do that - if you quit on school - you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country.
Now I know it's not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what that's like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn't fit in.
So I wasn't always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I'm not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn't have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don't have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren't right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life - what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home - that's no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That's what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn't speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who's fought brain cancer since he was three. He's endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer - hundreds of extra hours - to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he's headed to college this fall.
And then there's Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she's on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren't any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
That's why today, I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education - and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you'll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you'll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you're not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject you study. You won't click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That's OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures. JK Rowling's first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
These people succeeded because they understand that you can't let your failures define you - you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one's born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice. It's the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it's good enough to hand in.
Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust - a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor - and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you're struggling, even when you're discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you - don't ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It's the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?
Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you've got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don't let us down - don't let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

When I was still working in the tech industry after my oldest was born, I had a conversation with my boss who thought our kids would be the first generation who would break their dependence on books and would read everything on their computers. They would be the first truly digital generation. I doubted it at the time since I knew we couldn't shake our dependence on the feel of books. We like how books feel in our hands. We like the smell, the cover art. It's part of the whole reading experience and one we can't shake. I also discounted it because computers weren't as portable then (the bathroom reading experience is an important factor in all this :-).

And even though we can now take our computers (in the form of smart phones, Palms, and iPhones/iTouch) into the bathroom, we still cling to our books. My daughter has been on a computer since she was a toddler, she's had a laptop all of her high school years and when each of use got an iTouch
I tried to interest her in the books she could read with the Kindle app but she doesn't like to read digital novels! She likes the feel of the book in her hands. So much for the digital generation. Maybe she's a throwback but I suspect that many of us still like to hold our books in our hands, feeling the smoothness of the paper as we turn the pages (it is a sensual experience, one that's not easily duplicated by e-books, though I do like the feel of the screen as I flick the pages of my Kindle app -- see, they had to keep the flicking aspect of books, it's part of the reading experience, it's much more natural than scrolling). We still like to walk the aisles of the bookstore looking for new books in our favorite categories or going to the library and pursuing the new fiction and nonfiction section. That's why I wouldn't be too interested in this school for my kids:

And to replace those old pulpy devices that have transmitted information since Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1400s, they have spent $10,000 to buy 18 electronic readers made by Amazon.com and Sony. Administrators plan to distribute the readers, which they're stocking with digital material, to students looking to spend more time with literature.

Those who don't have access to the electronic readers will be expected to do their research and peruse many assigned texts on their computers.

"Instead of a traditional library with 20,000 books, we're building a virtual library where students will have access to millions of books,'' said Tracy, whose office shelves remain lined with books. "We see this as a model for the 21st-century school.''

Notice the implied criticism of Tracy's lack of commitment to his own vision of the digital age, even he can't give up his books. Trying to sweep away a tradition that we are all still clinging to,even the most forward thinking of us, strikes me as a foolish use of funds. I wouldn't want them wasting my tuition money when they realize that they really do need those books that they discarded.

I hope this trend doesn't go too far the way it did with newspapers and magazines. I like to be the one to determine which form my book takes. Whether I choose to read one on my iTouch using the Kindle app or whether I buy a published book. I suspect that with biblical study books, I'm going to want the books published the old fashioned way but with novels, either form works for me. Sometimes I buy a novel in paperback and sometimes I buy it on Amazon for the Kindle app on my iTouch.

I like having more choices. Buying the newest from James Rollins for $9.99 on the Kindle (his publisher did the best job of any of the books I've read on Kindle so far, excellent use of the various features of Kindle, they really made it easy to read on the iTouch), as opposed to waiting my turn at the library or waiting for the paperback edition. Or buying the paperback version of The Reason for God (I already have the audio, see what kind of pull the printed word still has) and The Family because there was a buy 1 get 1 for half off sale at Borders. I can buy whatever medium works for me at the time (though, I'm pretty ticked that I'm not going to be able to get the third book in John Twelve Hawks' Fourth Realm Trilogy the third book in John Twelve Hawks' Fourth Realm Trilogy for $9.99 on Kindle, it costs $14.27, I'm going to wait a couple weeks to see if it comes down like I did with The Doomsday Key). Especially, when I can get a brand new hardcover, The Lost Symbol, delivered to my iTouch on the day it goes on sale, for the price of a paper. How much more convenient can you get?

BTW, here's a link to the paper, "Hamlet's Blackberry: Why Paper Is Eternal," mentioned in the article.

So, I'm glad that I can agree with Piper's latest comments (unlike his comment about the tornado) about the president's upcoming address on Tuesday to the nation's schools. Shocked that I'm not marching in lockstep with other righty bloggers? That I don't view this as propaganda? That I actually think for myself?

Well, I do and I think it's a great idea that Obama is planing a speech about "personal responsibility and challenging students to take their education" seriously. This is a message that our kids need to hear and Obama is probably the perfect person to deliver that message. He's the leader of the nation and someone the kids respect. I agree with Education Secretary Arne Duncan it's been way too long since a president has addressed the kids.

And I say Amen to Piper's prayer:

Father, the condition of our schools and families is so broken that nothing seems to be working, especially for the poor in our urban centers. Help our president to have the courage to use his amazing place of influence to speak into this situation in such a way that boys and girls would take their studies seriously

I find this controversy pretty disrespectful to the office of the president. If George W. Bush had planned a speech and there had been this much uproar, I would be saying something similar. Obama has every right to address the kids and I wish that we could chill and listen to what he has to say and encourage our kids to think for themselves.

(via)

Here's a great resource for those of you who've always wanted to go to seminary but didn't have the time or money to invest (it takes a lot of both). There are some real gems there including Gaffin's Theology of Hebrews and his Union with Christ lectures, Van Til's lectures in apologetics and some Manuel Ortiz lectures. You can also find classes from Reformed Theological Seminary and Covenant Theological Seminary.

I'm listening to Greg Bahnsen's lectures on Van Tilian Apologetics this week. I've read parts of his book and my goal is to read the whole thing, some time this year before the spring semester at Westminster when I hope to audit the class (apologetics) I missed because of my cancer.

(via and Larry Huffman)

Well, that's awfully big of them:

The University of California in Los Angeles has responded to media pressure and agreed to allow a graduating student to thank Jesus in her personal statement.

UCLA student Christina Popa claimed the school's Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology was denying her freedom of speech when she was told by Pamela Hurley, a faculty adviser, that she would not be allowed to mention "Jesus" in her graduation remarks.

The adviser had told Popa in an e-mail exchanges this week that it was against the MCDB's department policy to allow specific religious references based on the principle of separation of church and state.

[...]

On Friday, a UCLA spokesperson sent Klingenschmitt a statement saying that the school had reviewed its procedures and would read the statements as originally submitted by the students.

"The reading of 'words of wisdom' at the UCLA Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology involves graduating students' submission of a short message to be read onstage at Commencement by a member of the University Administration," read UCLA's statement. "Because the reading is by the University, not the students, to avoid the appearance that the University was advocating one religion over the other, guidelines were established so that messages would not include references to particular religions."

Of course the reading of the words of the students in no way imply an endorsement of religion, it was a ridiculous policy that violated a religious person's freedom of speech. And that it's at a university makes it even more ridiculous since universities should be about knowledge and the freedom to express that knowledge in whatever form it takes.

Here's the extra credit question for an Introduction to Computer Applications for Business course:Bonus Question 02 - What Book in the Bible describes the End Times (i.e. The Seven Seals, Tribulation, Armageddon, etc.)? A. Revelations B. Joshua C. Galatians D....

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