×

EDIf you’re a teacher, this new book may be worth checking out: Education for Human Flourishing: A Christian Perspective, by Paul Spears and Steven Loomis, published by IVP in their new Christian Worldview Integration Series, edited by J. P. Moreland and Francis Beckwith.

Fred Sanders has a helpful review of the book, which begins in this way:

There’s no easier job in the world than being a bad teacher. It’s a cinch, with short hours and plenty of long vacations. The pay’s not always great, but as long as your standards are low, and all you’re looking for is an easy job, I recommend being a really rotten teacher. Be really awful. Cobble together some industry-standard lesson plans and re-run them every year; grade superficially and with an emphasis on numbers; kick back and watch the seasons change as the sea of young faces before you renews itself year after year. (Don’t ask me how I know so much about this)

But as soon as you decide to be a pretty good teacher, you’ve let yourself in for a world of trouble. If that stack of papers needs thoughtful grading and a quick turn-around, you’re in for long hours of intense focus. If you have to re-think every sentence to make sure it connects with this particular group of students, you’re in for a high-energy workout.

And if you decide to try for excellence, to really make a difference for your students, then you’ve moved to The Other Side of teaching, and you find that there are few jobs harder than being a good teacher. It’s not just that you’ll have to put in a lot of hours. It’s that you’ll have to think. Think!

The really hard part about teaching is the thinking. Because if you want to help people as an educator, you have to know what people are for, why they exist, what it would mean for them to be fulfilled, and what Good their existence is ordered toward. Suddenly, you are up to your chin in the most important philosophical questions that can ever be asked.

Here is some help for the hard thinking.

Read the whole thing.

Paul Spears has posted an excerpt on the difference between knowledge and rhetoric, using C.S. Lewis’s experience and teaching as an example.

You can also read online for free the Preface and a precis of the book and its chapters.

LOAD MORE
Loading