Merry Christmas!

I thought you might enjoy reading the Christmas letter I sent to our families and friends at Christian Heritage Academy. May you all have a blessed Christmas!

"For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor,

Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

Isaiah 9:6

Dear CHA Family and Friends,

It wasn't my fault. Not really. Not when you consider all of the various factors that led up to that moment when the car in front of me stopped and I didn't. That's what I was thinking as those special slow motion moments played out on Highway I-290, west of Chicago. It was stop-and-go traffic, which of course means that you stop and then you go: but the driver in front of me stopped, then go'ed, then stopped again before he had actually go'ed! That was certainly not my fault.

Then there was the coughing fit. You see, the bronchitis that made me cough was the real culprit. How was I supposed to know that the moment I started coughing (properly into my sleeve as decreed by the Department of Health and 3 out of the 4 major networks) I would need to slam on my brakes? Coughing, slamming on the brakes and keeping the steering wheel straight constitute three separate simultaneous actions, which is one more than walking and chewing gum, and therefore one action beyond my brain's prewired limit.

So, of course, hitting the brakes took a split-second too long and my car's front bumper ended up occupying space-time simultaneously with the rear bumper of the large automobile in front of me. Although in quantum physics it is allegedly possible to share such space, on I-290 it is not and I quickly became the person who is the subject of the live copter reports on the evening traffic news. What was even more disconcerting was the fact that none of the drivers who were being inconvenienced appeared to empathize with my plight. I may be wrong, but I do not recall any of them calling out words of encouragement or sympathy.

The gentleman whose car I hit, or rather, whose car came into contact with mine, was also less than enthused by the events. I quickly discerned that he did not wish to engage in small talk or share photos of our children. It also seemed to make little difference to him that I was a nice person, that I did not make a habit of hitting cars on I-290, or that I worked with children. The only things he wanted to know, after listening to me cough, were whether I had H1N1 and why I had chosen this time and place to hit him. By the way, Einstein was right, the entire space-time continuum of the Universe can slow down; especially when you have to wait two hours for a police officer and you have to decide how to engage in small talk with the driver whose evening you have just ruined.

Allow me to point out once again, that this was not my fault; everything was clearly conspiring against me and there were malevolent forces at work, including the Chicago road system, the job I have that required me to be in Chicago that night, the driver three cars up who first slammed on their brakes, the person who infected me with bronchitis, the Department of Health that is forcing us to cough into our sleeves and not watch the road ahead, the other drivers who could have left earlier, and, of course, former Governor Blagojevich, just because I still want to hold him responsible for something.

As I fumbled in the dark for the papers I would need, I realized I did not need the 2006 Portillo's receipt which I found, nor the 2007 car wash coupon. I did need the insurance card, however, which I couldn't find right away. I wanted to hold up a sign to all of the drivers in line behind me who were phoning their homes and telling their families they would be late because of the idiot who couldn't stop in time. I wanted to tell them I had never done this before and therefore I was sort of entitled to one mistake, that I was different from the other people who had accidents and created traffic jams, that I would never do it again, and oh by the way: it wasn't my fault.

In the end I learned just how useless and inane it is to be concerned with "fault" and attempting to avoid it. The assigning of blame does very little to alter the situation at hand. In fact, focusing on it usually worsens the prospect of solving the problem. In a society where everyone is looking to place blame and no one is accepting responsibility, we are teaching our children to look for scapegoats before solutions. That is the exact opposite of what Christmas teaches us about God.

You see, Christmas is about a loving God who willingly took responsibility for our failures and agreed to pay the price for something He did not do. And please understand there was a price. Tim Keller, in his wonderful book The Reason for God, writes one of the best chapters I have ever read on the subject. He argues that forgiveness always comes at a cost to the forgiver. When we are wronged there is damage and pain. Forgiveness requires that we absorb that pain without inflicting it on others or gaining the satisfaction of retribution.

This forgiveness is done at a personal cost that is very real and tangible to each of us. We have to answer our internal cries of "It's not fair!" or "Why me?" with every act of forgiveness. In my car accident someone had to pay the damages to the cars, which was me, through my insurance company. God's offer to us through the birth of Jesus at Christmas is an offer to pay all of the damages, even though He was the car that was hit. In fact, He has purchased an insurance policy in His name, paid all the premiums and given us the insurance card to use as our own.

God did not worry about assigning blame. Instead, He concentrated on finding and acting upon a solution to sin. He willingly stepped into our shoes and took responsibility for every one of us. He didn't do this to gain notoriety, or to be named a person of the week on the nightly news. There were no prizes, accolades, magazine articles or reality shows focused on his sacrificial act. There was only a manger, some animals, a poor young engaged couple and a few shepherds on that first night. Thirty-three years later there was only his mother, his brother and a few frightened colleagues to witness a cross and the greatest selfless act in history. It was the greatest selfless act because it required our God to give up more than anyone has ever been asked to give (his privileges as God) in order to substitute for the wrong done by others.

Perhaps this Christmas we can lay aside some of our fears, anxieties and defensiveness so we can revel in the peace, serenity and joy that comes with knowing God's love is sufficient for us all, without blame or fault. Perhaps we can stop worrying, even for a few minutes, about who did what to whom or how no one knows the trouble we've seen. Perhaps we can focus on an unmerited gift from our Heavenly Father and how our gratitude for the gift can be expressed "as we forgive those who trespass against us." Perhaps it's not about the car I lost, but the perspective I gained. Perhaps I can learn from a cold, windy night on I-290 that it's not about me, but about what He has done for me and how I respond to it.

I wish you all a blessed and wonderful Christmas. I believe my insurance company has some great stocking stuffers if you want to buy some 2001 Saab parts, slightly used.

Forgiven and grateful,

Rick Lukianuk
Head of School

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 9 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post concludes a nine-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase: A 21st Century Curriculum.

9. Teach, verify and enforce good digital citizenry from a Christian perspective and better understand the consequences of digital communication, digital relationships and technological advances on the educational, social and spiritual lives of our students. As I noted, students learn differently now as a result of their exposure to multimedia technology. There are also significant difference and broader consequences to inappropriate digital communications, as well as unique and significant dangers, that students must be aware of. Unfortunately, this area changes rapidly as new communication tools, such as Twitter become commonplace before we understand the consequences of their use. The only real protection is working on the hearts of our students so that they do not try to use technology in an inappropriate manner. This is also a great strength of Christianity as it has focused on understanding issues of the heart for 2000 years. Our school benefits from this focus and our consequent ability to appeal to hearts as well as minds and provide biblical reasons for proper usage rather than merely attempting to stay one technological step ahead. However, we must provide a coherent and current biblical framework for our students, and we must focus on, and explain, consequences of inappropriate digital technology. Our students will say and do things online they would never say and do in person. This clearly outlines the fact that they inherently do not understand consequences and must be taught. The school, home and church need to work together in this area or we will fail, and if we do, the consequences are unimaginable for our families, our churches and our nation.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 8 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase: A 21st Century Curriculum.

8. Student facilitated inquiry. Students will comment on each other’s work, creatively suggest new concepts and have ongoing digital discussions day and night. It is already happening on Facebook, etc. We need to co-opt the concept and turn it into a focused learning opportunity, rather than an ad hoc entertainment option. Obviously this is more effective for older students, but we will analyze how to best move forward for all classes. For instance, homework can become more of a group activity than a solitary activity done in order for a student to be allowed online for social time. This facilitates group problem solving, development of communications skills monitored by a teacher and provides a safer social outlet for students; which brings me to my final point.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 7 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase: A 21st Century Curriculum.

7. Classrooms will evolve into learning communities that will not necessarily be separated by walls. This must obviously begin with teachers as we share our knowledge and ideas for curriculum development across departments and grades. Using technology such as Nings, wikispaces, dabbleboards, etc. will give each of our teachers ideas that can be passed along through Faculty Development. It also allows participation across grades and disciplines. Teachers at various Christian schools will be able to share 24/7, not just at yearly conferences, and students will learn in virtual online classrooms with other students from around the world. I look forward to being able to comment online to students about their Bible discussion or some questions they raise in History class. I look forward to teachers sharing with each other about new applications for technology in a way that is transparent, safe, functional and easy to facilitate—much in the same way that my daughter and I share songs via iTunes and our individual iPods now. This requires all of us to be lifelong learners, but that will be an ever more important aspect of professional education and is the conceptual basis for the individual Professional Development. Plans we have already instituted include concepts such as an entire class commentary on a site with teacher assistance.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 6 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explainign what we mean by the first half of that phrase: A 21st Century Curriculum.

6. Increasingly differentiated learning. At some point in the future, every child will have an IEP (Individual Educational Plan) tailored to their own learning intelligences and pace of learning. We already achieve some of this through smaller classes, individualized tutoring and mentoring. Our Veracross system will assist in tracking students better and allowing parents to partner more effectively, especially in understanding the pace at which individual students learn. The commercial software is not yet written to do this on a class by class basis for all grades, but noted economist, Clayton Christensen, in his book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, notes that the majority of private school students will be using such software by 2013. We are beginning the process in the Upper School and those teachers will collaborate with the Middle School teachers to pass on best practices each year while we await even more powerful software tools. The key is to prepare for it through technology upgrades, staff training and curriculum prepared to absorb such different pedagogies and methodologies. The result will be teachers who are focused more on individual tutoring and meeting children where they are each day, rather than on lectures presenting one size fits all lesson plans.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 5 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase: A 21st Century Curriculum.

5. Curriculum delivered in an increasingly multi-modal format. In the early classes, specific, fundamental skills and information must be presented. Reading, Writing, Math, Bible knowledge and interpersonal skills must all be taught as foundational knowledge. However, we must acknowledge that in today’s culture they actually learn differently. A lifetime of exposure to multimedia has actually wired their brains to absorb, process and interact with information differently than we did as children, and certainly far differently than our parents “learned.” We cannot expect them to comprehend nuance or to develop deep knowledge unless we provide it to them in multimodal applications. This is where the new technology is most effective and should be extensively applied. Whether it is a Podcast exercise in English for speeches, or a Ning discussion in Bible, we must use multimodal tools and allow students to express themselves and acquire knowledge in a manner in which their brain is wired. If we do not provide multimodal experiences, they may not process the information, not retain it, or substitute inaccurate information to fill out their need for multi modality. I remember setting the Periodic Table to music so I could more easily memorize it. Today’s student will probably not be able to accomplish that unless they are give the music (a la Sesame Street) and thus be less able to retain the information, or they may bring in extraneous info searches, visual images or story lines that confuse the original information and they will then remember it incorrectly.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 4 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase: A 21st Century Curriculum.

4. Helping students to acknowledge a Calling in their lives. In an increasingly desensitized, self centered and culturally amorphous society, it will be essential to assist students in understanding that they are individually called by God to be in relationship with Him and then called to a life purpose here on earth. This gives students meaning, motivation to gain the skills they need, provides a framework to continue a lifetime of learning that will be essential in a quickly changing technological and global marketplace, and anchors them in making increasingly difficult ethical and moral decisions (for example, many of the larger issues currently challenging us such as cloning, DNA manipulation, child gender choice, euthanasia, allocation of limited resources, limits of privacy, limits of digital relationships, etc.) This process must begin in Preschool and be continued throughout a child’s schooling as their reasoning and emotional intelligence matures. Strength finding curriculum, individual mentoring and teacher modeling are all essential parts of the puzzle. Service projects fall within this category as well as they teach empathy, humility and compassion and an obligation to give and not just take. Service to others needs to be part of the Calling of every student.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 3 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase.

3. Conceptual thinking rather than information delivery. We have been moving away from the need for memorization for years and will continue to do so at earlier and earlier grades as ever younger students learn to obtain information from databases rather than their memories. This will become ever more essential as the amount of information available increases geometrically while our memory capacity does not. I’m sure you already do this in many ways. For example, I used to have all my friends’ phone numbers memorized. Now I have a cell phone contact list. The skill set I need now is wisdom in when and how to appropriately contact people: when do I call, text, email, tweet and who should be included. My database cannot make such conceptual decisions and our children will need help to understand such concepts rather than memorizing facts. Problem solving, group projects, portfolio assessment and student facilitated discussion (in class or online) should increasingly be used in the place of lecture and fill-in-the-blank testing. We also need to help students to understand how to determine the value and validity of information they retrieve, rather than accepting all information at face value. Again, many of these concepts are inherently part of an integrated Christian worldview focus that challenges every student to view any information in light of God’s truth and not man’s opinion.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 2 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase.

2. Communication on a deeper level. As students increase the amount of digital communication, they will decrease the time and depth of conversations, while also narrowing the subject matter to “what,” “when,” “who” and “where” questions. We must provide them with vocabulary to ask “how” and “why” questions and the interpersonal skills to develop deep, personal relationships. We work hard in these areas already in devotions, prayer time; Bible class; on Eagle River, Washington D.C. and Springfield trips; through the Peace Makers program, and countless other ways. We begin in Preschool when we give students a reason to love each other and treat each other with courtesy and respect: Because God has made each one of them and wants them to treat each other the way He would treat them. This is far superior to the general educational model of behaving properly to avoid punishment (which leads to morally ambivalent adults focused on not being caught) or to gain a reward (which leads to narcissistic adults focused on only doing things for recognition or material gain). Events such as Senior History, Legacy Chapel and Lion’s Pride productions provide outstanding opportunities to experience deeper communication with individuals outside the students’ immediate peer group.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 1 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post begins a 9-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase.

A “21^st Century Curriculum” does not necessarily mean more computers, new software, smartboards or other upgraded technologies. Those are certainly tools that can be used to deliver some of the curriculum, but they are not in and of themselves sufficient to teach children what they need to know in a conceptual age.

Many studies have shown that simply putting computers in classrooms or substituting one delivery method for a higher tech method does not significantly improve student achievement. Billions of dollars have been wasted in this country outfitting classrooms with high end technology that is either misused or not used at all. Unless teachers and students are trained in, and committed to, the integration of technology, there is very little to be gained through its use. That is why we will be targeting the use of technology to those areas where it can be used most efficiently and effectively. Much of that decision will be made by the classroom teacher. Some teachers may decide to use NIngs or wikispaces, while others may decide to use a Podcast, or smartmusic.com or any myriad of other websites, hardware or learning technologies that are available. This will also be an iterative process, as the Upper School is a living laboratory where we will be determining the efficacy of various approaches before we invest in broader school use.

It is also not just in the future. Many of the aspects of the 21^st century curriculum are already being delivered throughout the grades at CHA. That is why I am comfortable using the phrase in connection with our school right now.

So, if it is not merely technology, what is a 21^st century curriculum? It is:

1. Christ centered. There is great wisdom and efficacy in the Deuteronomy 6 model of teaching children throughout the day, when they eat, when they sleep and when they are walking. It is ever more essential that students have God’s wisdom written on their hearts as well as on their minds, and that the process is a 24/7 partnership between home, church and school. If you consider the computer, iPod, cell phone and TV screen to be the door to the heart and mind of our children, then the command to write God’s wisdom on the doorframes of our homes takes on great significance and immediacy. As students communicate with each other constantly and instantaneously (one Mom told me her kids were in the back seat while they were car shopping, and the kids were giving her immediate input on the “coolness” of every car model via text messaging with friends) they are ever more subject to, and swayed by, their peers. The school will take on an increasing importance as the institution that can provide wisdom, role modeling and mentoring from Living Curriculum teachers who can place a Christian context on information in the most cohesive and comprehensive manner. We can no longer deliver academic information at school, spiritual information at church, and use our home time to align the two.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

As a native New Englander, fall is my favorite season. Once the school year is under way, I look forward to the cooler weather, the beauty of the changing leaves and the smell of woodsmoke wafting from a backyard or a chimney. I also have wonderful memories of fall, the most special being the 10 consecutive years that my family and I visited Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, Maine. I have travelled all over the world, and I still consider Acadia to be the most beautiful place that I have ever experienced. From silvery birches waving in the breeze, stunning ocean vistas and pristine sand beaches, to the profound stillness of Jordan Pond and the earliest sun rise in the United States (atop Cadillac Mountain), Acadia is a place to be experienced, savored and cherished by all who love God's beauty.

What I have noticed over the last several years is how little the concept of beauty is actually discussed in print, on the air, over the internet or, especially, in academia. Please understand I am not talking about the posting of various salacious photos of Hollywood starlets or hunks on magazine covers or internet sites. Although the word "beautiful" may be used in those instances, the attendant articles or photo captions could hardly be considered a discussion of "beauty" any more than the participants in the average television reality series could be considered as serious actors, Olympic sportsmen or doctoral candidates in theology or philosophy. What I am talking about is a reflection upon what constitutes beauty, how it is beheld and how it is in some way memorialized for others to share. Whether through visual painting, photography, music, video, sculpture, poetry, literature, speech, dance, theatre, or various combinations thereof, God has given us many tools to express our awe, wonder and gratitude as we experience the beauty he has placed in our lives.

It seems our modern culture shies away from this discussion. In our ever more individualistic society, we have taken "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" to mean that no one's concept of beauty can be translated to anyone else and therefore we cannot burden anyone else with our views on beauty. I would argue that a better interpretation of the phrase would be one in which I, as beholder of a beauty, have an obligation to experience that beauty and as it rests in "my eye" then have an obligation to find a way to assist others in appreciating such beauty. However, we are losing the ability to appreciate beauty and the vocabulary necessary to share it.

For much of our culture's history, the artist has been the individual who attempted to capture or express that beauty in a way that others could appreciate it. Recently, and in line with our cultural shift to individuality, artists seem preoccupied with creating ever more abstract and individualistic forms of art, further distancing themselves from the world God created. This may be because admiring and expressing an already existent thing of beauty focuses attention on God the Creator rather than the artist as creator. It could also be because we are losing a common language of beauty because we do not study, understand and admire the concept.

At the same time that artists are becoming less accessible, lay individuals have been given the technological tools to dabble in the arts. (Think iPhoto, GarageBand, YouTube, and my personal favorite, Karaoke.) Although these technological advances allow all of us to be a little more creative and expressive, and that is wonderful, they should not be used as substitutes for artistic beauty. My vacation photos bear little resemblance to the grandeur and majesty portrayed in Ansell Adams photographs and my stick figure drawing will not be mistaken for Andrew Wyeth's simple, elegant artistic expression.

For me, music comes closest to expressing the inexpressible, but even I would not contend that listening to a musical depiction of Acadia could replace the actual experience of being there. Music can be memory or supplement. It can heighten, deepen or expand the experience. It can even bring the beauty back to the "mind's eye". For instance, the most beautiful depiction of the Creation that I know is in C.S. Lewis' "The Magician's Nephew" where Aslan (the allegorical Lion representing Jesus Christ) sings the world into existence. That description has tremendously deepened my understanding and appreciation of Creation, but it is not a substitute for having been there. However, someday we will be "there" and truly be able to comprehend creation.

I believe beauty exists here in this world to give us a taste, a glimpse, a momentary exhilaration, a brief touch of Eternity with our Father. It exists to excite us about what is to come and to deal with what is. It is to be experienced, understood and shared. We yearn for that: don't you get great joy when you share art, music, a great book or a great meal with someone? Isn't that a deeper, more satisfying experience than merely writing emails or talking about the weather or grocery sales prices? Saving money or being prepared for rain later today are both good things, but they are "beautiful" things and so they are farther removed from the beauty of Eternity that we all long for.

We need to make certain our children are capable of recognizing, appreciating and discussing beauty. They will not experience a full life or truly comprehend God's love without it. It is not a topic for People magazine, but something that must be part of the school curriculum, the church calendar and the home dinner table.

In the meantime I will return for a moment, even if only in my mind's eye, and experience the elegant splendor of Acadia and dream of a time when the temporal beauty of that place will not end on the evening the first Nor'easter blows the leaves off of the trees for this year.

A Photo is Worth A Thousand Pixels

I was at a beach this week enjoying my six hour vacation. I was planning on taking a longer vacation, but six hours into it I realized that current technology does not allow for anything more than snippets of a vacation surrounded by time spent reviewing emails, cell phone calls and text messages. I saw everyone else at the beach doing the same thing: answering their cell phones, or checking them to see why there wasn't a message and then calling people or texting them because we cannot stand to be out of touch for more than a hour or two at a time.

In some ways I see us returning to the 'small town' communications of generations past where everyone knew everyone else's business and you couldn't go anywhere that you weren't recognized or known. The small town is now a global town, but the theory is the same. We all want to know everybody's business and comment on it. The difference is that we no longer have significant personal relationships with many of these people. We can gossip and complain anonymously now. We can peer into peoples' lives via Twitter, without taking the time to be actually in a person's life. That allows for a lot of comment and judgment without context.

I also noticed something else on the beach. (Actually I noticed a lot of things, but some of them are better left to the local authorities to handle.) A group of girls was very busy posing in and out of the water. They were staging a bunch of photographs and were very excited about being at the beach to do so. The interesting part for me occurred when they had completing their picture taking. They gathered around the digital camera to review the results of their efforts, laughing, giggling and screaming as they looked at each photo in the camera. They then hugged each other, ran to their towels, gathered their stuff and went off in different directions. They said very little to each other after viewing the pictures other than agreeing on which ones would be posted on Facebook and mentioning that they would text each other later to decide where to meet for dinner.

I realized that I had just watched a very different social interaction than I, and my generation with me, would construct or understand. I spent much of my youthful summers at the beach throwing frisbees, body surfing and listening to current music with my buddies. Yes, we occasionally engaged in attempts to meet and greet members of the opposite sex, but as I recall it was only for the purpose of engaging in deep, spiritual discussions. It's my story and I'm sticking to it.

When we took pictures, it was for the purpose of remembering the activities and the moments we shared as friends. For these girls, the memorable event was not the activities at the beach, but the viewing of the pictures. The pictures did not memorialize an event - they were the event. The core of the personal relationship that exists between these girls is the connection via Facebook and the internet, not the actual time spent together at the beach or doing other activities. In fact, many of the activities are staged in order to develop more material and pictures for their digital relationship.

I look at a computer screen and see either work that needs to be done, or a method of gathering information to support my decisions and other activities outside of the digitial realm. Our children look at a computer or cell phone screen and see entertainment, relationships, communication and decision-making opportunities. In essence, many of their activities away from the digital realm support their time in it. The digital realm shapes their thinking rather than the other way around, much like our developing road system shifted our population into the suburbs and television shifted our cultural focus to Hollywood. It is something we must understand in developing curriculum that now must provide context for the digital realm rather than merely instruct children on how to obtain information via the internet.

By the way, I was going to post some photos from my vacation, but then you would know where I went and even more people would be able to find me.

Photos ("Gerard - Beach, Teenager" by sebastien.b; "Twitter website screenshot" by Spencer E Holtaway)

Days of Whining Poses

Last night I watched several newscasts on TV. I know that dates me and places me into a certain demographic: I also read newspapers, get books from the library and remember a time when "celebrities" were artists of some dramatic or musical ability, rather than individuals willing to embarass themselves on reality shows. However, that is not my main point today.

What I saw on virtually every network I turned on was the same lead story: New parking meters that were causing inconvenience in some manner to those trying to park in downtown Chicago. Now, please do not get me wrong. I can be as annoyed and angry as the next guy over something trivial and inconsequential. In fact, I recognize it is a Constitutional right to complain bitterly about any decision made by anyone who is in a position of authority - right up there with the right to privacy on the internet and the right to digital cable television.

What concerned me was that the network news not only expended significant resources in reporting about the issue, but they placed it as the lead story, thereby exagerating its importance and creating a bigger issue out of it. Apparently I am in the minority, but I thought that North Korea's threat to use nuclear weapons, the elections in Iran, the continued tension in Pakistan and President Obama's focus on completing changing our health care system merited more of a discussion. This made me reflect on several other news stories I had seen or read recently, and I realized that almost all of them had the same thing in common: space and time were given to those who complained most loudly about something.

That reminded me of something I learned in college. When I received my first bad review about a musical I had written, I questioned the reviewer about why they had been so negative in the newspaper. The reviewer replied "You don't advance your career writing positive reviews."

Although that greatly bothered me, at least it was in a subjective area such as theatrical reviews. The concept has now been broadened to cover supposedly objective fields such as news reporting, economics and global affairs. It is now more important to find someone who will loudly whine about an issue than to report on its relative merits. I am certain that the reporters spoke to several citizens about the parking meters. It was only the loudest and most clever whiner that made his way onto the newscast.

Our children are now learning that the way to get on TV, or Youtube, is to dress like a fool at an athletic event, attempt a ludicrous stunt with resultant injury, complain in a clever and obnoxious manner, or agree to eat fried tarantula. Marshall MacLuhan's prediction of fifteen minutes of fame has turned into two minutes of infamy for every individual who wants it.

It has ever been so. As we read in Proverbs, "Every prudent man acts out of knowledge, but a fool exposes his folly" (Proverbs 13:16). The difference now is that technology allows the folly to be more readily exposed, exploited and used for better ratings.

I hope my children learned this valuable lesson as I whined and complained to them about the newscasts I was watching.

Some Healthy Music Suggestions

On my last radio show (show #22 - available here), I mentioned that I would post a list of quality Christian music artists. So here's the list (click on any of the names to be taken to their website):

• Rich Mullins
• Brandon Heath
• Jimmy Needham
• Shawn McDonald
• Jars of Clay
• Switchfoot
• Audio Adrenaline
• Matt Wertz
• Steven Curtis Chapman
• Sara Groves
• Michael W. Smith
• Jeremy Camp
• Chris Rice
• Carolyn Arends
• Nichole Nordeman
• Bebo Norman
• Jaci Velasquez
• Chris Tomlin
• Matt Kearney
• Kirk Franklin
• Smokie Norful
• Rebecca St. James
• Newsboys
• Jon Foreman (lead singer of Switchfoot)
• Casting Crowns
• MercyMe
• Kari Jobe
• Building 429

Some Oldies But Goodies... Phil Keaggy, Randy Stonehill, Amy Grant, Michael Card, First Call

What bands do you like with healthy lyrics? Let me know by posting your comments.

Response-able

I was away on Spring Break for a week, which afforded me the opportunity to ponder many of the perplexing issues of life while I walked on the beach near my parents’ home in Florida. One of these was, “When did air travel become so truly exhausting and annoying?” This time I found myself standing in line for the privilege of paying to check baggage (as if normal travelers do not require the luxury of a change of clothing), followed by standing in line to show my boarding pass and ID. Truthfully, the only people who could identify me from my driver's license photo are my mother and the one brilliant kid in class who could find Waldo on every page.

After my exhaustive interrogation by security ("Is this you?" he asked pointing to my photo. "Yes" I replied.), I was able to stand in line again to go through the X-ray machine. It seems a bit incongruous to me watching a line of adults dutifully removing their shoes, belts and other articles of clothing anywhere but in a Doctor's office. That everyone did so without a whiff of protest (except for the woman arguing over whether flip flops constituted "shoes") says something about 21st century America, and I believe has to do with our current perception of responsibility.

You see, "personal responsibility" has been elevated to the status of a virtue and, along with "tolerance", is now seen as the hallmark of an enlightened individual. Honesty, love, piety, joy, compassion, persistence and humility are seen as slightly outdated and underwhelming manifestations of personal responsibility, when in fact it is the opposite. However, as lofty an ideal as "personal responsibility" is, it can apparently be achieved when we agree to remove our shoes at the airport.

Now please don't get me wrong. I want to be safe on airplanes, and I realize we must put up with a certain amount of inconvenience to do so. What I am concerned with is the general attitude that I saw: If we do the things we are told to do, then we will be safe (maybe) and we do not have to do anything else for ourselves (wrong).

After security check I walked to the gate, where a large group of people was milling about without purpose. That ended when they announced that the flight would be boarding in 15 minutes. We now had purpose and the Type-A's quickly got into line so that they could wait while standing for those 15 minutes. The remaining passengers were in two groups: those that wondered if they should get in line and those who were calculating how much time they had to get to the rest room. You'll have to guess which one I was.

Upon reaching my seat, I noticed an elderly couple that could not reach the overhead bin to store their carry-on. As God made me and my 6'5" frame for just such an occasion, I was feeling pretty useful when I heard the dreaded cabin announcement (much like Charlie Brown's teacher, and just about as easy to understand): "We cannot leave until everyone is seated and buckled up." Noticing I was the only one standing, I wondered if the elderly couple realized that their lack of foresight in needing to use the overhead bin might be the cause of a late departure for the airline and possibly the loss of a job for the individual in charge of late departure percentages. I wondered if the couple even understood the extent of their personal responsibility here and the consequences to the other passengers, the airline, the Supervisor of Late Departure Percentages and the U.S. economy and global relations.

You see, this issue of "personal responsibility" is being touted as the solution to many of our problems. Our children hear that if we all just took on our responsibilities we could get out of the economic mess, we could thwart terrorism, we could halt global warming and we could feed the world – at least according to the media. Our children are also told, without a hint of irony by the same media, that their main responsibility in life is to themselves, their goals, their ambitions and their personal happiness. At the best, this is confusing and at the worst it is paralyzing.

They need to be taught that they are responsible only in those areas in which they are able to respond: the sphere of influence within which God has placed them. Matt Emerzian, among others, is doing great work in helping students to understand these parameters and motivate them to accomplish great things with their God-given abilities and opportunities.

Even more importantly, our children need to be taught that their main responsibility is to God and His calling on their lives. God enables each of us to respond to Him and use the talents we are given to fulfill our unique purpose. When we respond and do so with love, compassion, honesty, piety, perseverance and humility, then we are doing all that we can, and we are no longer ultimately responsible for the results – God is. If our children can learn this, they will be neither overwhelmed nor narcissistically self-centered. When a community of believers can do this together, as is the potential in any church, Christian school or other faith-based ministry, then children have role models they can emulate and goals they can appropriately aspire to.

By the way, after I sat down a flight attendant came by to tell me I had to put my seatback straight up. At least I know that if I ever crash in a plane, I will do so with good posture and something I no longer have to be responsible for.

No More "Wizard of Aaahs"

As I turned my desk calender to March (only 5 days late this month), I was reminded of the excitement I used to have at this time of year when I was a young child. You see, it was on a Sunday evening each March that CBS would broadcast its annual showing of The Wizard of Oz, replete with guest host and a huge national viewing audience. In the days before DVDs, VCRs, DVRs and other electronic acronyms, the only opportunity to be transported to that magical land was on that one night in March. I remember wishing I could own my own movie theater so I could watch the movie every day, but I also remember the great anticipation I felt as the overture played on our then-huge 19" TV set, and the sorrow I felt when Dorothy began tapping her red slippers and repeating, "There's no place like home." To be truthful, I wondered why she wanted to leave such an obviously great situation (complete adulation in technicolor) to return to black and white post-Twister Kansas, but that's another blog piece.

Now, of course, our children can watch anything at any time. In fact, most children don't even watch a whole show or movie anymore. They just watch their favorite snippets on YouTube. There has been a similar change in how we listen to music. We have moved from waiting for our favorite song to play once in a while on the radio, to purchasing satellite radio that plays only what we want to hear, commercial-free (but at a price). We have also moved from buying vinyl records that we had to listen to in a certain order (I still can't listen to Bridge Over Troubled Water without expecting to hear El Condor Pasa next) to having an entire music collection on an iPod that we can carry everywhere we go.

My listening habits are already vastly altered. I used to listen to each song all the way through to the last chord. I even listened to songs that I initially did not like, many of which have become my favorites over time. Now I hit shuffle play and find myself hitting the 'next song' button well before a song has ended. Many times I have only listened to a few seconds of a song before making my 'final' judgment and moving on.

Our children, who have never known anything other than the ability to fast forward, skip, delete, or mix and match, are even quicker to make decisions. We have to understand this mind set if we are to effectively teach them.

These technological changes are just the tip of the iceberg. Candidates are elected based on 15-30 second sound bytes and complex issues are "explained" in two sentence headlines. Food is fast and communications are faster: I have received text messages asking me to listen to a voice mail asking me to respond to an email before I've read it. Taking time to thoughtfully consider an issue is viewed as inefficient and a sign of intellectual weakness. This inexorably leads us to believe that a quick, albeit bad, response is superior to a slow but thoughtful one.

Now please do not misunderstand me; I am not sitting here reminiscing about the good old days when everything was great. Some things were better then and some things are better now. (I love my iPod - I just wish I had invented it.) Not every quick response is wrong and not every delayed response is necessarily smarter (or I would nominate the people who have been repairing my home for a Rhodes Scholarship). It's not that things have changed; they always do. My point is that these technological changes have far-reaching consequences in how our children think, view the world and learn.

We must provide our children with tools to counteract the subtle but pervasively different ways in which they "learn." We must no longer teach our children how to synthesize large amounts of information into smaller outlines and notes. They do that every time they text someone or Google something. We must now teach them how to extrapolate from bits and bytes of information to deeper meanings and more comprehensive understanding. We must help them to learn how to delay gratification and develop deep personal relationships in addition to five hundred Facebook "friends." We must teach them that an answer is right, without regard to the amount of time it takes to discover it, and we must help them to understand that they cannot expect to text-message God and develop a deep relationship with Him.

By the way, I now own my own DVD of the Wizard of Oz. I have never watched it.

Effective School Curriculum at Work

Matthew Emerzian of Every Monday Matters was recently a guest on my radio show. If you didn't catch the interviews, you can download them here.

Check out a video of his new "You Matter" school curriculum at work:

Responsibility "R" Us

In his speech last night President Obama used the term "responsibility" quite a few times. I hope it is a sign of a reversal in a decades long national trend toward evasion of responsibility, but I am not optimistic. The reason I am not optimistic is the fundamental structure of our society and culture in 2009. We have turned safety nets into entitlements, and our legal system has allowed countless individuals and groups to use it as a giant blank canvas on which to throw various convoluted legal theories about blame and someone else's responsibility, hoping some of it will stick.

All of this has been done in search of the money, not the truth, and some of it has stuck. That is how we get warning labels on refrigerators that tell us not to stick our head into the freezer and shut the door. That is why a box of food I recently bought warned me to only eat the contents, not the packaging. That is why we are inundated with commercials urging us to purchase some new, allegedly helpful medication, then warned it may cause death, dismemberment, temporary insanity, loss of all friendships, and horrific alterations to just about every bodily function (apparently the latter two are related consequences).

I even saw a billboard on the highway for a new website that helps you find someone or some company to sue, even if you aren't aware that you've been wronged. The message? There must be something that you're not happy about, and if you are not happy, there must be someone else responsible for that lack of happiness. Apparently our founding documents have been changed to read that everyone has an inalienable right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of money damages from anyone who we can convince a jury has made us unhappy'.

This is also the culture that has produced 'helicopter' parents; so named because they hover over their children's lives in an overprotective frenzy. These parents do not merely support their children, they place themselves between their children and the world, doing their homework, helping them avoid any negative consequences, writing their college essays, showing up at admissions interviews, arguing with teachers and professors over grades, and, in some recent instances, actually showing up at job interviews with their children.

We all know that children watch what we do; they do not necessarily listen to what we say. We also know that they are imitators. For many centuries, the learning community of a multi-generational family was the major source of wisdom for most children and there were daily lessons and examples of responsibility. Even as families began to move apart, two world wars surrounding a great depression provided ample opportunities to witness and take on personal responsibility. A consumer society coupled with instanteneous technological gratification (I still remember making sure I had enough cash for the weekend before ATMs) now continually lessens the opportunities to develop responsibility, while time and money pressures entice us to find someone else to be responsible.

Our children are watching and learning. As Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us." All of us as parents and educators must be responsible for acting responsibly and teaching our children to do the same. I checked the website from the billboard, and I still couldn't find anyone else to sue to make it happen.

Hope, Spring and Eternity

I didn't title this blog "Hope Springs Eternal" because I've never known what that means. Does it mean you should always hope for something or you should keep on hoping for the same thing even if it's not happening or that you will keep on hoping, despite your best efforts to give up and move on because you can't help yourself? I guess it doesn't matter what it means (other than forcing me to write a run-on sentence to try to decipher the phrase). What I want to reflect on is the relationship between hope and eternity.

I grew up a fan of the Red Sox because I lived in New England and many of my friends rooted for the Yankees. This is called being a contrarian, and I have paid mightily for the privilege: over 40 years of rooting without a championship, to be exact. Every spring I anxiously anticipated the start of another season and the chance to beat the Yankees. Every year I was disappointed... until 2004, when miraculously the Red Sox came back from 3 games down to the Yankees to beat them 4 straight and then win the 2004 World Series. Now that I live in Chicago, this is what allows me to root for the Cubs since I do not see it as hopeless, merely unlikely.

But hoping for something and having hope seem to me to be two different things. I can hope that Duke gets their act together and does well in the NCAA tournament this year, but if it doesn't happen, my life will not be appreciably different (except for the abuse I will receive from my "friends"). However, if I do not have Hope in my life; if I do not believe there is a purpose and focus to my life; if I do not believe there is an ultimate satisfaction to my yearning and striving; if I do not have hope that there is a God who cares about and loves me, then all the hopes (with little "h"s) do not mean much in the grand scheme of things.

Last week was great week in strengthening my Hope. I was able to speak to the students at the Trinity Forum Academy and attend their Integrity Weekend Conference. The two keynote speakers at the conference were Dr. Francis Collins, former Director of the Human Genome Project and author of The Language of God and Kelly Monroe Kullberg, author of Finding God at Harvard and founder of The Veritas Forum. These are two of the most distinguished and intelligent people I have ever met, and yet their distingishing characteristics were joy, inquisitiveness and humility. As I heard their presentations and spoke to each about the needs of our children and the challenges facing Christian educators, I realized there are many, many wonderful Christians in various careers and disciplines who are using every bit of their God-given talent to pass down wisdom to the next generation. And as we worshipped together on Sunday morning and I watched Dr. Collins and Ms. Kullberg play their guitars as we sang together "Be Thou My Vision", I felt once again that Hope, this time as it was shared in that room: that a God bigger than we can imagine, has done more than we can ever know, to provide an eternity for us that is far more wonderful and wondrous than we could ever conceive.

It's Just a Matter of Trust

With deference to Billy Joel, it does seem to be "a matter of trust" around us - whether it is the economy, politics, global security, the value of my 401(k) or the all-important task of raising the next generation. And trust is based, to a great deal, on honesty and integrity.

I read a great quote last week from Spencer Johnson: "Honesty is being truthful with other people; integrity is telling the truth to yourself." However, I would alter that second part slightly: "Integrity is acknowledging the truth to yourself." You see, integrity means acting on the truth, not just stating it. We all know of people who have told themselves the truth and then still acted to deceive others - take the recent Wall Street leaders.

But think for a moment - how much of our lives depend on trust? We trust that the products we eat, drink, drive and otherwise use during the day are safe and made to the standards indicated on them. What if our medications were wrong? What if our drinking water was unsafe? What if my steering wheel did not turn my car's wheels? Occasionally failures do happen - and it is just the infrequency of it that makes my point. It is news when the trust is broken.

I am afraid that in just a few months we are becoming almost numb to the breach of trust in our financial markets, our political leaders and our media. Our impeached former governor of Illinois is getting another round of talk show appearances as reward for his breach of public trust while our new Governor Quinn struggles to get people to listen. The media chooses to report on Jessica's ill-chosen blue jeans rather than the good, decent hard work of many Americans who are assisting others in these difficult times. CEOs take bonuses out of bailout money while laying off thousands and then quizzically wonder why anyone is upset. Our children are growing up watching this... and watching this... and watching this... because that is what they, and everyone else, does in this communications-saturated culture.

Yet, we cannot function as individuals or a culture without a certain level of trust. When that trust is broken, society begins to break down and the quality of our life begins to suffer. We cannot presume that it will improve, especially for the next generation, unless we proactively work to redevelop trust. We must teach our children to trust and to engender trust. We must be living examples of that trust because they will always watch what we do rather than what we say. We must teach them to understand the investment required to develop trust and the cost of not developing it or we will end up as a "society" of individuals sitting at our computers, building walls, barricades, fail safes and false identities around ourselves.

That is not what we want to teach to our children.

Far From the Madding Crowd and other Pithy Comments

As a Chicagoan I have the distinct displeasure of living in a state that is undergoing significant political turmoil, and yet the surreal events surrounding our governor hold a certain fascination. While his impeachment trial begins in Springfield, he appears on national talk shows telling us all that he almost appointed Oprah to the Senate. It didn't take long for various on-line polls to ask whether we think Oprah should have been appointed to the Senate. This, in addition to hourly polls of the Illinois Governor's approval rating, the President's approval rating, our opinions of the dresses chosen by the First Lady, and the type of dog the First Family should choose.

Never have so many differing opinions about so many issues had so little relevance. Our children are growing up in a society that feels a right to comment on everything instantaneously with no time for reflection nor concern for the consequences of voicing such opinions. We need to proactively teach our children that not every issue is subject to a public opinion poll or a majority vote. There are certain matters on which the correct choice is not the popular choice. There are certain matters that should be left to experts to decide. I do not want an Internet vote on whether I should have surgery and I do not want the President to take a public opinion poll on every issue before him.

As Winston Churchill so aptly stated "I hear it said that leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture." In contrast there is the story of the French revolutionary who jumped up and cried "There goes the mob. I am their leader. I must follow them."

Os Guinness, in his book "The Call," states that our decisions, opinions and actions, including our decisions on our life's work and calling, should have an Audience of One - the One being the God of the Universe. We need to teach our children what is right and true and then help them to base their decisions on those principles, rather than the fickle movement of the crowd.

Such a concept needs to be proactively taught to our children in these times because it is counter to technology and culture, which are powerful allies.

So what do you think of this concept? Please email me back with your votes and I will post the results on line .............

Grandma's Cane and Other Profundities

On the wall of my office hangs my grandmother's cane. She used to babysit me when I was a little child and she would hit a ball to me with her cane and I would hit it back. The reason a young boy was willing to quietly pursue this activity for hours on end was not due to any overdose of cold medicine, but rather because my grandmother told me stories the whole time. She told me Bible stories and Ukrainian folk stories and morality tales and anything she could think of during those wonderful afternoons.

Now what does that have to do with teaching today's kids? Everything. The purpose of "teaching" is really to pass on our accumulated wisdom and to enable our children to use that wisdom to think for themselves and make wise decisions in their lives. That requires more than passing on information or skill sets, and it is what is most lacking in the majority of educational programs today. My grandmother did not pass on to me any chemical formulas, any calculus equations, any graphs, charts or literary analysis. She passed on to me something deeper: a sense of purpose, an understanding of the integration of all knowledge and a desire to always seek context and meaning. She also taught me to ask "Why?"

There is simply too much information available for our children to possibly memorize or even review it all. What we must teach them today is to look for the context, to find the pattern, to always seek their purpose and to continually ask "Why?" And we cannot exclude a discussion of faith from the equation. It is the only area of inquiry that can truly satisfy questions of purpose, context and meaning.

That is how learning can be an exciting journey for student and teacher and it is why I switched careers to be involved with education. It is why I look at Grandma's cane every day with gratitude and awe for what she was able to pass down.

First Time Out

Hello out there. I will be posting my first blog entry tomorrow so tune back in then if you want to read any of my slightly off beat musings about education, technology, today's kids and what we need to do for them.