Nestled a short walk from the shores of Lake Malawi is a rust-coloured brick elementary school called Bandawe Primary. Maxwell Jr. is one of its 62 students in the classes for deaf students. The fact that he attends school is a remarkable story in itself – UNICEF reports that only 33 percent of children in…
On October 6, many Christian school teachers in Alberta could be on the picket lines instead of in the classroom. The last time Alberta Teachers’ Association members went on strike was in 2002, and since then, many Christian schools in the province have joined the public system. These schools receive full government funding, and teaching…
This September the usual back-to-school focus on new pencils and a different classroom sits on the surface of a boiling cauldron of controversial issues in education. From nursery schools to elite universities, education has become one of the biggest battlegrounds in the contest to control and shape social development in Canada and the U.S. In…
In my last column, I suggested that parents and teachers have a responsibility to vet the appropriateness of the materials that their children read, but that care must be taken not to judge a literary work on superficial moralistic grounds. An example of this moralistic impulse is the frequent banning of Mark Twain’s classic, The…
People differ in their mathematical ability. We all know this. Some of us suffered through high school math classes; others excelled. When looking at the overall distribution of scores on standardized math tests, a curious fact emerges: male students, on average, score higher than female students. Of course, individual females can have very high scores,…
In 2002 and 2003, there was a lively dialogue happening on the margins of the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA) in a little-known publication called Anastasis. Campus ministers had invited some wise friends to wonder together, asking, “What should a campus ministry look like in the post-modern age?” Dr. John Valk argued for…
In my home province of Alberta, there is currently much discussion and action around the banning of certain books from school libraries, mostly in response to “explicit sexual content.” This has led to the removal of a number of books by order of the Minister of Education. In response to the Minister’s actions, there have…
This summer I will take on the responsibility of chair of the Department of Computer Science at Calvin University. This part-time administrative role comes with many responsibilities: guiding the hiring and reappointment of faculty, scheduling classes, ensuring academic quality, managing budgets and generally keeping the “trains running on time” in the department. To be sure,…
Of all the beautifully chaotic energies that exist in the world, the opening night of a new play is one of my favourites. To stand in front of a live audience is always a risky endeavour. Gay On God’s Campus: The Students & Stories Behind the Headlines, created by Trinity Western University (TWU) alumni and…
Last month, I talked about my involvement in quality control at our public universities. I am a member of the Audit Committee of the Quality Council. At universities, each academic program undergoes a review every eight years by external academic experts to ensure that it stays up-to-date and continuously seeks to improve the quality of…
Perhaps it was inevitable, and a long time coming. To many Institute for Christian Studies (ICS) supporters, perhaps it does not come as a great surprise. On February 18, ICS President Dr. Ron Kuipers and Chair of the ICS Board of Trustees Daniel Beerens wrote a letter to the Synod Secretariat of the Christian Reformed…
I spent three full days at a university in late November as part of an academic audit. This visit was a step toward ensuring that Ontario universities offer high-quality and continuously improving education. Just as our reformed heritage calls for always reforming the church, universities continuously seek academic improvement. Quality assurance Several years ago, the…
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