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9:2 Editorial |
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Written by David Smith & John Shortt
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IN THE FIRST article in this issue, Trevor Cooling explores the place of theological curiosity in lives that seek to be faithful to Scripture. He argues that, far from being a threat to faithfulness, curiosity is actually required in the person who seeks to live under the rule of biblical teaching and should therefore be promoted in the formation of Christian teachers. He bases his argument in a critical realist approach which is wholly committed to the search for truth but which recognizes the role of contextual considerations in, and the fallibility of, all human interpretations of truth. As he puts it, 'theological curiosity encourages Christians to ask the questions that prevent them from slipping into the complacency of assuming that traditional interpretations are necessarily the correct ones' (p. 97). |
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9:2 The Role of the Holy Spirit in the Educational Thought and Practice of Charlotte Mason |
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Written by Stephen Kaufmann
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Charlotte Mason was a late Victorian writer and educator whose work is currently enjoying renewed interest among Christian and home schools in several countries. She wrote at a time when many of the claims of faith were being challenged by the claims of science. She resolved these sometimes competing claims by appealing to the work of the Holy Spirit as the author of both faith and science. Furthermore, she based her innovative pedagogical views on the belief that children were spiritual beings capable of both intellectual and spiritual communication with the Holy Spirit.
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9:2 Curiosity: Vice or Virtue for the Christian Teacher? |
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Written by Trevor Cooling
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Curiosity: Vice or Virtue for the Christian Teacher? Promoting faithfulness to Scripture in teacher formation
Most of those with responsibility for preparing Christian students for the ministry of teaching will agree that enabling them to be faithful to biblical teaching is a fundamentally important aim. It is suggested that two models of being faithful can be identified. The first emphasises faithful replication, the second emphasises theological contextualisation. Traditionally a replication model has been promoted but in this article it is suggested that the contextualisation model is to be preferred. Building on this suggestion, it is argued that the virtue of theological curiosity should be promoted in the formation of Christian teachers.
A full pdf of this article is availble for downloading: Curiosity: vice or virtue for the Christian teacher? |
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9:2 A Search for Intellectual, Relational and Spiritual Integrity |
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Written by Jan Gormas
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A Search for Intellectual, Relational and Spiritual Integrity: Secondary Mathematics from a Christian Perspective
The author positions mathematics as a socially constructed discipline created and maintained through collaborative consensus. The focus on decontextualized symbolic manipulation has transformed the richness of contextualized mathematics from a tool to model aspects of creation to a scheme of logical algorithms that often hold no ultimate meaning for secondary teachers or students. The result is bondage to textbook explanations, exalting acquiescence and indifference. A Christian worldview points to liberation and new life, using mathematics to collaboratively uncover our perceptions, build new understandings, while investigating and exposing the structural beauty and purposes of God's creation and the directional misuses that have distorted our understandings and uses of mathematics.
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9:2 Teaching Mathematics: It’s time to tell some new stories |
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Written by John Westwell
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A number of mathematics educators have called in recent years for a 'humanising' of the teaching of mathematics and even of the subject itself. One important way in which this can be done is by recognising the importance of story in human life and understanding in general and in mathematics teaching in particular. Using as an example the story of Florence Nightingale and her rose statistical diagrams, three 'stories within the story' are identified: the 'human-story', the 'mathematics-story' and the 'knowledge-story'. A way of making use of these within the mathematics classroom is suggested and areas for further research are identified.
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