Featured Essay / Blog
A concerned student recently asked me to use my authority over a friend of theirs (also a student and mentee of mine) to help get them on the right track, for this friend was involved in quite destructive behavior. As we were talking, I was growing increasingly uncomfortable, but when…
Essay / Education
It is beginning of August, and I am starting to think about the coming school year. Soon students will be returning to the university with a new or renewed sense of commitment to their academic pursuits. First year students are especially interesting to watch. Not
Essay / Education
This is a prayer for the 2007 graduates of the Torrey Honors Institute, spoken at the commencement ceremony on May 25, 2007. Our Father in Heaven, we bring before you today these graduates of the Torrey Honors Institute. They have spent four years with us,
Essay / Culture
Yesterday, Dr. John Mark Reynolds posted a letter that he had written to a student who was attempting to make a choice between Biola University and UC Berkeley. Parents should think through the implications of a university choice, and should consider what is the proper
Essay / Education
How does a parent know that their children are being educated? To say that someone is educated necessarily entails assessment but, often in today’s academic institutions much of what turns out to be an attempt at education and assessment turns out to be a mindless
Essay / Education
I hate writing in cursive. When I have to write with a pen onto paper I print. The last time I wrote anything in cursive other than my signature was when I was taking the GRE to get into graduate school. The ETS testing folks
Essay / Education
Kissing is an interesting thing. When we are young we kiss our parents, our siblings, and sometimes (often under duress) our extended family. When elementary school children discuss kissing technical language is often brought into play. A word like “cooties” (which is defined by the
Essay / Education
As the NFL draft is almost upon us it is hard not to notice the focus sports fans and sports writers have on excellence. Potential professional football players are be scrutinized by owners, coaches, writers and fans about what they could bring to their respective
Essay / Education
There is a growing crisis today with our public school system. Dropout rates are growing at an alarming rate. Academic standards are falling rapidly. Everyone from the Bush Administration to The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are interested in reforming our problematic public high schools.
Essay / Education
Occasionally, I am a little self-conscious of the fact that I have what some would call academic “guilty pleasures.” I like to read for pleasure works by and about Winston Churchill. I also enjoy books on 18th and 19th century British naval history. There have
Essay / Education
John Mark Reynolds, 2005. Read Part I here, and Part III here. Part II — Right Questions Find an educational enthusiast and you will meet someone with more faith than a fighting fundamentalist at a tent meeting. Whatever his system, he believes it contains the
Essay / Culture
John Mark Reynolds, 2005. Read Part II here, and Part III here. Part I — Community If I tell you to be a good student, you think of being alone in a library or sitting in a room chewing on the end of a pencil
Essay / Education
John Mark Reynolds, 2004. I have been thinking about Chrystostom’s Sermons on the Gospel of John and on Augustine’s “On Christian Teaching.” With much groaning, I have come to repudiate liberal arts education.Augustine famously described the “liberal arts education” as using the “spoils of Egypt”