I have largely avoided political issues of late, but today's WSJ op-ed piece by Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin is simply excellent. What he is trying to do in Wisconsin simply makes good fiscal and educational sense. Read it for yourself and see why. A couple noteworthy points: 1. Federal workers don't have collective bargaining for wages and benefits. Yet that's one of the perks that the public employee union in Wisconsin is fighting to retain. 2. The changes Gov. Walker seeks are modest: "We ask government workers to make a 5.8% contribution to their pensions and a 12.6% … [Read more...] about Scott Walker, Collective Bargaining, and Educational Effectiveness
Thriving at College
High Self-Esteem or High Test Scores?
That's the juxtaposition posed by Jay Mathews in this classic Washington Post article: "According to the Washington think tank's annual Brown Center report on education, 6 percent of Korean eighth-graders surveyed expressed confidence in their math skills, compared with 39 percent of U.S. eighth-graders. But a respected international math assessment showed Koreans scoring far ahead of their peers in the United States, raising questions about the importance of self-esteem." As I discuss in Thriving at College, it's better to have a sober estimation of one's skills (Rom. 12:1) - one … [Read more...] about High Self-Esteem or High Test Scores?
Challenges in Undergraduate Education
I'm almost half-way through this book and am finding it to be outstanding. Amazingly, it's still doing so well on Amazon, considering the somewhat focused topic -- which I think often limits sales to those with a "felt need" in that particular area. It's fundamentally a book about higher education for those "in the system" (like me) or concerned/interested with the process. A few weeks ago Thomas H. Benton penned an excellent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education reflecting on Academically Adrift. Benton argues that "few people outside of higher education understand how little … [Read more...] about Challenges in Undergraduate Education
The Myth of Inevitable Teen Rebellion
Dr. Robert Epstein (Ph.D., Harvard University) is a contributing editor for Scientific American Mind and a former editor in chief of Psychology Today. In the April/May 2007 issue of Scientific American Mind, Epstein penned an outstanding article entitled The Myth of the Teen Brain. It goes right after the notion, regularly popularized on the covers of magazines like Time and U.S. News & World Report, that incomplete brain development accounts for the emotional problems and general irresponsibility for which teenagers in our day have gained infamy, and that, consequently, rebellion and … [Read more...] about The Myth of Inevitable Teen Rebellion
A New AlexChediak.com
It's here: An updated website! (Thanks, Daniel.) Check it out -- some of the tabs above are menus. All the content from the old site should be here, and the organization should be a bit more clear. The resources tab contains published articles and some older audio interviews (I still need to get links for more recent--and I think better--interviews). You'll also notice the Facebook, Twitter, and general "share" feature all over the place. Finally! As you might suspect, there's a little information about a new book by the name of Thriving at College (368 pages, releases April 15, … [Read more...] about A New AlexChediak.com
Wilson, Olasky, and Moore on Thriving at College
I missed Wednesday, but here are a few more blurbs. My new website is coming soon, too. (Daniel - if you're reading this, what's the deal? :) ) "As a pastor in a college town, I have the privilege of working with college students all the time. I welcome the chance to get Thriving At College into as many of their hands as I can manage. If just a small fraction of the scriptural counsel offered here were to be put into practice, more than a small fraction of my pastoral migraines would go away. And who wouldn't want that?" Douglas Wilson Pastor, Christ Church, Moscow, Idaho Senior Fellow … [Read more...] about Wilson, Olasky, and Moore on Thriving at College