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School Layoffs
Paying Student Teachers
Deadline for School Board Candidates
Dr. Ralph Kerr with the Teaching and Learning Institute has a mission to encourage Christians to get involved with their local public schools. Here’s the latest on this week’s “Issues in Education” report.
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Dr. Ralph Kerr with the Teaching and Learning Institute discusses the weighty issues impacting our public school families each Monday on our “Issues in Education” Noon News Feature and online Podcast. Find out more about TLI and about Dr. Kerr’s work at WhyRun.org.
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Many men are tired, feeling guilty, and beat down — because of the challenge of meeting expectations, and (often) because they don’t feel the presence of a support system around them.
Into those realities, comes a national men’s ministry named Dad Tired. It’s founder, Christian pastor Jerrad Lopes, tells Family Life’s Greg Gillispie about the unexpectedly profound rationale behind the group’s name. He talks about why most men today feel like they struggle, about the one common theme he senses from men across the country (and how guys can resolve that #1 dilemma).
In this conversation, he also talks very personally about his own crisis which led to the beginning of the Dad Tired Ministry eight years ago, how he helps dads (and all men) discover hope and healing, and ways that wives and churches and friends can help encourage the men in their lives.
Lopes also previews his upcoming conference on Saturday April 13 at Batavia, New York. Details, registration and ticket information are available from www.FamilyLife.org/events.
Jerrad Lopes is also a podcaster and author on these matters. DadTired.com has an online community where thousands of men have connected and found mutual encouragement.
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Teacher Evaluations
Gym Class “Opt-Out”
Saving SUNY
Lots of “Issues in Education” to discuss this week. Our guest is Dr. Ralph Kerr at the Teaching and Learning Institute
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Should New York Students be Forced to take a Financial Literacy Course to Graduate ?
FAFSA Forms Still in Limbo
And Why Protecting Girls Sports is Worth the Fight
Dr. Ralph Kerr at the Teaching and Learning Institute tackles the tough topics facing our public schools Monday’s during the Noon Report on Issues in Education. Their website is WhyRun.org.
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Parenting: Taking the Long View
We want to raise our children well. Because of that, we look for instructions. That was true for parent and educational consultant Laura Spaulding.
“It seemed to be that there was always just a right way presented to you, and some of it came from the Christian culture, and some of it came from the neighborhood, and some of it came from TV,” she says.
Spaulding is the author of a January 2024 Gospel Coalition article titled Taking the Long View Revolutionized My Parenting.
Christian parents hold on to Proverbs 22:6, where we’re instructed to “train up a child in the way he should go,” so that, “when he is old, he will not depart from it. Taking that verse apart and recognizing what it really is saying: it is saying, ‘Start them this way, and it finishes this way.’ Like all the middle is so unique to each person,” she says.
Two decades into her parenting journey, Spaulding believes she’s developed some perspective.
“The chief end of parenting is not getting kids into perfect colleges so that they can find the perfect job and marry the perfect spouse, so that they could turn around and have perfect kids of their own,” she says. “The chief end of parenting, just like the chief end of life, is perfection for all eternity.”
That’s the kind of perfection that doesn’t come from formulas. It comes from Christ. “The ‘perfection for all eternity’ comes at the end of the race. At the end of the journey. And so our job as parents is to prepare our kids for a journey. It is to get them started.”
Get to know your children well, she says, and parent them accordingly. “Put the parenting books away and instead study the child in your arms,” she says, “really paying attention to what are their unique gifts and limitations. What motivates them. What stresses them out. What lights them up.”
Proverbs 22:6, Spaulding says, is a gracious invitation for taking a long view on the development of our children. “Use what you learn about them to help them know themselves, to help them know and relate to their Creator, to help prepare them for the good works that God has prepared in advance for them to do.
Join us for our 18-minute conversation by listening to the podcast.
Read the article that inspired this conversation here.
Read Laura Spaulding’s other writing here.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:40 — 7.8MB)
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Real Answers – How to Fight, Right – 2/21/24
New research discusses factors that lead to divorce. How people fight is an important dynamic.
Christian counselor Christopher Anderson joins Family Life’s Sarah Harnish to talk about how to fight in our relationships. He is not (obviously) encouraging spouses to seek out arguments, but to be able to handle disagreements well.
Attentive listening matters, he says. So does awareness on when to take a timeout to allow emotions to settle, so that the people involved can avoid increasing the tensions when differences arise. Anderson also suggests another good practice: writing out questions and responses ahead of time, when a problem needs solved.
“Real Answers” is a Wednesday Family Life news feature which helps Christians tackle the tough topics in our everyday lives. Check out our archives for more advice and encouragement — on relationships, parenting, work place issues, faith dilemmas and more, seeking a Biblical perspective on how to cope with and thrive in life.
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How School Choice for parents makes public schools better
College kids raising their own kids
Will New York make FAFSA forms mandatory?
Why many school districts have Winter Break
Dr. Ralph Kerr at the Teaching and Learning Institute discusses the weighty issues impacting our public schools on “Issues in Education” – airing Monday’s during the “Noon Report”
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This is the time of year when many college-bound students are finalizing applications for which school they intend to go to in the fall.
Also at issue: how to pay for higher education, whether that is for incoming first-year students or those who are already at a college or university.
For advice on the decision-making processes, we sought the perspective of President Wayne Lewis of Houghton University in Houghton, New York. In this Family Life Interview, you will hear:
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Enrollments at public schools continues to drop, drastically in some districts. The causes are numerous: population declines, lower birth rates, and the move to charter, private and home schooling.
Dr. Ralph Kerr of the Teaching and Learning Institute discusses the weighty issues in the news as they pertain to public education in this ongoing Family Life series. This week on “Issues in Education”:
Rethinking Education Aid in NY
