Barnabas File

Despite major shifts  in society, the economy, and technology, changes in education have been slow (even glacial) in coming.  Whether we are looking at education for children, teenagers, or adults, we see systems  grounded in the 19th or early 20th centuries that seem impervious to adaptation. In Most Likely to Succeed:  Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era, authors Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith draw on their backgrounds  in education (Wagner) and innovation (Dintersmith) as well as their experience as parents to challenge the status quo in education. Here are their primary arguments: • Rapid advances in innovation are eliminating structured routine jobs from our economy, leaving millions of young Americans at risk. • The critical skills young adults need in the twenty-first century for careers in the world of innovation, and for responsible citizenship, are the very skills the school years eviscerate. • The education policies our country is ...

Have you ever had something you wrote come back to haunt you?  About 20 years ago, I was asked to write an article for The Campus Minister journal on “Where are We Going in Student Ministries?” and did so.  I had long forgotten this but it was brought to my attention recently by friend Wanda Kidd who sent me a copy.  As I reflect now on the ten observations in that article, I realize that some were general enough that I could not miss by including them. I am also reminded about how much things have changed in Baptist life since 1990, changes that led me to leave employment by the Executive Board of the Tennessee Baptist Convention and cast my lot with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.  So where did I get it right and where did I miss the mark? One prediction was, “We will use ‘high tech’ equipment and resources, but it will not take the place of ‘high touch’ activities.”  I was pretty much on the mark there.  I even commented that “we will ...