A Lioness Always Protects Her Cubs

August 12th, 2010

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The Munchkin

August 9th, 2010

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Paul Washer

August 6th, 2010

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Thoughts on Courtship, Dating and the Family

August 5th, 2010

The following is taken from the Parenting with Purpose web site. Thank you J.A.

…So courtship or dating? Well, neither is taught in scripture as the only way to go. But principles are throughout scripture teaching what our conduct should be like as Believers in Christ. So, to sum up the advice we as parents give our kids…

1. Build healthy friendships viewing the other person as precious to God and a sister or brother in Christ to you.

2. Be respectful and kind, but clearly communicate when you have no interest in pursuing a relationship.

3. Look out for one another (siblings) and help one another. Brothers, protect your sisters.

4. Before pursuing any relationship further, make sure the person LOVES the Lord Jesus Christ and wants to always live for Him. Make sure they have a healthy relationship with their own family and want to get to know yours — taking the time and effort to do that (and visa versa). I always tell my boys, “Any girl worth having (as a wife), is worth working for!”

5. Look for a stable person who is not always discontent, but lives his or her purpose exactly where the Lord has them and who believes in biblical roles for the family.

6. For girls, look for a young man who LOVES God’s word and is willing to lead in studying it together daily. For boys, look for a young lady who LOVES God’s word and is willing to have you lead in studying together.

7. Look for a praying person — someone with an on-going relationship with the Lord, not just a person counting on their own wisdom for decisions in life. One of the best things we ever did was to start out our marriage by praying together before we go to sleep each night. That has been a big blessing through the years! I highly recommend it!

8. Look for a person who is willing to have boundaries in dating/courtship and someone who is honest about it.

9. Look for a person who has the same Biblical convictions as you and is not in another system or method of beliefs. One who is always willing to study the word of God for direction — not referencing as their source of truth, the writings or words of other people past or present. We have the word of God and that is our only source of absolute truth.

10. Live for the Lord Jesus Christ in all you do. Be the best “you” you can be for the glory of Jesus Christ. Be all the things and do all the things you would want in a spouse. Live scripture, put others first, in all situations seek to do what is best pleasing to the Lord Jesus the Messiah!

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Delayed Formal Math Approach

August 5th, 2010

Having read your article on teaching math, we have delayed formal academic math instruction and focused on living math instead. Our daughters are now 11 & 9. Now what? Specifically, what do you recommend that I use to teach “in a few weeks” K-6 academic math? What have you used? I appreciate any insight or advice you can offer.

Angelica Barnes Grunden

First, here is a summary excerpt from our article Research on the Teaching of Math:

1. Formal textbook or workbook instruction in arithmetic may begin at age ten. It is about age ten that the developmental light bulb goes on, and the child becomes capable of a great deal more mental and physical skill. (Of course that’s not an absolute rule. With a few children, it is as early as eight. We call them “bright” children because the developmental light bulb goes on early.) Waiting until the child is developmentally prepared to handle the concepts makes instruction in arithmetic very easy, because the child learns very quickly.

2. There is no necessity for formal teaching in arithmetic before age ten. Once all of the developmental parts are there, most children can learn – in a few weeks – everything which they might have spent six years learning (kindergarten through fifth grade), that is, if they haven’t already learned it through questions and experiences and working things out on their own — which is generally the case.

3. Depending upon the child, upon the method, and upon the subject matter covered, there exists the potential for developmental harm from the formal teaching of arithmetic before age ten. Small children cannot understand many arithmetic concepts at an early age. We can teach them to perform the process, but we cannot make them understand the concepts. The child “learns” to hate “learning.” The child’s understanding develops along the wrong lines. He may actually develop mental “blocks” to arithmetic – actual physiological blocks in the brain. (This may give new meaning for the term “blockhead.”)

4. Not formally teaching arithmetic before age ten frees up a lot of time for other activities which will build the vocabulary of the child. Vocabulary is the number one index of intelligence. Developing vocabulary was one of the deliberate foci of ancient education. We waste valuable time for developing vocabulary and verbal language skills if we instead spend those hours teaching a five year old to count by fives. (He’ll know it intuitively by age ten anyway, without ever being taught.) Instead, we ought to spend those hours reading to him. We only have so much time in the day. Do we want to spend it trying to force math skills into a child who developmentally is not optimally prepared, or spend it doing what is developmentally natural to a young child – learning new words and associating them with new ideas and experiences. Stretch the child’s vocabulary during the formative years, and when he’s developmentally ready to do some deeper thinking, he’ll have a mind prepared to take on the task, and he’ll take off like a rocket.

Also, we suggest reading our article On Early Academics. We like to refer readers to these two articles whenever they are considering the delayed formal math approach.

But you asked us what specifically we suggest to start with if one adopts this delayed formal math approach. I’ll tell you how we approached math. Perhaps you can use some of these suggestions. Our children who were below age ten studied math informally. We played dominoes, Rummicube, card games, dice games, score-keeping games, and other counting type games. We taught the children to count and write their numbers. I remembered them playing store and restaurant and asking me how to add up a series of numbers. They built calculators and cash registers out of matting board scraps that we obtained at the local art store. They played with play money and coins. Your average homeschooling family life is full of informal arithmetic exercises. Of course, cooking and chores involve lots of informal math. By the time a child is ten he will probably know how to add. He probably won’t have many of the math facts memorized, though. Some memorize these facts easily, some have a more difficult time. At age ten, I made for the child (or had the child make) two different arithmetic grids – one for addition and subtraction and one for multiplication and division. I’m not sure what they are really called. Each grid consists of a square piece of paper with the digits 1 through 9 running in a column along the left side of the page (with 1 at the top and 9 at the bottom) and again in a row along the top of the page (with 1 at the left and 9 at the right). Where the two 1’s come together (similar to a mileage chart where you are trying to find out how far it is from one city to another) you write the digit “2″ (1+1=2). Where the 1 on the left and the 2 at the top come together you write the digit “3″ (1+2=3). You continue like that till the grid is filled in. This would be the addition and subtraction grid. The multiplication/division grid would work similarly. They are a sort of answer key for the math facts.

At age ten we start the child in formal math with a 6th grade math textbook (we used Saxon, but I’m sure any math curriculum would work fine). I gave the child these two grids, and they are allowed to use them when doing their math lessons. At age eleven I took away the addition/subtraction grid. The child should have the addition/subtraction facts memorized by then. If I think that he doesn’t have them memorized then we would drill on them till he does have them memorized. At age twelve I took away the multiplication/division grid.

This system worked well for us. All five of the children did well in math, finishing the Saxon Advanced Math textbook (Nathan went on to finish Saxon Calculus).

Let me know if you have more questions concerning this approach. We would be happy to answer them!

Laurie Bluedorn

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Review of Holman Christian Standard Bible

August 2nd, 2010

Here is my review of the Holman Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2004).

The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention originally planned to use what has become the Holman Christian Standard Bible as a replacement for the NIV. They originally chose Arthur Farstad (who edited the New King James Version) as general editor. Edwin Blum replaced Farstad after Farstad’s death. The translation team had a large representation of Southern Baptists. The stated concern which motivated the translation was that modern Bible translations were conforming themselves to the culture and to political agendas, whereas culture and agendas should be conforming themselves to the Bible.

1. The textual basis of the HCSB is the Nestle-Aland Greek text. In my opinion, the N-A Greek text does not follow Biblical criteria for evaluating witnesses. From my point of view, this is a measurable defect.

2. The method of translation claims to strike a balance between Formal Equivalence and Dynamic Equivalence, using what it calls Optimal Equivalence. It marks with lower corner brackets many of the words which were added for sense or style. In practical terms, it tries to be less literal and more interpretive than an interlinear, but more literal and less interpretive than the NIV.

3. The English literary style of the HCSB is simplified English, both in structure and choice of vocabulary, though it does retain some theological vocabulary. It uses contractions, omits words and expressions which the editors thought were redundant, and substitutes nouns for pronouns or pronouns for nouns to remove ambiguity. Its English prose style is not proper and dignified, but it is perhaps a little more formal than conversational English. The translation is more gender-neutral than either the NASB or the NIV (but less than the TNIV).

The HCSB has a large number of footnotes which offer alternate translations or more literal translations of the text. There are also some marginal notes on different manuscript readings.

The HCSB is nicely formatted with paragraphing, poetic lining, bold quotations, italicized foreign words, descriptive headings, inter-marginal cross references, and bullet notes which explain certain words.

My overall impression is that the HCSB is a very readable but not a very quotable translation. I have found some places where, in my opinion, the translation was exceptionally good, and other places where it was not so very good. Overall, I do not think it represents a good literary standard for others — particularly students — to memorize and follow. I do appreciate very much the attempt (within the limits of the translation’s own presuppositions) to mark those words which were added for sense and style, and by supplying an abundance of more literal or alternate translations in the footnotes. But, in my opinion, it falls too far short on textual base, method of translation, and literary style. I wouldn’t make it my main English translation, but it may be worth keeping around for purposes of comparison.

Harvey Bluedorn

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