Bama Taps Lavigne to Replace Shula

In a move that sent shock waves throughout the world of college football, the University of Alabama announced earlier today that it had hired singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne to be its next head coach.

So What Exactly Does an Education Student Do?

As many of you probably know by now, I am back in school studying to be an elementary school teacher.

Many of you are probably wondering:  What exactly does a student in a teacher education program do?

Effective teaching requires three basic dispositions of character:  (1)  You must have full command of the subject matter that you intend to teach.  (2)  You must be able to create learning environments where all students are able to learn and motivated to learn.  (3)  You must be able to interact respectfully, collaboratively, and professionally with others–students, parents, fellow teachers, school administrators, other professionals within the school environment, and members of the community at large.

Any teacher education program worth its salt will challenge you in order to develop these dispositions as much as possible.  Toward that end, there are lots of written papers, class presentations, and group projects.  Many courses have field experiences as well, where you spend time actually in a school, observing and working with a teacher during the school day.

Academically, the work is not too terribly demanding.  But it challenges you in many other ways.  The written assignments require you to express yourself effectively in written form.  The class presentations require you to express yourself effectively through oral communication before an audience of your peers.  The group projects require you to work cooperatively with others, regardless of how well you like them.  And the field experiences require you to apply everything you know toward the end of actually working in school with a real teacher and a real class.

In short, it’s a lot of work.  But what I’ve found is that if you go to all your classes, do the work, and pull your weight in all your group projects, you will get good grades.

Warren and Obama: Get Over It

Rick Warren is hosting a global AIDS awareness conference at Saddleback Church.  Among the speakers is Illinois senator and potential 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Barack Obama is considered by many to be a rising star in his party.  He is a very articulate and intelligent leader, and many in his party have placed their hopes for its future success on him.  He is very sincere in the expression of his faith, and he articulates it in a way that seems to resonate with a lot of people.  Many other politicians in his party are envious of his ability to do this.

Barack Obama is the son of a Kenyan who came to America as an exchange student.  Because of this, he is something of a celebrity back in his father’s homeland.  He is active in working with issues dealing with Africa, and he recently completed a trip to Kenya and South Africa whose purpose was to raise consciousness of the African AIDS epidemic.

There’s just one problem.  Barack Obama is a pro-choice Democrat.

Gay Penguins and Teetotalers?

I like to fancy myself an astute observer and commentator on the world of evangelical Protestant-dom.  So in that vein, here are a couple of items of interest that are out there on the Web.

First:  A children’s book about gay penguins came out recently, and seems to be causing quite a stir.  Baptist Press feels so strongly about this that they wrote this article in order to bring it to our attention.

Here is my take on the gay penguin situation.

First of all, I think it shows the complete and total irrelevance of the culture war.  Is this the sort of thing that we have to stoop to in order to awaken people to the need for social change and get them on board with our vision of how society ought to be? 

Somebody wrote a children’s book about gay penguins.  Lock your doors, folks!  The gay penguins are coming after your child, and they’re bringing gay activists, naturalists, atheists, evolutionists, fornicators, whoremongers, and all sorts of other unsavory characters with them.  No child is safe, as long as the gay penguins are on the loose!!!!!

Big fat hairy deal.