Posted in The Principle Approach: Self-Directed Study

Dear PA’ers,

            As we move along, I want to encourage you to keep in mind that the Principle Approach gives us liberty to govern our own pace.  God will grant you the time to study at the pace He has set for you.  Commit simply to God’s pace for the process of “renewing” your mind.  In fact, the renewal of our minds is what this week’s lesson is all about.

 Karen

Week 3—Assignment

• Lesson 2
  • Gaining the Mind of Christ
• Supplemental Resources:  Hebrews 4:12; Psalms 119
• Assignments:
  • Review/Study /Sample Word Study on “Heritage”
  • Writing Assignment in SDS Booklet—(#1)—Do a Word Study on “renew”. 

Lesson 2—Gaining the Mind of Christ

            This week has been so substantive, as is usual with The Principle Approach, the following are some highlights.

• Due to the secularization of our culture, we ourselves are the products of the “vain philosophies” of modern American Education.
• It is only by the renewal of our minds through God’s Word that we can purge man’s vain philosophies and gain the mind of Christ.
• As we ourselves learn, we also can teach our children in the habit of searching for principles, answers, and solutions in the Word of God.
  • God’s Word consecrates, inspires, and builds intellectual virtue for which we glorify Him—the source of all wisdom & knowledge.  (See Hebrews 4:12)
  • Psalms 119 gives a beautiful description of the value of searching for godly principles in God’s Word.
• Christian Scholarship—
  • Marks of a Christian Scholar

§         Reading with comprehension

§         Speaking with readiness

§         Writing with precision and persuasion

§         Able to articulate ideas and teach others

§         Artful communication

o       Value of Christian Scholarship

§         Precise and clear communication in order to fulfill the Great Commission to articulate our faith with others.

      1828 Noah Webster Dictionary

o       “Education is useless without the Bible.”—Noah Webster, Father of American Christian Education & Scholarship

o       Noah Webster researched the root meaning of each word & defined each word in light of its use in the Bible and in the new Christian constitutional republic.

o       Mastering the vocabulary of a subject lays the foundation for understanding the subject being studied guiding us in the pathway of “thinking and reasoning” since words inspire ideas.

      Word Study Format—Heart of Christian Scholarship

o       This is the first step of The Principle Approach—if you want to start PA in History—do a Word Study in History, Mathematics, etc.—so that you may begin the process of mastery of the vocabulary of the subject; which sparks ideas; which then sparks thinking and reasoning of the subject or topic.  From my personal experience, it actually HAPPENS that way.

o       Do you or can you do this with every aspect of your daily teaching?—If you do, you’re braver than I.  Realistically, we can’t do it with daily teaching.  Do it first yourself to get a grasp of the course or subject and then as time goes on you’ll begin to get a feel when you don’t have a grasp of a subject or topic and need to do a Word Study.  The first few Word Studies will take you the longest and then you’d be surprised at how fast you get.  If you’re going to do your Word Study on the computer or you use your computer a lot, this is where I find the websites for Webster at http://www.cbtministries.org/resources/webster1828.htm and the Biblical words at http://www.bible.com invaluable.  Now, it isn’t always advisable to do it this way…but I have done so and sped up my word studies.

o       In my first quarter of implementing The Principle Approach, I only did my word studies for the subject as a whole.  But little by little I began doing them more and more as I needed more information.  It wasn’t grueling but enlightening and freeing.  It’s hard to understand until you start feeling the freedom and ability to deviate from your curriculum because you know what you need to teach and aren’t always relying on your curriculum to tell you exactly what to do for every step.  And according to “A Master Teacher’s Testimony” of the Self-Directed Study (NPSDS), “Those who have the greatest success are those who look to Christ for the faith to develop their own curriculum and to write their own lesson plans.  These are the teachers who become masters of subjects – the ‘lively textbooks’ – and masterful teachers who model the character and standard of Christ in the classroom.”[1]

o       The 4 R’s (Word Study Format)

§         Research— This part is where you define vocabulary and look up relevant Scripture.

§         Reason— Here you identify, from the Biblical truths researched, the Biblical principles of the subject being studied. (As Christians we do this all the time in life application of Scripture.  Now we’re taking it one more step toward God’s Biblical principles gleaned from His Word in academic subjects.)

§         Relate—Apply Biblical truths individually

§         Record—A written record of that which is learned and studied in the application of Biblical truth.

§         Caveat—First we, as teachers, must begin the process of 4-R’ing before we can pass this on to our children.  I personally started that process with Word Studies in my Notebook.  As to the kids, we started with copy work and Biblical reasoning through oral discussion.  Biblical reasoning with our children is not such an odd thing.  We do this all the time as Christian parents in training up our children in the ways of the Lord.  The goal is extending the Biblical reasoning process further and further into academia relating all things to God’s Word and actually recording that reasoning.

I hope you all are enjoying the process of learning and renewing your minds.  We can only do this one step at a time.  Always remember…we not only have liberty to govern our pace; but liberty of the subject content we teach; and liberty of the enrichment that we weave into our course of study.