Week 1 of Dordt

Week 1 of my 3-week class-taking adventure at Dordt College is complete. It was relatively uneventful, with class coming to a quiet end on Friday at noon. The class covered spiritual formation in the classroom and was overall well-done. It could have become an "Evangelical-bashing," as some Reformed theological discussions easily do, but I was surprised about how little of that happened. The phrase "covenant child" was equated with "child of God" a few times erroneously, and young-earth creationists were implicitly accused of being theologically inferior once, but that was the extent of times where I felt that particular beliefs made me not fit. (Interestingly, I had a discussion at the end of the week with the other science teacher in the class. She and I both are young-earth creationists, while those who thought otherwise were administrators and humanities teachers. It fascinates me how we scientists seem to put less stock in science than the humanities people.)
The biggest challenge has been adjusting to a new "city." I put city in quotes since it is hard to refer to Sioux Center, population 6000, as a city. It's really a quiet farm town...that smells like pigs half the time...and has only one through street (Highway 75)...that is so torn up and rough that it is nearly impossible to drive on. But I digress. Living here has made me realize now how spoiled we are in Topeka. We have plenty of shopping and numerous activities. While Topeka may not be the greatest place in the world, at this point in my life, I enjoy living there.
So, one week down, two weeks to go. For my class this week, I am taking "Issues in Education," which is really a philosophy of education class. Here, as with last week, I expect that my support for a classical and Christian methodology is going to put at odds with most people in the class. As I face the potential for criticism and argument, it is important that I remember the old proverb: In the essentials, unity; in the non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.