Teaching Education and Academics at the Turn of the Century

This is not a book of answers. It is a set of essays written over a period of years, appearing in the quarterly journal of the Phi Kappa Phi Forum. The articles raise questions, and give anecdotal evidence of the existence of these questionable issues.

Some readers have reviewed this and found the timelessness of the issues remarkable. The Pendulum speaks to the twenty year cycle perceived in educational practices. The Rank Book relates the different options that exist in this ever-changing method of recording achievement in an effort to report on student accomplishments.

Each article has a different focus, and was carefully written to explore the questions that arise about public education in the beginnings of this new century.

The final article, Questions Worth Asking, shifts the focus away from academic and athletic prowess, and the lengthy resumes of high school students applying to college. It looks instead to what accomplishments the student may have failed to list; those community efforts that are small and unseen: kindness, helpfulness, support, charitable interventions, and sharing.

Those who open the book looking for answers will realize, in reading these essays, that the answers lie within themselves, and within their community. But the discussions of those problems begins here.