You have a Ph.D. in literacy, so what are you doing at the zoo? Teaching the animals to read?” This was a recurring quip I encountered from friends, colleagues, and others when they learned that I worked in an education department in a zoo. After many years teaching developmental reading classes, literacy methods for pre-service and veteran teachers, and using literacy as a catalyst for whole-school change in Chicago’s public schools, I found an offer one day that I could not refuse.

Values and Social-Emotional Development Abraham Maslow contended that after facing issues of survival and safety, humans address additional value and social-emotional needs. These include love and acceptance, leading toward self-actualization. He included acceptance, affection, confidence, self-expression, and creativity as human needs. For many children, these needs may be difficult to fulfill. While, some youth are […]

Growth is a hot topic these days. People talk about growth as and intellectual. Growth as a Christian. Growth in interpersonal skills. Growth in business skills. Sometimes growth and grit are spoken of together. I think the idea is that growth requires grit. It requires persistence. It sometimes requires single-mindedness toward a goal. In the […]

Editor’s Note: In 2014, Mimi Larson successfully defended her dissertation in early childhood education. Her empirical research was done in a preschool classroom of the Concordia Early Childhood Education Center. Her research has been presented at two national conferences: the National Association for the Education of Young Children in November 2015, and the Children’s Spirituality […]

Editor’s Note: As Lutherans in America, it is quite possible to think that we alone have benefitted from the Lutheran/Protestant Reformation which began in 1517 with the nailing of the 95 Theses on the Wittenberg church door. In reality, we clearly are beneficiaries of that “Lutheran” and educational legacy, but Protestant schools on every continent […]

As students, staff and communities who are part of Lutheran schools around the world spent the 500th anniversary year of the Reformation learning the significance of Martin Luther nailing 95 thesis to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg in 1517, they may not have realized how big the celebration has been. Most Lutherans […]

Editor’s Note: Throughout October 2017, Concordia hosted on campus a historic display of Reformation-era rare books. Over 2,500 visitors viewed in person 40 original items which told the Reformation story beginning with a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible (c. 1454) and culminating in J. S. Bach’s personal, annotated “Calov” Bible (1681). The exhibit was a […]

Editor’s Note: Martin Luther is well known for his Table Talks, conversations around a table with his students. Interchanges that changed the world. On October 30, 2017, on the eve of the Reformation500 anniversary, three church leaders gathered at Concordia University Chicago for a conversation at a table. The audience was more than a group […]

In the anniversary year of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, the “Luther Year,” it is important both to look back, and to look ahead. In what follows, I offer first an admittedly nostalgic retrospective on the reception of Luther among Roman Catholics. I will focus on the years just before and the couple of decades just […]

I speak from my own perspective as a seminary professor, one engaged in educating pastors and future leaders of the church. So my focus will be on the message of Luther and his followers and its continuing impact today. That message continues to give hope, consolation, and freedom today to millions of people. It has […]