At the heart of my dissertation work is the importance of education. To put it negatively, a lack of proper education is often found at the very heart of society’s greatest problems. And if it’s not at the heart, at the very least poor education exacerbates other societal weaknesses. Take our nation’s current political climate as an example. How much of today’s polarization could be toned down if the populace was trained in critical thinking? I believe this much: if the citizens magically became critical thinkers tomorrow, much of the politicians’ rhetoric would fall flat. Their word games would be…

I have a recurring stress dream where I am a new teacher in an unfamiliar school and I’m running late on my first day of classes. As I run down the hallway (sometimes in my underwear), I realize I have forgotten where my classroom is.  Yesterday, reading the email informing me that I was a month into a class I didn’t even know I was enrolled in felt a lot like that. But only at first.  After the initial shock wore off, I discovered I wasn’t feeling too panicked in general.  The class’s major project will be the completion of…

(I will add some photos to this post when I can.) Aberdeen. It’s a place name that meant something to me from my earliest childhood, long before I first stepped foot on the campus of Aberdeen University as a college junior the fall of 1988.  My father’s roots were in Aberdeen, South Dakota. It is where my family drove in the summertime for a visit to my grandparents.  The warm feelings and familiarity with the name “Aberdeen” undoubtedly played a role in making Scotland first choice among the study abroad options available to me. (My shyness and lack of foreign…

Here’s what I was thinking as our plane touched down in Edinburgh, Scotland this morning at 10:30 local time (5:30 am Indiana time!): I have truly arrived.  And that’s because it occurred to me that if anyone had told 21-year-old me back in 1989, the last time I was in Scotland, that I would return 36 years later with my beautiful and talented wife to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary … That she and I would have 4 incredible children – 2 handsome boys and 2 gorgeous girls … That my oldest son would be proudly serving as an officer…

This isn’t really a post. It’s an explanation of why I didn’t post tonight. With Melissa and Sarah in Gatlinburg, Tennessee for a dance competition this week, Samuel and I have been the only ones around the house. He was fighting a nasty head cold earlier this week and I have been trying to get ahead on some of my work tasks so that I won’t have to work over our time in Scotland next week. So we haven’t really spent any time together this week. Heck, we really haven’t just hung out since he returned home in May. I…

Melissa, Sarah, Samuel, and I joined some friends last night to enjoy some of the local fireworks from the roof of their house.  Some of the best seats in the city. As we were waiting for the show to start, I was doing the math in my head and realized that next year will be the 250th birthday of the nation.  And then I felt old because I remember the bicentennial! I was 8. And while I suddenly felt old, it also reminded me that our nation is quite young! Afterall, I’ve been alive for over a fifth of our…