In
my program, the New Salem Educational Initiative, I provide an excellent
education to young people from extraordinarily challenging economic
circumstances:
For
twenty-three years I have directed and taught in the Tuesday Tutoring Program
of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church;
and
for twelve years I have directed and personally provided all of the academic
instruction in a seven-day-a-week program for students who gather with me in
groups ranging from one to five participants.
Ever
since I stepped into a classroom forty-three years ago, I have had boundless
faith in the potential of students of all demographic descriptors to respond to
the highest academic challenges, posed in an environment that radiates my
confidence and conveys in no uncertain terms my love for the young people whose
futures I regard as my personal responsibility.
As
my regular followers and readers know, I am now nearing completion of two books
(I have written eight books previously, most of them on Amazon, three of them
on Taiwan found in libraries and government agencies all over the world):
One
of these two new books, Fundamentals
of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, provides the excellent education for which I
advocate, delivering compact courses over fourteen chapters pertinent to
economics, psychology, political science, world religions, world history, America
history, African American history, English Usage, literature, fine arts,
mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics;
the
other book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect,
proceeds in three parts giving, in order, objective information regarding the
inner workings of the Minneapolis Public Schools, analysis of that information, and a philosophy
that should guide the school district toward a promising future.
The
latter book ultimately reveals the flaws of the Minneapolis Public Schools and
indicates a route to transformation; the
former book provides a curricular model that should guide the Minneapolis
Public Schools in the future.
As
you scroll on down this blog, you will find an exam that I have generated for
the Psychology chapter of Fundamentals
of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.
This is the type of exam that I will devise for all fourteen of the
chapters in that book. I have three students
who recently concluded their study of the Psychology
chapter and now are poised to take the exam.
I always model good performance on exams and writing assignments for my
students: I believe passionately in the
importance of my being an exemplar of what I expect from them.
Accordingly,
my students presently concluding their study of the Psychology chapter, will now take the exam.
Then
I will go over my own responses with them, so that they can see clearly any
flaws in their own responses and how they should meet my expectations. As we go over those responses, I will provide
any further explanation necessary for these students to gain full knowledge of
the key concepts that we have already covered in the chapter and that I now
expect on the exam. I stress to my
students that they need not and should not reproduce my words. But they should demonstrate firm knowledge of
the subject area and an ability to analyze the material. Any exams for which near perfect
understanding is not yet demonstrated will be retaken and discussed until such
an understanding is attained.
Further,
we will return to the material many times, as we integrate our knowledge into
other subject areas of study.
I emphasize to my students
that knowledge is forever; information
learned should be information retained.
As
you scroll on down, you will now have your own opportunity to take the Psychology exam.
For
you, who have not read the Psychology chapter
from Fundamentals
of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, this will be your opportunity
to test your own existing knowledge.
You’ll
be testing your own performance against young people who wake up to gunshots in
the night, whose families scramble to put food on the table and meet this month’s
rent.
After
you’ve taken the exam, scroll on down to the next entry, at which I provide my
own responses to the questions posed on the Psychology exam of my own composition.
Good
luck.
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