We believe that education goes far beyond the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Join us as we explore just a few of the wide array of academic elective courses offered at Veritas Scholars Academy!

Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.

Susan Gimotty:
Hi, folks I'm Susan Gimotty. And I am an academic advisor at Veritas Scholars Academy. And I am eager to talk about electives tonight and all Veritas has to offer. We're going to pray and get started. Let's go ahead.

Dear Lord, we thank you for this day and all your many blessings. We are grateful for Veritas and all the wonderful electives that we offer. We just pray as we, explore opportunities to customize education for different students, Father, we just pray that you would lead us and you would guide us. We commit all our ways to you in Christ's name. Amen.

All right. So our agenda for this evening, I'm going to be starting this off, and then we're going to have a lot of teachers who are going to be sharing about different electives. And I'm going to take the part about why take electives as the academic advisor here and, just kind of sharing about what that can look like. And then we're going to have, a little spiel about each of many of our electives, and then we'll do some breakout rooms as well.

So the first thing I want to do is just mention, how to choose the best elective for your family.

I have four children, and all of whom have graduated from Veritas and I also have helped about 100 kids get into college straight from Veritas. And so I like to think about these electives like a tool belt. When I drive by a construction site and I see a construction worker, he has one of those big fat tool belts on his waist, and he has all of his necessary tools in there so he doesn't have to run back and forth to the truck many times.

I like to look at electives like what as a parent, do you think needs to get in your child's tool belt before you launch them off? And there's many answers to the question. First of all, maybe they are going to a secular university. And so maybe something like apologetics might be a really good elective.

Learning more why you believe what you believe. Oftentimes we think we get a lot of that in Omnibus, which we do. But apologetics takes that one step further. My youngest daughter, Grace, went about a year ago or a year and a half ago. She was a senior at Veritas, and she thought maybe she'd like to major in business and college.

Well, quite frankly, at a classical school, we don't get a lot of business classes and business experience. And so I said, Grace. Fabulous. But, we're going to take business classes your senior year, so you're going to get your feet wet and see if this is something you want to do. So Grace took statistics, economics and business math her senior year.

And the short story is she loved it. But even if she would have said I didn't like it, mom, it would have been very helpful because switching your major in college is very expensive. My second son, he's in engineering. He took classes that were high-level science, high-level math, computer programing, things like that, to get him ready for his engineering program.

My oldest son was pre-med and finance, and so things like taking anatomy and physiology. See if you actually like this medicine stuff before you launch to college. And so that's what I think about when I think of the tool belt. So first of all, if you're like, well, I'm really not sure. Well, what is your child interested in?

And I love this little chart to the right. And it's a little worksheet that you can simply do very easily with your own child. what am I good at? What do I love? And what do others say I'm good at? I was talking to a friend of mine. I mentor some folks here in Kansas City, and, she is a freshman at college, and she's basically going to drop out.

Why? Because she says I still haven't figured out what I want to do, and it seems like a waste of money. And I said to her, tell me what you're good at. And in two seconds she rattled off like three things. And I said, what do others think you're good at? And she gave me another list, and I said, Gabby, I actually think you do know what you want to do.

It's just maybe not as precise as being a nurse or being a teacher. And so I like this little chart on how, you could sit down and work with your child and actually say, okay, what am I good at? Maybe you're good at graphic design. Well, maybe, doing a computer programing class might be good. Or maybe an art class.

And to get your drawing skills improved. What electives will complement your students core courses? that's another option here. You know, maybe, like the business math or something like that, that we don't really force our Veritas graduates to get that business math experience. But maybe that would complement your students core courses.

And the fourth point here, are there multiple potential career paths, and how might these electives sorted out? My example for Grace is exactly. This point right here, that taking those three electives for senior year, none of those were required helped her identify. Yes, this is what I want to do. She frequently says, I'm so glad I took Doctor Calendar's economics course. She said, and, she had a she actually used that economics course for one of her two economics classes that was required at her university, and then she took the other one last semester.

And she's like, mom, I learned so much of this stuff already. And, it just built on what she already knew. So we also offer some random electives in the summer. Maybe summertime is where you have a little more time, like biblical Archeology or Intro to Theater random electives that, might be better suited in the summer. So let's talk about what is required.

I know many of you in this room are diploma students, and I recognize many of your names, and several of you are my diploma students. This answer is how many electives do you get as a diploma student? The answer to this is not exact because it depends on what track you're on. So for sure you get 1 or 2, and if you are on the associate track, you might even get upwards of five.

And so that's how you can add those extra courses and still meet your credit requirements. But if you're not sure, you could reach out to your Academic Advisor and they would tell you how many electives you get. You always can take more than the minimum, but that is the minimum. If you're not a diploma student, which I know we have several in the room as well. You can take as many as you want because the rules don't apply to you if you're not a Diploma Student. And that is really more of a family decision and what you want to see on the transcript. And so let's talk about what we offer versus the other guys. I think one thing that, we are just heads and shoulders would be our teachers.

You're going to meet many of them tonight, and they are tried and true. I've mentioned a few off the top of my head already tonight, and they have changed my kids lives forever.

The rigor of the course. I was just on the line with the new family coming in, and he had taken a foreign language at another online school, and they said, Susan, if I'm honest, my kid is not ready to go to the, second level of the modern foreign language.

They said it was very watered down, etc., and they said, quote, if I'm honest, it was kind of a waste of money. Trust me, nothing's watered down here. You can you can expect that the rigor of the course will be very high. The third point is, probably one of my favorites. I help about 60 kids that get into college every year, and this dual enrollment is a big deal, and this can affect which electives you choose to take.

What is dual enrollment? In short, it's taking a high school course, paying an extra fee and getting college credits. You don't do any more work. The teachers don't even know you're taking it for dual enrollment. It's simply filling out the form, paying the fee, and then getting college credit. And so that is, when you're thinking about electives, that might be the rudder that, kind of steers the ship towards electives.

And lastly, you can have confidence that all will be taught through the lens of Scripture. And, you know, just kind of that Socratic method. My youngest came home for a fall break, and she was like, you know, mom, one thing I really miss is at college is just kind of about getting the right answer. She says, I miss those deep discussions that we would have at Veritas, and I just think so much of that is through the lens of Scripture. And we are trustworthy here. that your kids will be exposed well to Scripture and, just how that worldview affects life.

So let's talk a little bit more about the dual enrollment and, that is this is our exhaustive list of dual enrollment. And I'm going to just point out a few of my favorites. And this plays into electives that you might want to choose.

One of my favorites is at the very bottom in U.S. government. That is an elective. It's very popular. And one reason why it's very popular is a it's an incredible course. You’d think you get a ton of this, in Omnibus, which you kind of do. But U.S. government is a whole nother level. Grace said, mom, everything I knew about U.S. government I got from a TV show, Madam Secretary. Haha.

And so it was funny when she actually took the course, in her senior year, she's like, man, I just know so much more. The bottom line is, most kids in college have to take U.S. government, so you might as well take it with us and get high school credit and college credit. Another one I like a lot is psychology.

if you your kid is maybe kind of thinking counseling psychology or any of that, I think getting their feet wet here at Veritas from a Christian perspective is really helpful. And then they can see kind of like Grace was trying to figure out, do I like business? Well, maybe your kid needs to figure out, do I like psychology?

And that goes back to, this little worksheet, things I'm good at. If your kid puts down, I'm good at talking problems through with my friends. Well, that might be a tip that she or he might want to go into psychology or counseling or something like that. I already mentioned economics. I like that one a lot. Statistics is great if you're going to have to read a chart or a graph in your profession, that would be a nurse, a teacher, a business man. You are going to have to take statistics in college.

And I would say if you pull 100 people and say, what is your hardest class you took in college? over half of them would say statistics, so might as well just get that checked off in high school. another one I like. Kind of a sleeper over here is Rhetoric II.

Rhetoric II technically would be an elective for most of our plans here. And every kid in college has to take comp speech 101. So those are kind of my favorites. There's many other ones, depending on what you want to do. And, you know, you see anatomy and physiology here. That's a that's a big one. I like problem solving a lot.

You know, you're going to need calc one and calc two if you're going to do any type of stem, etc.. So those are kind of some of my favorites. Again, dual enrollment is not necessarily the rudder for these electives, but it could be the rudder for these elected. Do you have to be in the diploma program to take our dual enrollment classes?

The answer is no. You just pay in addition to an extra fee. You pay a little bit more than an extra fee. And you can also get dual enrollment credits. All my kids from Veritas took in over 30 credits in college. They all used it for something different. My girls got extra minors, one of my sons got two majors, and my other son was able to play a NCAA collegiate sport and also be an engineering major, which usually those two will not go together.

So that's more of the dual enrollment. So I have given you a big flyover. We have trained people on staff. They're called Family Consultants, and they're the people who, you can schedule a free consultation with. Then they can talk about which electives, whether you're diploma or not, which electives might be helpful. And then if you're diploma, you should just reach out straight to your advisor and they will help you discern what academic electives might be good for your student. So that's mine. And I'm going to turn it over now to the biblical studies folks. And they'll take it from here.

Edward Stengel:

Hello, everyone. My name is Edward Stengel, and I am the resident apologetics teacher. I have a master's degree in Christian Apologetics. Specifically, philosophical imaginative apologetics. The course that I teach is essentially a mix of all different kinds of Christian apologetics. Not simply just, memorizing arguments for the faith, but trying to get a very well-rounded view of what it means to be a Christian and what it means to defend one's faith.

And so, for one semester, we will study the traditional arguments for the existence of God. Another will study, Christian history and historical arguments for the existence of God. And another we will study some of the, nonfiction works, of course, Lewis, as well as the nonfiction works of G.K. Chesterton. And so that's what I would call the imaginative side of apologetics, where we'll study, we'll talk about art, we'll talk about movies.

We'll talk about novels, ways in which, Christianity, God, Christ, is depicted in fiction as well as nonfiction. Because one of the big things that does attract people to the faith is the beauty of the art that the Christian faith produces. And so we'll have a look at that as well. So I'll look forward to talking to you guys in the breakout room later, if you're interested.

Mrs. Kelly:

Hi, everyone. My name is Mrs. Kelly and I have Omnibus now. I think this is my fourth year and I teach some Omnibus classes. I teach Omnibus IV Secondary as well as Omnibus III Secondary. This fall we're adding biblical literacy. So that is a class that I'm going to be teaching is biblical literacy. So I wanted to read you Jesus’s words from John 10:27. It says,

“My sheep listen to my voice says, Jesus. I know them and they follow me. So the first part of that verse says, my sheep listen to my voice. And sometimes we have a hard time maybe knowing what Jesus's voice is when there's a lot of voices, voices from culture, voices from friends or even our own voices.

And so what we're going to be studying in the biblical literacy class is a couple of things. One, to understand what we're reading in context, what the theme of each book is, and how that theme fits the bigger theme of the Bible at large. We're going to talk about how to interpret scripture, how to read it, how to interpret it.

We're also going to talk about how the Bible was put together, because another, as a as the verse goes on and says, I know them and they follow me. And so it's really hard to follow Jesus when we don't know what his voice is, when his voice is clear in Scripture. So we have to be confident in our Scripture.

We have to know, who God is and what he really loves, what he hates, or what he's like. In order for us to know, what he's asking of us so we can follow him. before I come off camera, I wanted to read you guys something more, because I think it's really important when we approach biblical studies that we're not just studying scripture to put head knowledge in.

We're not just trying to absorb information, knowledge so that we can then spit out information that we've gathered and collected and sound really smart. So I wanted to read from you, just briefly here from Knowing God. This is J.I. Packer. And he says, none of us, I think whatever naturally say that we have known God. The word imply a definiteness and matter of fact ness of experience to which most of us, if we're honest, have to admit that we are still strangers.

We claim, perhaps, to have a testimony and can rattle off our conversion story with the best of them. We say we know God. This, after all, is what evangelicals are expected to say. But would it occur to us to say without hesitation and with reference to particular events in our personal history that we have known God, I doubt it.

For I suspect that with most of us, experience of God has never become so vivid as that. My hope and prayer that you take the class and not just know God intellectually, but really know him heart and soul and mind. Thanks.

Dr. Benjamin Szumskyj:

You know I from Australia, my name is Doctor Szumskyj and I'm the teacher for biblical archeology. I have been with Veritas for a few years now, and I've taught everything from composition one and two, to several Omnibus classes. So I love the Bible, I love God, and being able to teach about both in a class is an awesome opportunity.

And we do live in a time where biblical illiteracy is high and, and there is a sometimes a resistance towards the deeper things of God. And I would love to for you to join me on the journey of the course that I've created, called Biblical Archeology. So what we do is we look at archeology and, and particularly obviously how that differs, as a field compared to others.

And then we look at, dating in the Bible, in the New Testament, Old Testament area, the methods of excavation, we look at the languages of the Bible, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, the names of God. We also look at how to identify important Old Testament and New Testaments manuscripts, how we put the Bible together.

We explore Bible translations, the archeological evidence for the Exodus. We also look at the case for the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, the Torah, the archeological evidence for the life of Joshua during the testimental period of the Maccabean Revolt. And we also look for archeological evidence for King Herod, Jesus, the Apostle Paul. And we also explore the concept of tradition as it relates to the Bible.

Also, what's exciting is I have a working relationship with an actual Christian, biblical archeologist. So we have an opportunity to engage with him and interview him at the end of the course. And so we have a very high view of the Scripture, very high view of Christ and, very high view of deepening one's word, not just, knowing God, but living out his word, his wisdom. And it's exciting.

So I'd love you to join me in my journey. And, like I said, this is, awesome opportunity to glorify the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. I look forward to meeting you.

Caryn Kepford:

I'm Caryn Kepford, and I teach art history, along with a couple sections of Art Studio I. And I also, have designed and taught the, the grammar level courses as well. So I'm pretty involved here at Veritas with the art department.

I want to ask you guys a question. Is beauty essential to your life? And if you can answer that question, then, or if you want to explore that answer a little more fully, take an art course, particularly art history. In art history, we go through the Western art history chronologically, and I tell a story.

I try to show you how one thing influences another. And even though we're in, at this point in the year, the contemporary world or what was the contemporary world in my lifetime. In, about 50 years ago with, 60 years ago, as we look into the pop art of the 1960s, what we have to look at is how we compare those things to the ancient world through the changes throughout the medieval world, the Renaissance, the enlightenment, and how those things affect our world today.

So that's what we're looking at as we deal with art history. We do readings. The Story of Art is a fabulous book by E.H. Gombrich that we use, and then, the students have paragraphs to write just on what they gain from that chapter. They're not looking at answering questions in that way.

Just what did they glean from it? And what I've seen is them really start to catch fire and be really interested in the subject. And they're starting to put things together, make connections that they never understood before. And it's really exciting to see that along with drawing, they do sketches every few weeks from the era that we're studying, along with, different games and other resources that I bring into the course.

They have timelines that they, that we work with so they can understand the flow of history and the images that go along with that flow of history and why those images look the way they do. We talk about theology. We talk about philosophy. So, there's a whole bunch that comes together in art history and it kind of brings all of their studies in Omnibus and other courses together, along with their study of art. If they're interested in drawing and painting, they get even more involved in that. So that's art history.

Lindsay Sturm:

I'm Lindsay Sturm, and I am really glad that over the summer I get to teach the Introduction to Theater class. Typically, I am in the objective world of science and math and logic, and I get to have the switch and get kind of over into the subjective art realm. But it's really this synthesis in Intro to Theater of this marriage between the academics and the arts, or the heart and the head, putting together so much of what your students are encountering in their classical education was theater originally.

A lot of their Omnibus, their plays that they're encountering, was with stage production. They're encountering speeches that were written for oral delivery. So this is a class that kind of lets us explore those works, or the idea behind those works in the way in which they were meant to be delivered. I mean, Shakespeare wasn't just meant to be read quietly out of a book.

It was meant to be performed. So we get a taste of that in this class and just assimilating other themes that we have in various classes. Analysis of the human condition, getting to see that through a stage presentation, and just reconciling our Christian faith to what we see in the world around us. So this class that we have is going to be a lot of fun and it is designed to be a combo of analysis of theater and learning about the history of theater, along with giving a biblical apologetic for theater. How do we as believers interact in the realm of the arts? Sadly, the arts is a territory where the enemy has taken a lot of ground and we as Christians need to know how do we interact and how do we claim that territory for Christ?

So that aspect of it. And then there's also the fun aspect of getting to, practice some of those practical skills of developing our presentation skills. And this might be something that you use on stage in the future. It might be something you put to work in a rhetoric class in the future. So regardless of whether you think theater is your future these skills are really great for that interdisciplinary crossover. And it's fun. So I would love to see you guys there.

Tom Garfield:

Hi, I'm Tom Garfield, and it is my pleasure to teach Art Studio I and Art Studio II. We are not the only art studio one teacher, Caryn, does one. And we have another teacher who teaches another section. But, I get to do the Studio II. And in both of them, the the there are two main emphases.

One is we study biblical worldview of art, as Caryn referred to in Art History. It's, we believe that, kiddos are getting a lot of messages that are not true about the arts and we would like to point them to the word. And so we not only read excerpts from the word, but we also read excerpts from Christian writers about art.

It's just a delight. And then we start every class with a bit of discussion on that. But most of the class is, as you might expect, a studio. We actually work on art pieces, we work on a variety of media. In Studio I, they get introduced to some basic, medium – black and white color pastels, chalk, oh, and watercolor. And, that's from Studio I. That's that's kind of they build in terms of difficulty of media, up to watercolor.

We believe that that's, pretty tough. And so we wait until the end of the year to introduce that. With Studio II, we kind of pick up where they left off. They should have had some prior art experience, to be perfectly honest. Whether it's Art Studio One or some other art classes that maybe, that, you know, the parents had given them. but we're pretty serious in art Studio II about pushing their abilities, their imagination, their styles, their techniques, and I help them as much as I can. But the idea is that they eventually kind of get to the point where they're on their own a bit and picking their own subjects.

Ultimately there they end up in oils. And that's pretty complicated and also potentially messy. So we want them to be mature enough to handle those. So that's that's really kind of the point of the studios is that they create their own works. Eventually they study, sort of like art history. We bring in a number of historical pieces that they copy from.

We believe that imitation is a very, very good biblical form of learning. And so they copy from the masters. That's kind of a historical way of learning. So, it's a lot of fun. And I would highly recommend it, either one of those, but again, Studio I and then Studio II in that order. So thank you very much.

Mei-Ning Langworthy:

Hello to you all. My name is Mei-Ning Langworthy, and it is a joy and a privilege to have the opportunity to teach both U.S. History here with VSA. And U.S. history is also an elective. And then I also teach two sections of U.S. government. You can see my flag back there. A few students said you need a flag in your room. So I said, flag back there.

Students come to my classes sometimes high schoolers have the preconception that the, U.S. history and U.S. government, are the most boring classes that you can take, that they're not very relevant to your lives and that they're very boring.

And it's my hope by the end of our time together, throughout the year, to convince them that there has never been a more important or exciting time to study our nation's history and the roots of our government than right now. What I tell them is that, what we're seeing in culture right now is that we live in a culture where there is significant turmoil and outrage over issues that are deeply, deeply rooted in our nation's history and issues of governance.

And sometimes, unfortunately, the loudest voices in culture, are those that are the most bereft or deficient in the knowledge of history, and their understanding of of government. So both U.S. history and U.S. government help students eventually be able to engage in cultural discussions in a more informed way. Just a word about U.S history. We start, the period of the early explorers in the 1400s and move on to the present day.

And what we really try hard to do is to connect the timeline of historical events, that it's basically one story with many links in a chain, as opposed to seeing these individual, unrelated events. But most importantly, what we try to do is look at U.S. history through the Bible, through a biblical lens, and trace the rise of secularism.

And in the end, the goal is looking to encourage students to assess all cultural movements and events and individuals through a biblical worldview. And then I'll give one word about U.S. government here that, we start off by asking questions like, what was the creation mandate? We start off by looking at, man in the garden and God's instructions to man to be fruitful and multiply.

And what does the creation mandate have to do with government? And how does government fulfill the creation mandate? And we ask questions like, why government? what kinds of government have existed? Why did the founders build this new government upon democracy? And we get the chance to look at some early political philosophers very much impacted the founders, Locke and Montesquieu, a few others.

And then we ask ourselves why the Constitution? We spend a good amount of time, looking at why the founders constructed a document that allowed for government that was under the rule of law and separation of powers and the consent of the governed. And we also spent a significant amount of time actually studying the Constitution, which I love doing.

So we get to really dig deep into articles one through seven, and then spend a long time with the Bill of Rights. And then in the second semester, this is a really fun time. Students have multiple opportunities to actually apply what they've learned in the Constitution. And so there are multiple projects, group activities, students can select a few, have the opportunity twice to pick current events and make connections to the executive, legislative or judicial branch and make their own constitutional connections.

So we have a lot of fun, second semester actually applying some of this knowledge in debates and projects and other activities. So we have a lot of fun together. And, I hope to see some of you all in either U.S. History or U.S. Government.

Lorraine Dunn:

Right. I am Lorraine Dunn, and I am one of the economics teachers here. Dr. Collender teaches it as well as another teacher or so. And so we work through microeconomics in the fall, and then in the spring we work through macroeconomics. And I just think it's a fantastic course where the students really have to dive into the subject material, because they do a lot of what's considered student teaching, where they have a section, they become an expert on it and then share that with their classmates. And, you know, their teachers will fill in any gaps and help expand on anything and provide extra practice and things like that. But this, structure of the course really enables the students to sell the vast understanding of these concepts and then help as the year builds upon one another.

And I think one of the other really fun aspects of economics is it's so practical, right? Like so many of the students have experience with supply and demand. You know, the paper shortages a few years ago, right, like that was a supply and demand issue, even if they don't necessarily have the language to associate, with these concepts, this puts language to some of their life experiences that they're able to then have, intelligent conversations around.

And especially this spring, as we're in this election season and studying, macroeconomics and what this means at a national level. How the federal government is making decisions and what the Fed's doing, and your fiscal policy and your monetary policy, you know, really looking at what's happening in the news and saying like, hey, this is what's going on, and let's look at this from a biblical perspective.

And how do we connect what we see in our world with what God says in Scripture? And how do we reconcile some of these things? And you know, how we struggle through poverty and how do we struggle eell, through scarcity and the fact that, you know, not every country has, you know, the same standard of living in or how do we reconcile all these things from a biblical, perspective? And what does that mean to steward our finances well?

Like, we know that all that we have comes from God and we are stewards of these resources. So what do we do with them? How do we grow the resources that have been given to us to most benefit God's kingdom? Like if God has blessed us, how do we then use that to be a blessing for his kingdom and bless others? And what does that look like to steward these things well?

So it's a great combination of what's happening in our economy and how it connects to personal finance and kind of what our responsibility as stewards of God's resources and citizens, of, you know, our country and for our international students and what their country, stewards of what's going on there as well. So highly recommend this course for a lot of our upperclassmen.

Dr. Jay Stigdon:

Oh, Adobe. You know. My webcam may or may not load. There we go. All right. Good evening. I am Doctor Jay Stigdon. This is my second year at VSA. In addition to film and worldview, I also get to teach Greek one and two and a couple of Omnibus courses. And then Doctor Collender graciously allows me to teach a couple of sections of the outstanding Rhetoric II class.

But I'm here tonight to talk to you about film and worldview. So let me start off with a question. So are you a cultural glutton or are you a cultural anorexic? Are you one of those people like my wife? You've always got a screen in your face. You're constantly consuming some kind of visual media. Or are you the kind of person who avoids anything that's not produced by Angel Studios?

And this is the first question that we ask students in film and worldview. And it's an important one because we are called to be in the world, but not of the world, and definitely to not conform to it. So film and worldview will help your student find a healthy balance.

This is a very fun, fast paced, dual credit elective that allows students to engage with what is arguably our culture's most prominent art form. In the first semester, students learn film technique and they're able to put it into practice. They will create their own 30-second commercial and eventually they will even make a short film.

We learn to to judge and appreciate art. We dissect stories by the three act structure. We even learn what Aristotle had to say about good plot and storytelling. And we see how all movies ultimately tell a story of redemption. In the second semester, we study different worldviews and discuss how they are communicated through movies.

Some of the students have signed up for this class thinking that it's going to be an easy A, right? Oh man, all we do is watch movies and talk about them. Nothing could be further from the truth. In in film and worldview, we watch movies and then we talk about them.

Students consistently say that they get so much more from the media they consume after taking this course and learning how to watch movies. Some students have accused me of ruining their childhood as we discuss Frozen, and they realize what lessons it really teaches, and other students described Film and Worldview as Omnibus for movies.

So if you and your student want to engage with visual media on a whole new level and gain a sharper, deeper awareness of how movies both teach and entertain, this is the class.

Dr. Michael Collender:

And I'm Michael Collender. I teach electives and rhetoric. I'm the author of the Rhetoric II textbook, for our Rhetoric II classes here and I designed the econ, film, and psychology electives. And in putting those together that each of those courses is built around addressing the societal problem.

So with economics, we're looking at how we understand money and how it works. And we're living right now in the context and in a situation where clearly foolish people are running our monetary system and are destroying the power of the dollar in the world and American power through just incredibly, foolish economic policies. And all of us are feeling that in our wallets.

Film and worldview addresses just like Doctor Jay has been saying the the cultural moment that we find ourselves in where we've seen a shift in our culture that's been brought about through the propaganda of movies, in large part where there are worldviews and ideologies that really have influenced several generations now.

And how do we think about that? And also how do we begin to get the tools to combat that? Or to interact with that? Like Jay has been saying.

Well, psychology, it's the good guy, right? It's solving problems. It's it's promoting mental health. Well, if you know about the history of psychology, it's it's roots in large part are atheistic, seeing the brain as just a, a machine. And when you look at the history of the various theorists who developed the discipline of psychology, many of them are atheists and that atheism is built into counseling, to the various theories that are so crucial in psychological practice.

When, when we look at that discipline, it's, it's hard to actually grasp how well, at certain points, how dark it is. So for my first PhD, I spent about two years just reading neuroscience literature, and it's really godless. It's like it's like all we are is matter in motion. We're just nuts and bolts.

But how do you approach thinking through this discipline from a biblical worldview? Well, in many places in psychological practice, in therapy, the Bible is even treated as something that's pathological.

There's a thing if you're familiar with therapy called therapy assisted divorce, where therapists will actually lead people well in a bad direction. The same thing goes, I mean, we're all well aware of this with kids. In the the way that therapy is used, to help them make some really bad life choices. So now, while psychology in a certain way is dark at the same time, one of the best brain researchers in the world, Doctor Daniel Inman, is a Christian, and his next door neighbor is doctor John Townsend, who Forbes has recognized as running the top biblical counseling, institute in in America.

So how do we sort this out? Well, that's what this class is about. This class is about approaching psychology and the entire discipline, and its history from a biblical worldview. And I'm particularly passionate about this. My second doctorate was in the relationship between empirical psychology and theology. And how do we understand what biblical wisdom has to say about theology.

So in this course, we look at brain science. We look at the history of psychology, even reading original sources, reading Freud, reading William James, a number of other authors. We look at personality, abnormal psychology, schizophrenia, the entire course of therapy, the different types of therapy, all of this from a biblical worldview, thinking through what does Scripture actually say about these?

And what are the technical areas of skill that a person should have if they want to pursue this further?

Why is it that we're doing this? Well, because psychology, when you go off to college, it's one of the subject areas that's used to attack the Christian faith. I have a pastor I know who majored in psychology and also philosophy and, religious studies at a secular school. And he said within that entire curriculum, there was no subject that attacked his faith more fiercely than psychology.

And I want students to understand the underpinning of where those attacks come from, which is a major, focus on the course. So who is this this course for? It's for everybody. But it's specifically going to be helpful for people who are interested in psychology, medicine, business. If you're interested in communication law, law enforcement, all of these areas would be, wonderful, subjects, if you want to go into those to have psychology as a foundation for further study.

Rebecca Tunstall:

I am not the teacher for any of the computer programing classes, but as they're getting their camera and mic working up, I just want to quickly explain how the breakout rooms will go so you can be thinking through what section you want to go in. And when Krikoris able to. Come on, you're welcome to speak a little bit more to computer programing, C-sharp and computer programing in Python.

But what we're going to do is we're going to have breakout rooms for each of these – art electives, computer programing, electives, government and economics elective, social science elective, and biblical studies. They will be in combination the same way that we saw them on the slides. So those teachers that you saw grouped together, speaking together, they'll be together in those rooms where you can ask more specific questions.

You're welcome to switch rooms if you pop into one for five minutes and another for a different five, you're welcome to do so. What you're going to do if you've never used the Adobe platform before, if you look up above my head list, I believe it looks above your head for you, you'll see the little I hope I'm pointing to it. You'll see the little microphone, the camera. And then over here somewhere will be a hand up. It looks like a hand with a plus sign in front of it. If you click that little carrot or the icon next to it, you'll see different options, actions, and requests. Those actions and requests align directly with the agree, disagree, applaud, laugh, and speak louder that you can see here in the top of the screen.

You're welcome even now as we're getting, as Krikor is coming back and able to talk a little bit about this, you're welcome to even start choosing which elective group you'd like to be in so we can start placing you in those rooms. I'll go back one slide so that you're able to see, but I'll let you just take a look at this real quickly.

If you want to do that, when you switch rooms, you're going to just switch icons. So you'll say, okay, I think I'll, which I was an art elective. Now I'd like to go to biblical studies and you'll change to the Speak Louder icon. and if you're having trouble with that, shoot your hand up and I'll pop in. But, you can just click this icon. All right. it looks like reverse camera is not working, but he's going to be able to speak a little bit about the elective for computer programing. And then we'll talk you into your room so you can get talking to some of these teachers directly.

Krikor Mnatzaganian:

Thank you Rebecca. Hope everyone can hear me okay. I've been having some challenges today with my room. I got kicked out twice in class and now my video isn't working. But, I at least I can talk to this. So happy to be here with everyone. First, I will check in. Can you all hear me ok?

Okay, great. Thank you. So my name is Krikor Mnatzaganian and I am originally from Jerusalem, Israel. I grew up there and I've been in the States since 1990. I work full time for Microsoft. I have been with Microsoft now for 14 years and at Veritas I teach computer programing. Last year I also taught mathematics, but this year I only teach C-sharp programing.

So, I will talk a little bit about this. This is actually, designed to be a beginner's class. It does not assume any computer knowledge. I will say, if students have that, it's helpful, but it is not required. However, it is not an easy class, and that's an assumption some students make and then realize very quickly that it is actually more difficult than they have expected and anticipated.

We do go through a lot of material in one year, and as part of this project, I teach the students to think methodically, to learn how to reason, how to analyze, how to come up with an approach to creating algorithms, to think programmatically. As part of the course, they learn how to work in teams. We try to simulate the development in the real world so that you have teams working and developing software at the same time. So that is one of the requirements there. Yes. Karen, you have a question, please.

Okay. No problem. One of the, goals for the class is to help students to create projects. And these are larger programs that they create from scratch. We start slow and quickly advance. So the first project that they create is a guessing game where a student has to guess a number that the computer picks.

The second project becomes very difficult very quickly, because it is designed to teach the students to work first of all, in teams, to think programmatically, and also to utilize all the material covered in the first two quarters. So they quickly realize that this is actually a lot more involved. and in that project, they create the game Yahtzee.

If you played that game, you know, it's a dice game, but they actually program that from scratch, and then they vote together in class on who has the best project, and they get prizes accordingly.

So, right now they're working on the last project for the for the class, and they're creating a calculator from scratch. So these are bigger projects that are four, one per quarter. And it's really designed to utilize all the skills that they have learned through the throughout the year.

And the idea is to learn to collaborate, learn to work in a team, learn to think the right way. And with my background and experience working at Microsoft, I teach them methodically and step by step so that they are actually simulating the real world by the time they are done with this class, they should be reaching at, intermediate level in C-sharp.

Now, the difference between C-sharp and Python. I don't teach Python, although I have in the past, but not for the curriculum at VSA, but Python is, an easier language. It's more based on script, but it's also, becoming extremely popular in the various companies in technology today.

C-sharp is a lot more structured. It's more difficult and more forces students to actually think methodically and think programmatically, you know, in a way that they have to create structures in their code. So it's more difficult, it's more involved. And my class, by the way, comes with three college credits if they complete it successfully. So any student who is registered for the dual program after completing the class qualifies for three college credits that they can apply for college.

This is a very fun class because we go through a lot of material, we not only learn about how to code, but we also do fun things. Like right now we're learning how to do some graphics and art and design. Mr. Garfield would love the class right now because we're designing all kinds of beautiful shapes, and the kids are having a blast doing it.

So, the goal in all of this is to also honor the Lord. We take time in pointing, that God is our creator, he is our designer, and we give him the glory in every class. And this has been a really momentous year. Several of my students have been impacted. I've got incredible stories. Not only from an academic standpoint, but also a spiritual standpoint.

And I'm very blessed and thankful to be teaching this class at Veritas. It's a great opportunity for students to learn, and it's my honor to be teaching this. If there's anyone who has any question or would like to know more, I can cover both, areas and happy to do so. Thank you for the opportunity to share with you.

Rebecca Tunstall:

Awesome. Thank you so much. Okay. So go ahead and you can go ahead and show which course or which course I'd like to learn more about by choosing the icon. I brought a picture here in case it's helpful. For those of you who are visual learners like me, you can see this on your screen is what it should look like.

And up here is where the hands are. If you start changing your icons, go ahead and do so and we'll start putting you in the correct rooms accordingly. And you can change them at any point. We won't have a ton of time in those rooms, but at least enough to get talking with some of those families. I'm going to start breakout rooms.

Some of you will still be here in the main room until we see your icon come up, and then we'll send you to the same room accordingly. All right. Thank you guys for being here. We really appreciate you and I hope you have a great time learning from the teachers in these breakout rooms.