Track Leaders

Ernest Balajthy, Chair

Dr. Ernest Balajthy is Professor of Education and Program Director for Reading and Literacy at the State University of New York at Geneseo. He is a former assistant director of Geneseo’s School of Education and a former chairperson of its Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and Reading. He teaches courses in reading and literacy, secondary education, English education, and instructional technology and served for almost ten years as a public school classroom teacher and reading specialist. Balajthy’s key scholarly interests include technology in reading and literacy; secondary reading, content area reading, comprehension and metacomprehension; and clinical reading instruction and assessment. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including Microcomputers in Reading and Language Arts (Prentice Hall, 1986), Computers in Reading: Lessons from the Past and the Technologies of the Future (Prentice Hall, 1989), and Struggling Readers: Assessment and Instruction in Grades K-6 (Guilford, 2003, with Sally Lipa).

Tom Baskin, Point

Dr. Thomas W. Baskin is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He has a doctoral degree in Counseling Psychology, and he teaches both masters level school counselors, and doctoral level counseling psychologists. He grew up in California and was raised in the Episcopal Church. As an undergraduate at the University of California–Davis he was active in InterVarsity where his faith was deepened through Bible study and quality intentional Christian relationships. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for his doctoral work. There he was active in the Graduate Student InterVarsity chapter and served as chapter president. Dr. Baskin’s research interests include how belongingness relates to academic achievement for K-12 students in multicultural schools and how angry students can benefit from learning to forgive. He sees his research on forgiveness as a bridge between his academic responsibilities and his faith in Jesus.

Program Summary

Educators are in a unique and powerful position to reach out to children and young people, helping them flourish in their developmental experiences and creating a bright, hopeful vision of the future in which kingdom values prevail. Our students’ home and school resources — academic, economic, psychological, and spiritual — vary greatly, from plentiful to scarce. Participants in the education track will consider how Christian educators can minister to students and families in the widely disparate settings of today’s world.

The Education track at FC08 will bring together educators who want their Christian faith to inform their vocation beyond simple teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic. We will reflect on and discuss how schools can better help our children flourish in ways that honor God’s kingdom. We will examine tools and resources that connect faith with education, in the home, the church, the classroom, the school, the district, the community, the nation, and the world. We will consider the many leadership options open to educators in public and private education, social intervention projects, the university, and in faith-based organizations.

As we think through the education-related implications of God’s work in our schools and communities, we will also consider the importance of our own individual development. God would have us each personally flourish as we move through the stages of professional development at the same time as we follow his leading in our personal lives.