Beyond The Monastery Walls

Our understanding of life in the early Middle Ages is dominated by Christian churches and monasteries. It is their records and libraries which have survived the centuries, to tell us how the clerics, monks, and nuns who lived and worked within their walls experienced the world around them. We thus see the lay inhabitants of that wider world mostly when they are interacting with the clergy. However, a few sources let us explore lay life in this period more broadly. Beyond the Monastery Walls exploits perhaps the richest of these: manuscript books containing formulas, or models, for documents that do not otherwise survive. Through these books, Warren C. Brown explores the concerns and behavior of lay men and women in this period on their own terms, and casts fresh light on a part of the medieval world that is usually hidden from view. In the process, he shows how early medievalists are winning fresh information from our sources by looking at them in new ways.

As the cultural and ideological foundations of imperial Russia were threatened by forces of modernity, an array of Orthodox churchmen, theologians, and lay thinkers turned to asceticism, hoping to ensure the coming Kingdom of God promised to the Russian nation.

Explores the lives of the early medieval laity beyond the interactions with churches and monasteries that dominate most of our sources.

Paul Wilkes believes that monastic spiritual wisdom can and should be accessible to all. Over the course of one year, he made monthly trips to the brothers at Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist Monastery. During each visit he focused on a particular aspect of monastic life, and each month's visit comprises a chapter of this book. Each chapter opens with a description of Wilkes' physical visit to the monastery, which he uses to lead into difficult explorations of issues such as faith, prayer, community, and discernment. Each chapter closes as Wilkes searches for the proper ways to integrate what he has learned during his time at the Abbey into his life as a father, husband, teach, writer, and lay minister. He uses monastic wisdom to speak to the journey of faith itself, letting readers discover their own path "beyond the walls."

What is mathematics, and what aspects of it should be taught in schools? How and to whom should it be taught, and how should its understanding be assessed? These questions continue to drive curriculum development, school organization, teaching methods, and research agendas. No one today doubts that mathematics should be taught in our schools, but this was not always so. Mathematics Education Across Time and Place aims to help mathematics teachers, teacher educators, and anyone else interested in mathematics education appreciate the path this discipline has taken through the ages. To understand the historical and social context for schools and the place of mathematics within them, we meet a variety of mathematics educators from different times and places. Though fictional, their lives and social circumstances are based on historical documents and professional sources. They range from ancient Greece to modern Zimbabwe; from Persia to British Columbia; from Islamic Baghdad to revolutionary Paris; from Elizabethan England to twentieth-century New York; and from the rural one-room schools of North America to the modern comprehensive secondary school. By sharing the teachers' lives, we come to understand how they developed their love for teaching mathematics, and how their work fit into the larger social context of their time.

Discover the Ancient Practices for Tranquility and Spiritual Growth.

Once hidden away in the foothills of rural Arkansas, an abandoned, Cold War-era laboratory has been discovered by two high school students. Mark and Nate never imagined that anything they would do in their lives could have such far-reaching consequences. That all changes after they unwittingly stumble upon the remains of the MIRAGE project, a machine originally designed to unravel the secrets of teleportation. What happened to the band of rogue scientists responsible for its construction? Wha