The First ISP Curriculum
God did work miraculously. The team developed the first draft of the ten-lesson curriculum for elementary and secondary teachers for the May 1991 conferences.
The Foundations of Christian Ethics centered around the life of Christ and clearly taught the gospel message as the key element for instilling moral values. And it met the felt needs of educators.
In January 1991, Blair asked Alan Scholes to help write the first ISP curriculum. “My continued involvement with ISP, first as a volunteer and later as a full-time staff member, has been the most exciting, challenging, and significant opportunity for ministry,” Alan says.
In addition to the curriculum, ISP has developed educational talks. ISP speakers often present a message called “The Heart of a Teacher.” Blair developed this presentation in May 1991 at the second ISP conference in Russia. Based on Walk Thru the Bible’s, The 7 Laws of the Learner, the talk compared two types of teachers: those who only put in their time versus those who care deeply about their students. Blair cited his personal experience of teaching algebra and helping his struggling students succeed.
Thirty years later, ISP curricula is still an important “hook” that opens doors and engages educators during professional training times. But new lessons have been added through the decades to address the current felt needs of teachers, parents, and students. The DreamMakers-DreamBreakers elementary and secondary curriculums were copyrighted in 2017. Selected sections of the secondary curriculum had been used a few years before this.
Most recently in 2020, ISP’s curriculum writing team met via Zoom to update the stories and refine the DreamMakers-DreamBreakers curriculum. All of the thirty-three lessons in the secondary and elementary curriculum were revised to connect with today’s culture.
In 2011, ISP added a curriculum to help teachers coach parents. The Shape of Your Child’s Future, a nine-lesson resource developed for parent-teacher conferences, debuted in 2011.
