Winter Courses
ICS courses continue to be available online this term. Unless otherwise noted, the listed courses will be delivered synchronously (meeting at designated times over Zoom video conferencing), following an in-depth once-weekly seminar format. Please note that classes start the week of January 9 and that the latest possible date by which to register for W23 classes is January 13.
Below, you will find an alphabetical list of all the courses on offer remotely this winter and links to full course descriptions and syllabi (as they become available throughout the coming months). If you are interested in taking an ICS course for credit and applying it to a program at another institution, you may contact our Registrar with questions on how best to do so.
AUDITING DISCOUNTS
If you are a continuing learner or want to get a taste for what ICS courses are like, first-time ICS auditors and ICS alums can take these courses for only $425 (registration included). You can find more information on this and all other fee options on our fees page.
A Team Audit option is available for school board members and executive leadership teams who wish to take the course How to Coach a Strong Team together. Please email our Registrar directly at academic-registrar@icscanada.edu for more details.
Course List
Finding Joy in Learning
(ICSD 260001 W23)
Blended Online Synchronous / Asynchronous Format*
with Edith van der Boom
This is a course that will inspire and support K-12 educators in their own personal journey of learning. Participants will consider a deeply Christian vision for their lives as educators and reflect on teaching practices in light of faith and spiritual practices. It is intended to guide educators on an inner journey as they pursue a path of refreshment and renewal in their work within Christian education. This course seeks to answer the following questions: What is my calling as an educator? How should I intentionally live out my calling to teach?... [more info here]
*Please note that this course will have both synchronous (meeting periodically at designated times through Zoom) and asynchronous (Google Classroom forum engagement or assignments) aspects to its format. Consult the course catalogue and syllabus for details about meetings and assignment expectations.
Faith, Freedom, and the Meaning of Politics: Liberalism and Its Discontents
(Interdisciplinary Seminar)
(ICS 2400AC W23)
Day/time TBD
with Gideon Strauss & Ronald A. Kuipers
The political liberalism that has shaped the constitutional arrangements of many nations and that has been hegemonic in international relations since 1989 is currently facing the most serious challenges of recent decades. In international relations the liberal world order is facing challenges from autocratic states like China and Russia and from movements like political Islam. In the North American context liberal democracy is facing serious challenges from a new nationalism and from Christian integralism. In this interdisciplinary seminar we will focus on reading key texts in the current debate conducted in the English language between contemporary proponents of liberalism, nationalism, and integralism, engaging these texts with help from the work of the critical theorist Raymond Geuss and two pluralist philosophers in the Reformational tradition, Jonathan Chaplin and Lambert Zuidervaart, and with contextualizing reference to the work of one Canadian political philosopher, James Tully... [more info here]
How to Coach a Strong Team: Leading People, Building Institutional Capacity, and Securing Accountability
(ICS 260005 W23)
Blended Online Synchronous / Asynchronous Format*
with Gideon Strauss
This is a course for current and aspiring school administrators who want to cultivate their people skills. The course will focus on the competencies involved in having crucial conversations and coaching colleagues for professional development purposes, while also providing opportunities for learning about the competencies relevant to talent acquisition and employment termination. The backbone of the course will be a series of meditations (in the Reformational philosophical tradition) on being human: imaging God in the world.
This is a remote learning course consisting of six synchronous sessions including three school visits and a debriefing session with an expert practitioner, thirteen weeks of asynchronous online interaction, and the writing of a playbook by each student taking the course for credit. All of the synchronous sessions will be by means of online video, with the possible exception of one of the school visits. The exception may include an on-site, in-person option as part of a hybrid package, depending on circumstances. Team auditors will have access to five of the six synchronous sessions (including the school visits and the expert practitioner debriefing) and a team audit study guide for reading and talking through the course materials in their team contexts. [More info here]
NOTE: A Team Audit option is available for school board members and executive leadership teams who wish to take this course together. Please email our Registrar directly at academic-registrar@icscanada.edu for more details.
*Please note that this course will have both synchronous (meeting periodically at designated times through Zoom) and asynchronous (Google Classroom forum engagement or assignments) aspects to its format. Consult the course catalogue and syllabus for details about meetings and assignment expectations.
Nothing Can Separate Us…!: The Dialectical Materialism of Slavoj Žižek
(ICS 140908 / 240908 W23
ICT5704HS L0101)
Wednesdays, 6:00 - 9:00pm EST
with Jim Olthuis
This seminar will map out the Dialectical Materialism of Slovenian philosopher, psycho-analyst, and cultural critic Slavoj Žížek. A communist and atheist, Žižek's thought is an original Lacanian inspired repeat of Hegel that recalibrates Materialism. Žížek's incisive structural insights will be explored even as his faith in the Void as the eternal traumatic Real is contrasted with faith in the steadfast Love of God... [more info coming soon]
Religion, Life, and Society: Reformational Philosophy
(ICS 1107AC / 2107AC W23
ICT3702HS / ICT6702HS L0101)
Tuesdays, 10:00am - 1:00pm EST
with Bob Sweetman
An exploration of central issues in philosophy, as addressed by Herman Dooyeweerd, Dirk Vollenhoven, and the “Amsterdam School” of neoCalvinian thought. The course tests the relevance of this tradition for recent developments in Western philosophy. Special attention is given to critiques of foundationalism, metaphysics, and modernity within reformational philosophy and in other schools of thought... [more info here]
Spiritual Exercise as Christian Philosophy from Augustine to Bonaventure
(ICS 120402 / 220402 W23
ICH5017HS L0101)
Thursdays, 6:00 - 9:00pm EST
with Bob Sweetman
This seminar examines the notion of spiritual exercise as it evolved in Hellenic and Hellenistic philosophy to understand the emergence of ‘Christian philosophy’ as a cultural project within the Augustinian tradition of theology and spirituality, a tradition that begins in Augustine’s own writings and can be said to find its medieval high point in the work of St. Bonaventure... [more info coming soon]
Want to join a course?
Please email our Registrar, Elizabet Aras, at academic-registrar@icscanada.edu with your questions or to register today!