About The Dock
An Anabaptist Resource for Teaching and Learning
Educating children with excellence, and in the fear of God, is a soul-consuming task. Teachers give up their personal time to build lesson plans. Board members invest hours in drafting policy and finding staff. Parents and ministers have questions and offer support. From school to school, from community to community, the process repeats.
The Dock exists to serve the teachers, administrators, board members, and parents of our conservative Anabaptist schools. We want to teachers to gather inspiration from the lesson plans of others. We want schools in one part of the country to have a channel with which to connect with potential teachers in other regions. We want to give parents, ministers, and teachers access to trustworthy books, articles, and talks on Christian education.
Inspired by Our Heritage
A desk that may have stood in Christopher Dock’s school in Skippack.
Christopher Dock used fraktur to inspire and reward his students. This piece of fraktur was produced by one of Christopher’s students, Jacob Harley.
The Dock is named after Christopher Dock, the German immigrant who wrote the first book on education to be printed in colonial America. A Mennonite who believed that education could train children in the disciplines of a holy life, Dock reluctantly wrote his Schul-Ordnung (School Management) at the request of a friend. The Schul-Ordnung has become a classic of compassionate, sensitive, and devout classroom management, and was translated and printed by two former Pennsylvania governors.
The Dock takes its name from this godly schoolmaster. But dock has an additional meaning: since long before Christopher Dock disembarked at a dock in the New World, docks have served as staging areas for service. The trucks and trains that feed the population halt at docks to load and unload their goods. Similarly, The Dock is intended as a meeting place for those who would give what they have and receive what they need as they train students in the love of God and man. The Dock is dedicated to providing an online platform for conservative Anabaptist educators to share resources, insight, and encouragement.
A Team Effort
The Dock is a cooperative project of the Conservative Anabaptist Education Committee and the Faith Builders Resource Group.
The Conservative Anabaptist Education Committee
The purpose of the Conservative Anabaptist Education Committee (CAEC), under the direction of the Beachy Constituency, is to provide oversight for Conservative Anabaptist School Board Institute (CASBI), to provide educational resources for schools, and to develop vision for sustainable and quality Christian education from a conservative Anabaptist worldview.
CASBI serves hundreds of school board members each year.
Faith Builders Resource Group
Faith Builders Resource Group is dedicated to building the kingdom of God by partnering with conservative Anabaptist communities to identify needs and to address them with services and materials that honor Christ and strengthen His church. The mission of this group is to produce, publish, and distribute books, audio, video, and live resources that promote an Anabaptist-Christian worldview.
CASBI serves hundreds of school board members each year.
The purposes of the Resource Group include:
- Sponsoring and supporting writers and musicians and artists for specific projects;
- Developing, publishing, and distributing materials that promote an Anabaptist understanding of Christianity;
- Developing and making available a variety of courses, seminars, and workshops that can be used throughout our communities.
More Than 500 People Have Contributed
Here are a few of them.
Jonas Sauder
Veteran Teacher, Administrator, Curriculum Writer
Betty Yoder
Veteran Elementary Teacher
Kendall Myers
School Administrator, Teacher
Rosalie Beiler
Elementary Teacher
Lynell Nissley
School Psychologist
Join in! We appreciate your prayers and thoughtful participation.
Read the latest update on the development and performance of The Dock
Note: The Dock and its resources are freely available to all who visit the site. With the exception of blog posts, most resources are available under a Creative Commons attribution/non-commercial/share-alike license. Some resources may include affiliate links, for which The Dock may receive small commissions.
Only registered users have the opportunity to post reviews of resources, share resources, and post in the forums. Registration is open to members of conservative Anabaptist churches and staff of conservative Anabaptist schools.
We post only those materials we believe we have the rights to distribute. If you see any materials posted that are under copyright, please contact us.
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