Brief Biography of Tim Farage
I
was born in Cleveland, Ohio to my excellent parents, Peter and Mary
Farage. I have two younger brothers, Mark and Chris,
also excellent, except of course for Chris. My brothers, with a bit of help
from their wives, gave me 5 (yes, excellent) nieces
and nephews, except, of course, for my nephew, Eric.
As
of December 28, 2007, I have completely lost my sense of humor. This is because my once beloved nephew, Eric,
had the temerity to beat me in one of those idiotic video games. (Wii Tennis, if you
must know). This is
the first and only time I have ever lost at anything to anybody.
My
parents were born in the US, but all four of my grandparents were born in Syria.
They came here in the early 1900's and helped to start the first Antiochian
Orthodox Christian Church in Cleveland.
My paternal grandmother tutored Algebra while she was in Syria, so I
credit her for my math genes.
After
graduating from Parma Senior High (in the Cleveland area), I went on to
get my undergraduate degree at Case Western Reserve University, where I
graduated Magna Cum Laude. I majored in Math and Psychology, and minored
in Physical Science and Philosophy and also received state
certification to teach Math.
My
parents were and still are devout Orthodox Christians. My father also was
a student of the Rosicrucians as am I). It was from him that I got a 'save the world' bug that has
never left me.
Have
you ever looked around and said, "We can do so much better than
this"? Well, I've had that feeling since I was about 12, and my main
passion is to figure out the best ways to do this - the best ways to raise and
educate our children, the best economic and political systems, the best ways to
grow spiritually, etc. This passion has
shaped almost every part of my life - at least the parts that I’m proud of.
With
this in mind, in 1975 I moved to Stelle, Illinois, an intentional
Christian community whose purpose was to do exactly that - to build a
community that attempted to live by God's laws in every way possible. I
eventually became the director of the school there (The Stelle Learning
Center), and that was a wonderful experience - one of the best in my life.
Some
of the core principles of the school were:
1)
Mastery learning (a student did not move onto new material in a particular area
until he or she mastered the current material).
2)
Love of learning (we believed that it is natural for students to love to learn,
and it was our responsibility as teachers to foster this).
3)
Self-paced and self-directed learning (to the extent we could, we would allow
students to learn at their own rate, and to pursue topics that were of interest
to them).
I
still agree with these principles, and now, with the Internet, it is easier
than ever to realistically apply these principles.
In
1982, I was asked to start a branch of the Stelle
Learning Center in Dallas, so I moved there that summer, and started the school
in the fall. Because of disagreements
with one of the administrators, I left this position, and decided to go back to
school. This lead to
an MS degree in Computer Science (Magna Cum Laude) in 1985 from The University
of Texas at Dallas.
Around
this time, I met my future wife, Jimmye, a true ‘Mother of the World’, who
surprisingly said, ‘yes’ when I asked her to marry me. She says that she still doesn’t
regret it, although people that know me find this hard to believe. We have one beloved daughter, Amanda, born in
1990, whom I could brag about for pages, but I’ll be
kind enough not to.