Let’s move on from the 2020 election for a second. In four years, we’re going to have another presidential election and many more after that. In the interim years, we have the midterms. And while this cycle will continue, the Democratic Party’s leftward lurch will probably become more explicit. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wasn’t successful in clinching the Democratic nomination in 2016 or 2020. He has a following. He has a devoted base, but black Democrats in the south were the firewall against a total socialist takeover. That will not last… Continue reading
Author Archives: Jeffrey
Teacher: “Stroking Egos Does Nothing for Students. Raising Expectations Does.”
Armed with a bachelor of science in elementary education, I charged into my career as a teacher. I was immediately exposed to students at three levels of public schools:
1. A rather wealthy district with an average IQ of 120.
2. A classic, middle-class school.
3. A school that is best described as a mini United Nations.
In the “UN” school, approximately 25 percent of students were new immigrants, 30-35 percent were American-born blacks, and the remainder were 40-45 percent Caucasian. The economic structure ranged from welfare to upper middle class. Continue reading
Learn from it!
It’s back to school today students…
Thinking Students Rank Last on the Government School Agenda
One of my favorite field trips as a child was my annual summer visit to a one-room schoolhouse where I spent the day dressed in an old-fashioned dress and bonnet, scratching away on a slate and learning lessons out of old McGuffey Readers.
At the time, my delight in the McGuffey Readers stemmed from the fact that I was reading something that Laura Ingalls likely read, and the romance of the situation enthralled me. I am still fascinated by McGuffey Readers, but not because of their connection to Laura. Rather, I find them fascinating because of the lessons and values they imparted on generations of American children, lessons in stark contrast to those received in today’s government schools. Continue reading
Picking Up Sticks
I read somewhere that hard work is a sign of a willingness to be responsible. So typically people who are getting things done are usually getting them done for others as well as themselves. Some time ago in an interview with the Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Jackson, I described myself as a man that picks up sticks. That may sound strange to most of you and it does sound a little strange to me as well. So let me explain how all of this works.
Years ago I had the privilege to attend and obtain a Scouting award called Wood Badge. The aim of this program is to make Scouters better leaders by teaching advanced leadership skills. One of those teaching skills that I particularly enjoyed was the art of “picking up sticks” or “teaching that everyone can work at any level and provide a service and that service need not be for profit of the wallet but one of the heart”. Continue reading
Homeschooling More Than DOUBLED During the Pandemic
Many families took one look at their school district’s remote or hybrid learning offerings this fall and said “no, thank you.” That’s the message gleaned from national and state-specific data on the surging number of homeschooled students this academic year.
Prior to the pandemic and related school closures last spring, there were just under two million homeschoolers in the U.S., representing about 3.4 percent of the total K-12 school-age population. According to recent polling by Education Week, that percentage has more than doubled to nine percent this fall, or nearly five million homeschoolers. This estimate mirrors related polling from Gallup in August suggesting that 10 percent of U.S. students would be homeschooled this year. Continue reading
U.S. Children Getting Dumber and Dumber
American children are getting dumb and dumber under Common Core, according to the latest results from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). And according to the results of ACT standardized tests, college-bound students are doing worse than they have ever done in the examination’s history. Continue reading
Something NEW on Le Metropolis Café
Upgrade YOUR Vocabulary!
We love it when we find a new project which will step-up the education of our readers and students (well – they are actually YOUR students) – and the preview which we provide you today will only be available through through a new link which we have provided on the front page of our site.
What is posted below, is an example of what we received today, December 27, 2020. See more from us at the end of this post. ~ Editor
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Christmas in Richmond, 1864

Varina Davis, the beautiful and sympathetic wife of the Confederate President, gave a vivid description of the Christmas of 1864 in Richmond.
Christmas 1864 Richmond. Christmas is traditionally a celebration of abundance and cheer, but as Dickens pointed out in his famous Yuletide tale, for many it can also be a time of want and need. The South had seceded to much jubilation and overweening confidence. They would lick the Yankees in a few months and then the Confederacy would be independent and everyone would live happily ever after – except the slaves, of course. Well, by Christmas of 1864, Confederate confidence had waned drastically, with Richmond under siege and Southern forces in retreat on all fronts.
The following memoir was written by Varina Davis, the wife of former Confederate president, Jefferson C. Davis. She contributed it to a newspaper in that hotbed of Secessionism, New York City, in 1896. While she had the advantage of hindsight, it is enlightening as to conditions in the Confederate capitol nonetheless. So be your Christmas happy or sad, may this serve as a reminder of how they managed in the last winter of the Civil War: Continue reading
Why Reading Is the Most Intelligent Thing You Can Do
Reading plays an integral role in developing our intelligence and problem-solving and analytical skills. Good reasons to do more of it.
We’ve all had it embedded within us since the day we were born: The only way to become smarter, no matter what you study or where you are, is to read. What few people tell us, however, is why reading plays such an integral role in developing our intelligence, problem-solving, and analytical skills, and our ability to understand others with alacrity. Continue reading
26 Children’s Books to Nourish Growing Minds
Food Tank is highlighting 26 books that help show young people that food can be a universal language. These stories illuminate the ways that food is used to show love, bring together communities, pass on traditions, and teach lessons. And their authors show that no matter a person’s background and culture, nutritious food shared with loved ones can help bring anyone together.
These 26 children’s books celebrate food, diversity, the love of cooking, and community from seed to fork: Continue reading
Remote Learning Isn’t Working
Keeping our kids out of school poses a greater threat to their health than COVID-19.
Earlier this year, fears over the coronavirus shuttered classrooms across the country as school systems opted for makeshift online learning. At the time, the stopgap measure seemed like the only way to keep our kids both safe and engaged with their schooling – BUT… Continue reading
XVII: Schools Using Fake ‘History’ to Kill America

Erasing History ~ Image: Lance Page
Americans educated by government today are, for the most part, hopelessly ignorant of their own nation’s history – and that’s no accident. They’re beyond ignorant when it comes to civics, too. On the history of the rest of the world, or the history of communism, Americans are generally clueless as well. This was all by design, of course. Continue reading
Ross: Why Fahrenheit 451 Terrifies Me
“War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.” ~ George Orwell, 1984
There are a great many things that people take for granted. For instance, people flip a switch and expect the lights to come on, or turn on the tap and see water coming out of the spout. People also expect to go to the grocery store and see row after row of goods to purchase. There are a lot of things people take for granted, but if I were to ask people what it is that they take for granted I’m betting that I wouldn’t hear anyone say books. Continue reading
Continuing Education During COVID-19
Let’s use this opportunity to address some of the chronic ones we’re seeing in government-supplied K-12 schooling.
There’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted childhood education. In many countries, kids have physically returned to school. In others, schools were never closed. Yet in the United States, many public schools have been closed since March, yielding disastrous results for millions of kids. While scientific data say it’s safe to bring them back, incentives in the school systems are such that many kids continue to be locked up at home rather than receiving a proper education.
A school’s main role is to educate children. They can feed low-income children and supply day care for working parents, but these benefits are secondary to providing a quality education to all enrolled children. Continue reading
Why the Cotton States Seceded and Formed the Confederate States of America

Great Seal of the Confederacy featuring George Washington, Father of the Confederate States of America
President George Washington warned that political parties should always be national and not sectional, so they could govern with the good of the entire country in mind. He warned that a political party representing only one section would destroy the country because it would allow that one section to dominate and tax the rest of the country for its own benefit.
But money and power are mighty enticements and the North’s population exploded in the 1850s. The new Republican Party realized that the North could outvote the rest of the country and rule for its own benefit, so the Republican Party became the first sectional party in American history: The party of the North. If they could just rally their votes they would have power, wealth, control. They were snarling and drooling like a pack of hungry wolves surrounding a lamb before tearing it to bits. Continue reading
Benson: America’s Education – From the Unitarians to the Chinese Communists
Over the years many have written about the Unitarian and socialist foundations of public education in this country. Authors such as theologian R. J. Rushdoony and author Samuel Blumenfeld have done yeoman duty in this area by exposing the dubious foundations of public education in America.
Now, Ashley Carnahan, writing in Campus Reform has noted that nowadays many of our universities have been undermining all efforts to resist the Chinese Communists. Carnahan has observed that “A new U.S. State Department report outlines how America can respond to China’s rise as a global superpower, and the communist country’s threat to ‘revise world order,’ and states that America’s institutions of higher education are being used to achieve China’s mission.” Is anyone really surprised at this? Had you followed our educational situation in this country you wouldn’t be. The State Department report is entitled The Elements of the China Challenge.
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Back to School…
No my friends… contrary to what the image shows… this is NOT a rewrite of the old 1986 Rodney Dangerfield movie.
I have discovered manuscripts which I had begun to prepare some years ago for the publication of my third book of the series, AMERICA: The Grand Illusion. I chose to no longer publish the series of books, as I felt that what we had to share was greater used by those who I was privileged to serve here – at the Metropolis Café. Many of the new historical posts can be found in the category of Mr. Adair’s Classroom, but also you will find the links with brief introduction through Words & Deeds, within their respective date categories.
…and so we begin to add to our library once more.
AMENDMENT XIV to the Constitution
~ Prologue ~
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. In addition, it forbids states from denying any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Continue reading
Reconstruction of the South (1865 – 1877)
After the Civil War, attempts were made to solve the political, social, and economic problems arising from the readmission to the Union of the eleven Confederate states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war. President Abraham Lincoln planned to readmit states in which at least 10% of the voters had pledged loyalty to the Union. Continue reading