During the last couple of decades, new types of parents have emerged. From the anxiously involved helicopter parents to the pushy tiger mums, these differing styles all have one thing in common: they tend to involve over-parenting. This is where parents micromanage their children’s lives – giving them little autonomy, putting too much pressure on them to achieve academic and personal success, while allowing few chances for their children to experience failure and frustration. Continue reading
NORTH CANTON, Ohio – A purse discovered behind a locker at North Canton Middle School in Ohio is giving modern-day students a glimpse into the life of a high schooler in the late 1950s. Continue reading
Today’s schools teach only the ugliest parts of US history, turning students off from civic engagement. Shutterstock
When he was young, Thomas Jefferson carefully copied those words — a quote from the great political philosopher Montesquieu — into his “commonplace book,” the private journal he kept as a student for future inspiration.
“Everything, therefore, depends on establishing this love in a republic,” the passage continued. “And to inspire it ought to be the principal business of education.”
Thomas Jefferson thought teaching children American History, at an early age, should be a central focus. Continue reading
America is in crisis. The citizenry is fragmented, polarized, and angry. The media, Hollywood, and academia hate the President, who doesn’t care much for them either. This elite trifecta, along with the coastal, urban upper class, not only loathes Trump, but is contemptuous of Middle America and its traditional virtues. But the battle to preserve these virtues and the very possibility of self-government among future generations of Americans can no longer be waged merely at the level of politics. It must now be fought on every college and university campus across the nation. Continue reading
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders but they never fail to imitate them.“ ~ James Baldwin
Most parents want the best for their children. They want them to grow up to be proud, strong individuals, capable of meeting most, if not all, of life’s challenges. They want their children to be good parents to their offspring, as well. Any of these desires depends almost entirely on what goes on at home and on the quantity and quality of both education and experience while they are growing up. But the hard truth is, children are like sponges and they soak up the environment in which they live, in most cases, mirroring their parents. They start filling up the “Little Black Box” of their brain from the day they are born.
If their parents are slovenly and lazy, children have a very high percentage of turning out slovenly and lazy. If parents are industrious, creative, responsible and self-reliant, their children are quite likely to take on these qualities. If their parents are involved in the community, children have a greater chance of also being involved. If the parents take an interest in and are a part of the political process, that experience will rub off on their children. But if the parents are apathetic and indifferent, their children will learn apathy and indifference. Continue reading
Back in the 60s and early 70s, some of the best minds were in the education field. These were veteran teachers, who had begun their careers in the 50s, some earlier, but their sole purpose was to TEACH, TO EDUCATE, not indoctrinate, not by rote or Common Core….. The methods taught by these teachers, by which we serious students learned to think for ourselves, grasped our studies in civics and government, how to figure math in our heads, learn to parse sentences, spell, read profusely, and use critical thinking skills, are probably verboten or not used any more. Continue reading
“Deep Equity”, developed by the Corwin company, is quickly becoming the new standard curriculum being taught in our public schools. If you’ve never heard of it, you soon will. It’s in San Tan valley in Arizona, Chicago, Illinois, Louisville, Kentucky, the entire Cleveland, Ohio public school district, charter schools in California and many more American cities as well as Canada. Continue reading
Him and Her – or They and Zee?
When the National Education Association (NEA) partnered with a radical homosexual and transgender group known as the “Human Rights Campaign” to create “welcoming schools,” a lot of public-school teachers felt uncomfortable, if not outraged. But when the groups sent out a mass e-mail encouraging teachers to ask young children what “pronouns” they prefer — he, she, they, z, tree, and so on — that was a bridge too far for many.
In a video produced as part of the campaign, two transgender children discuss their preferred pronouns with each other. One of the children prefers the plural pronoun “they,” while the other, who claims not to be a boy or a girl, prefers “zee.” Seriously. After that, the two children discuss the alleged need to “educate” their own teachers, especially substitutes, on the supposed importance of using the newly invented pronouns that students choose for themselves. Continue reading
There is this idea Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad asking Malaysians to emulate Japan and Korea as models, of showing recordings of good teachers teaching. The 94-year-old prime minister liked it a lot and wants school to adopt and implement. I suppose his minister of education would also abide by the wishes, as a loyal party member. But I hope I am wrong. That this is not to be the solution to improve our education system, any for that matter. If this is so, I believe this is an idea whose time should never come. Continue reading
Gary D. Barnett, a retired financial advisor and estate planner, has an informative site on the internet, where he deals with various subjects – one of which – one of the most pertinent, is public education… Continue reading
Social-justice crusaders are stripping the future of everything that gives human life meaning: beauty, sublimity, and wit.
Social-justice ideology is turning higher education into an engine of progressive political advocacy, according to a new report by the National Association of Scholars. Left-wing activists, masquerading as professors, are infiltrating traditional academic departments or creating new ones—departments such as “Solidarity and Social Justice”—to advance their cause. They are entering the highest rung of college administration, from which perch they require students to take social-justice courses, such as “Native Sexualities and Queer Discourse” or “Hip-hop Workshop,” and attend social-justice events—such as a Reparations, Repatriation, and Redress Symposium or a Power and Privilege Symposium—in order to graduate. Continue reading
The progressive campus project is a mere veneer. It is a scab of sorts, overlaying a wound beneath of progressive exploitation and class privileges and hierarchies.
Today’s university students want to “wake” the nation to problems that they and their professors have identified as threatening our very existence. And they issue these periodic alarms in hyperbolic terms: we have just 10, 20 – fill in the blanks – years to end fossil fuel use or else die from global warming. Continue reading
For many progressives, the issue is clear: Americans hold conflicting views about what it means to be American; something must change lest the nation be torn asunder; inaction can trigger a massive civil war. Of course, history is neither as deterministic nor as simplistic as the left makes it out to be.
The influential left-leaning magazine The Atlantic just released a special issue highlighting America’s polarization.[1] It is meant to shock a deeply divided nation struggling to stay together. “How to Stop a Civil War” is the menacing cover story. “How America Ends” is yet another ominous title among others that analyze the nation’s grave internal crisis. Continue reading
Every so often I will go somewhere and someone will see the tattoo on my right arm and scowl at me, or say some derogatory comment about it. When they do that it doesn’t bother me, at least not personally; I can take pretty much any shit that someone heaps upon me. What bothers me is the fact that they believe the lie that the Confederate Battle Flag represents prejudice and racism, and that the Civil War was fought over slavery.
Far too many people in this country allow their ideas to be formed by watching some documentary, listening to some instructor, or by reading some book about whatever subject that interests them regarding a historical event… Continue reading
… Common Qur’an-Uption
January 24, 2018 ~ The Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”), a national nonprofit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday evening in the New Jersey District Court against several officials and teachers of the Chatham Middle School and the School District of the Chathams, located in New Jersey. Continue reading