Last week, students at small Christian college in Kentucky gathered for their regular Wednesday chapel service. Ten days later, it has not ended. People from around the country and the world continue to join in. No matter your religion or lack thereof, THIS is an exceptional happening. More exceptional even, is that this spirit has spread to other colleges and universities. Continue reading
The evidence certainly points in that direction…
In 2022, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” found historic declines in reading and math scores among American students. Scores by grade level and subject fell dramatically in all categories. Continue reading
There is no substitute for consistent interaction between a little one and his or her mom and dad. The two greatest gifts parents can give their kids are the knowledge of Jesus Christ and their time.
Any tool can be misused. A hammer can construct or kill. An electrical wire can give instant light or, if mishandled, bring sudden death.
So it is with computers and televisions. They are valuable and helpful but also potentially dangerous. So, when children use “screens,” parents need to be extra vigilant. One reason is the predatory nature of some of the internet’s more evil components, like pornography or horribly violent images, and the rot that’s on both network and cable TV. Continue reading
A new look for a new day: Models show off the “flapper” dress style in this circa-1925 photo.
The Jazz Age. The Roaring ’20s. The Flapper Generation. The Harlem Renaissance. These are the terms most often used to describe America’s supposedly booming culture and economy during the 1920s. No doubt there is some truth in the depiction. Real wages did rise in this period, and the styles and independence of certain women and African-Americans did blossom in the 1920s – at least in urban centers. Still, the prevailing visions and assumptions of this era mask layers of reaction, racism and retrenchment just below the social surface. For if the 1920s was a time of jazz music, stylishly dressed “flappers” and lavishly wealthy Wall Street tycoons, it was also one infused with Protestant fundamentalism, fierce nativism, lynching and the rise of the “new” Ku Klux Klan. How, then, should historians and the lay public frame this time of contradictions? Perhaps as an age of culture wars – vicious battles for the soul of America waged between black and white, man and woman, believer and secularist, urbanites and rural folks. Continue reading
According to a lady interviewed on Fox News recently, many parents are beginning to get fed up with “woke” indoctrination being perpetrated on their children. One place this occurs is in public schools across the country. One way to combat this satanic (and it is satanic) indoctrination is to get your kids out of public schools. While you may not get rid of all of it that way, as you will get some of it on television and in the movies, you will get rid of a large portion of it by getting the kids out of public school. Continue reading
Get your children OUT of the System – NOW
For seven years, I slogged through the public school system before my parents made the decision to homeschool. At the time, I couldn’t understand why they were so concerned about making the switch.
Frankly, I wasn’t learning anything in public school, so from my perspective, it couldn’t get any worse. Only later, when I asked my parents about their thought process, did I learn how much propaganda there is against homeschooling.
The core of this propaganda is the idea that parents are unqualified to teach their kids. After all, public school teachers are required to have a degree and license. Continue reading
Everywhere in education, you see incentives at work. The incentives, though, are so far removed from the actual goals of education that they produce perverse results.
Goodhart’s Law is usually stated, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Economics textbooks often use the allegory of a maker of nails, who receives word that his measure of success at producing nails will be based on the number of nails made. He retools his factory, adjusts his resource use, and produces as many nails as possible, even though many are too thin, or small, or bent to use. When his higher-ups decide to measure productivity on the weight of nails, instead, he makes only a few very large nails, too heavy to be used. Once your incentives are aligned in service of a particular metric, in other words, that metric isn’t an objective measure anymore. Continue reading
In the wake of COVID-19, people now overwhelmingly believe that the education system’s broader purpose needs to be rethought. This begins with a shift away from standardized testing, college prep and a one-size-fits-all model and toward personalized curricula, practical skills and subject mastery.
A new Purpose of Education Index survey released by the Massachusetts-based national think tank Populace found a radical shift in the way most of us view education and what our children should be getting out of it. Continue reading
Dangerfield Newby (1815 – 1859) was the oldest of John Brown’s raiders, one of five black raiders, and the first of his men to die at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
Born into slavery in Fauquier County, Virginia, Newby married a woman also enslaved. Newby’s father was Henry Newby, a landowner in Fauquier County. His mother was Elsey Newby, who was a slave, owned not by Henry, but by a neighbor, John Fox. Elsey and Henry lived together for many years and had several children, although interracial marriage was illegal in Virginia. Dangerfield was their first child.
Dangerfield Newby, his mother and his siblings were later freed by his father when he moved them across the Ohio River into Bridgeport, Ohio. John Fox, who died in 1859, apparently did not attempt to retrieve Elsey, Dangerfield, or any of his siblings. Dangerfield’s wife and their seven children remained in bondage. A letter found on his body revealed some of his motivation for joining John Brown and the raid on Harpers Ferry. Continue reading
The Battle of Long Island – August 27, 1776
We had our American Revolution over two centuries ago and the years have done something to it. The legends remain, and the statues and the grassy earthworks and the great body of tradition, but a good deal of the reality has been filtered out – revised! When we look back to see Washington crossing the Delaware on a cold winter night, or kneeling in prayer in the snow of Valley Forge; we see the Minutemen, or a lanky Virginian rifleman picturesque in fringed buckskin; but somehow it all seems out of a pageant, and neither Washington nor the men who followed him quite come alive for us. Continue reading
Learning doesn’t have to stop when the school bell rings. Some of the best learning takes place outside of the classroom. So, if your child is struggling with a particular subject, or if you want to expand their knowledge beyond what they’re learning in class, you can do so without spending a lot of money or signing up for extracurricular activities. Continue reading
Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze
Tyranny will not topple America – not on my watch, and not on yours. We will stay together as George Washington and his worn-out soldiers did 246 years ago on Christmas Day in 1776 when they set out across the frozen Delaware River to fight for freedom. Victory or death were the options that lay ahead for them on that frigid winter day. Continue reading
It is very important that parents, grandparents, and teachers teach discipline, thinking skills, and motivation, plus help children get good grades in school. Today, we will continue on this very important critical motivation, learning skills, and educational journey. Continue reading
In March of 2021 writer Christopher F. Rufo did an article for Hillsdale Colleges’ publication Imprimis in which he dealt with Critical Race Theory and its origins. I can’t deal with it all here. It is long and informative and you may be able to find it on the internet–if it hasn’t been censored off by now. For my purposes here I will give you a brief quote. Mr. Rufo noted that: “Critical race theory is an academic discipline, formulated in the 1990s, built on the intellectual framework of identity-based Marxism. Relegated for many years to universities and obscure academic journals, over the past decade it has increasingly become the default ideology in our public institutions.”
One of those public institutions is the public school system and Critical Race Theory is, regardless of what some try to tell us, alive and unfortunately well in our public school systems in America. Continue reading
Everyone knows that the quality of education in our public schools is declining. We continue to fall behind the rest of the world, and this is particularly true in science and in math.
Personally, I am a product of the public schools. I attended public schools all the way through high school, and I earned three degrees at public universities. And I have to admit that the quality of the education that I received was terrible. If I had not spent a great deal of time and effort educating myself, I would not be able to do what I do today. Sadly, things have gotten even worse in recent decades. Today, a large proportion of our young people are not even equipped to function on a very basic level in our society once they graduate from high school, and that has huge implications for the future of our country. Continue reading
The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt from the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) and looking to its North American colonies as a revenue source.
Arguing that only their own representative assemblies could tax them, the colonists insisted that the act was unconstitutional, and they resorted to mob violence to intimidate stamp collectors into resigning. Parliament passed the Stamp Act on March 22, 1765 and repealed it in 1766, but issued a Declaratory Act at the same time to reaffirm its authority to pass any colonial legislation it saw fit. The issues of taxation and representation raised by the Stamp Act strained relations with the colonies to the point that, 10 years later, the colonists rose in armed rebellion against the British. Continue reading
When Frances E. Anderson saw the latest math scores for America’s fourth- and eighth-graders, she was hardly surprised that they had dropped. Until recently – including the period of remote instruction during the pandemic – Anderson taught high school math to students at all levels.“ Now she is a researcher seeking to change how people understand children’s math ability. In the following Q&A, Anderson explains what makes some kids “good” at math and what it will take to catch up those who have fallen behind.
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I was once told, “You chase yourself in circles, searching for answers that are not to be found within, for if they were, you would have found them by now. Look elsewhere!“
I often think of that advice in relation to the ever-worsening problems of public schooling. If the answers were there…there in any one of the 51 Departments of Education, or in any one of the thousands of schools being directed, manipulated, and warped by federal directives — the educational gurus would have found them long ago. Instead, educators rush about, grabbing for brass rings; fishing for fads; pushing for progress…all the while refusing to honestly seek answers…elsewhere. Continue reading
A long long time ago, I can still remember…
And the three men I admire mostThe Father, Son, and the Holy GhostThey caught the last train for the coastThe day the music died…
Most fairy tales begin with the following words; ‘Once upon a time…’ or ‘A long, long time ago…’ Even Hollywood has followed in that tradition, with movies like Star Wars beginning with the screen crawl that reads, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far away…” Although this tale does not begin in the outer reaches of the galaxy, it does begin a long time ago; in 1776 to be exact. Continue reading
The Apostle Paul
The title of this essay, “Education as if Truth Mattered,” is taken from the subtitle of Christopher Derrick’s book, Escape from Scepticism: Liberal Education as if Truth Mattered, published in 1977. Derrick’s subtitle was itself borrowed and adapted from the subtitle of E. F. Schumacher’s international bestseller, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, published four years earlier. Derrick and Schumacher were friends, the former being instrumental in introducing the latter to the Church’s social teaching, and the two books have much more in common than their ostensibly different subjects would suggest. In both cases, the authors illustrate how modernity’s philosophical materialism has undermined the very foundations of civilized life and how the solution to the problem is a return to traditional concepts of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Continue reading