Some old things should be forgotten, yet much that has been forgotten should not have been. No place is this truer than in education. About a decade ago, classical education became a trend in k-12 and higher education and much that was revived should be allowed to die and much is still forgotten that must live. Sadly, nobody thought to ask, as they turned to the past, why the system of k-12 and college as separate institutions is a good... Read more
When school starts, most Americans do not go. We are done, graduated. Thank God. Or should we thank God? Should we ever leave school? The obvious answer is “no,” because who would ever quit learning? The real answer is “of course,” because I meet many people who could not write the papers like they wrote as seniors in college. This frightens me. Why? We may be the first generation ever to have fifty year olds less well read than the... Read more
Life passes and makes what once was good, a shame. My love, still difficult to overcome, for the song Total Eclipse of the Heart is one of those shames. Once it was acceptable to love this song, then it was a guilty pleasure, and now people just look at you with pity. A song is in trouble when the parody is better than the music video. In honor of tomorrow’s eclipse, I have decided to face my fears and exegete the... Read more
“Beauty had charms to tame the savage beast,” so Disney and fairy tales tell us. If this is so, then why do we spend so much time in ugly places. We work in cubicles and we send our children to rooms built for utility and not for beauty? We love beauty so much that billions are made promising beauty. Nobody would choose to sit in an ugly room if they had a choice. We may be sending beautiful students and... Read more
The proper role of the Federal Government is to stand between white nationalists and the African Americans they wish to enslave or oppress. Read more
Satan is real, he is active, and he must be opposed. Christianity suggests this is true and human experience fits that suggestion. Men like Rasputin have a diabolical charm, able to deceive even decent people. I have known men like he was. The vessels change, but the devils do not. (more…) Read more
This birthday Mom and Dad bought me a box of candy I loved as a child including hard to find candy cigarettes and bubblegum cigars. Wonderful as nostalgia, I have almost finished off the box (wax mustaches! coke bottle candy!), but it is worth asking: did tobacco shaped candy products make us more likely to smoke? Looks like it. Though it did not make me a frequent smoker, I did play detective using the candy cigarettes.* I do not mourn... Read more
I started a new children series and stopped, not because I was offended, but because I have read the book already, generally several times. Here are some themes that could use a timeout (along with Captain Underpants): Schools hate imagination and teachers are bad. Back when CS Lewis dared take on stultifying schools in The Silver Chair the idea was fresh. No more slavish worship of school and teachers as found in the nearly unreadable Tom Brown at School. Yet somehow, the... Read more
Basic moral rule: if you see evil, call it evil. Read more
Some advice is so good it works for everyone. At the kindergarten through college program, where I work, there is a common element to being a student. Sure the college students do not have to worry about eating crayons and the fifth grade does not need the complete Plato (yet!), but if you move from a seventh grade discussion of Phaedo to one in college, you see the commonality. Here are ten things everyone should do: I. Don’t take a smart phone to... Read more
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