I want to use whatever good I learned as a boy— I can speak and write, read and count—and I want these things to be used to serve you. – St. Augustine of Hippo
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To Whom Will We Pay Our Respects?
The struggle for who controls the educational worldview of the next generation is at the heart of the culture war in every generation. For example, in the early twentieth century, Adolf Hitler notably focused on the education of the German youth in his attempt to create the Aryan man who would populate and propagate his […]
J. R. R. Tolkien’s First Car
In a previous post, I noted that Tolkien had a particularly adversarial disposition toward Machines. In his book, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, Humphrey Carpenter recounts a humorous anecdote about J. R. R. Tolkien’s personal relationship with one kind of Machine, the automobile.
J. R. R. Tolkien: Modernity, Magic, and Machines
Anyone who has spent much time reading Tolkien’s fiction knows he struggled to reconcile with modernity and the resultant effects of technological progress on the human condition. Having served in WWI as a Battalion Signalling Officer at the Battle of the Somme until a severe illness took him out of the trenches, he witnessed firsthand the brutality of modern killing Machines.
Holy Saturday: The Day Jesus Went to Hell
Over the Weekend, I published a two-part series called Holy Saturday: The Day Jesus Went to Hell on my Substack. You can read both posts using these links.
Two Methods for Overcoming Writer’s Block
There is no legitimate reason for writer’s block. Hemingway said, “All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Nevertheless, the phenomenon is real.
The Art of Stretching: What Do You Have in Your Hands Right Now?
The American Dream carves out a very narrow path to well-being. It sets expectations and shapes behaviors in ways that convince people to chase after things they might not need or want, while overlooking the costs of this pursuit.
Unstupiding Ourselves: The Truth About the High Calling of a Classical Christian Education
In 2022, esteemed Psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, made the case that a particular change in the way social media worked made the past 10 years of American life uniquely stupid. Drawing from the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, Haidt accurately describes a nation that is suddenly disoriented and unable to speak the same language […]
Clues That We’ve Been Schooled
For more than a century now, Americans have been unwittingly shaped by the American public education system. But wait, you might be saying! We’re a homeschooling family. Our children have never been in a public school. How is it possible we have been shaped by a system in which we have never participated? That’s a […]
What Grading Trends Reveal About Failing State of Modern Education
The A-F grading scale has been the most commonly used system for teachers for more than 100 years. It came into widespread use because it was considered a “scientific” approach to grading. In an article written for the Washington Post in 2003, Stuart Rojstaczer, a Duke University professor, provided a distressing report which showed that up […]