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
Teaching & Education
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 […]
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 […]
Preliminary Thoughts on School Choice
What I have to say here are by no means my final thoughts on the subject of school choice initiatives. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure what I’m sharing here could even be considered “complete thoughts” because they’re still brewing. Perhaps, you can just think of this post as being akin to the […]
Good Teachers Need to Become Good at Teaching
There is a troubling irony in education. Teachers who are adept at stimulating thoughtfulness and creating learning opportunities for students in the classroom frequently struggle to use those same skills to teach the public at large. For the teacher who immediately responded to this assertion by saying to him or herself, “Yeah, but who am […]
Skills Pay the Bills
It is not uncommon to hear someone condemn liberal education as being a financial bust, an exercise in futility toward the goal of gainful employment. After all, skills pay the bills—literature and poetry don’t. Cartoonist, Steve Breen, epitomizes this modern cynicism toward the liberal arts and humanities in a 2012 frame for San Diego’s Union […]
On Modern Health and Fitness Culture
Nothing can make you believe we harbor nostalgia for factory work but a modern gym. —Mark Greif I’m writing this post on Labor Day even though you won’t be reading my words until long after the sun has set on the Central Labor Union’s annual national festival for affirming the glories of factory work and […]
Don’t Smile Until Christmas
To heed or not to heed the old adage, “Don’t Smile Until Christmas!” That is the question. Likely, you’ve heard this familiar advice sometime in your teaching career and wondered if it was sound or even possible. You may be asking yourself, Should I really hide my human side and keep things “all business” until the first […]
Misconceptions About Language Learning
It is certain that a college which does not require Greek will not prepare many to go forth as ministers or missionaries. This would be a great evil not only to the churches, but to the community generally. – James McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton College (1888) Along the lines of McCosh’s statement, consider these […]
The Historic Tradition of Christian Humanism
Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible—even intrinsic—with the practice of historical Christianity, representing a real philosophical union of authentic Christian faith and classical humanist principles made explicit by the Incarnation of Christ. Christian humanism is interested in the affirmation and flourishing of human life and […]