education 148
Why Pursue an Education?
The course I am teaching is part of the university’s core curriculum. Core comes from the Latin word for “heart,” I told my students. The same Latin root, cor, gives…
Homeschooling and Red Herrings
Repeatedly, some of the best students I have taught have been homeschooled. What set them apart was precisely the spirit of bold curiosity that I see in my own kids:…
Taste and See: A Review of The Liberating Arts
Perhaps people defended the liberal arts to me, and I was too dense to hear, but I truly cannot remember anyone ever setting out a vision for the liberal arts
Filling Time Filling Minds
That with which we fill our time, after all, is what ends up filling our minds, hearts, and souls. More than simply responsible scheduling, our very character is on the…
Fleeing the Ephemeral and Pursuing the Eternal: A Review of Love What Lasts
But if our souls are eternal, why do we not then spend more time with things that habituate us to eternity? If our days are short, and the “days are…
Things I Learned in Intermediate Greek Class
Reading ancient languages requires slow and careful thinking and processing of a sort that we do not normally utilize in our pressure-cooker fast-consumer world.
One Homeschool Year: A Local Story in Four Seasons
One learning outcome I had in mind for this academic year was to teach all students to close the bathroom door when using the facilities. Alas, we seem to have…
A Journey to Right Worship: A Review of Learning to Love
I was encouraged by Sosler and all the many ways he connected love and knowledge to the journey that a rightly ordered education invites students to take. The infilling of…
Learning through Language: Education and Electronic Media
The best educators (and the best educational institutions) will neither embrace nor eschew the electronic technologies that commercial forces wish to prevail in higher education; rather they will assess each…
Postcards from the Edge: the State of Education in the State of Florida
We do not need crusades for or against “wokeness”—we need people to read actual legislation and weigh in on it. We do not need centralized authorities to make sweeping, political…
Devotion to Whole Education: Booker T. Washington
I think, I know, that Washington exemplified a whole-hearted devotion to his students. He was concerned, as I am, to educate the whole person of the student, not merely to…
Education as Pilgrimage
"We seem to be born homesick, and that homesickness is meant to lead us into a life of pilgrimage.” Walker Percy Black Mountain, NC. Where are you going? At its…
In Schooling as in Life, More Than Enough is Too Much
Being a teacher is a demanding job, whether in a college, school, or home setting. It requires tremendous energy, responsiveness, and mental flexibility. It requires that you, the teacher, also…
Centering Humanity in the Age of the Chatbot
Though the metaphor sounds alarmist, an unimaginable tsunami is barreling down on a complacent world. We may have time to adjust, who knows?
The Burden Of Youth
Why are so many of Uncle Sam’s children so miserable? What is going on? The reasons are one part mystery and one part well-known. It is worth reflecting on them.
On Lug Wrenches and Chopsticks
Semiotic tools are inevitable in an American economy that is increasingly segregated between those whose work is dependent on process and those who focus on outcome.
How Shall We Train Up A Child?: The View From One State
All education programs enculturate students. There is no neutrality here. The question is not whether education will form our students, but how they will be formed. Proverbs (22:6) says, “Train…
The Absurdity of Teaching
As we approach the new academic year, we, like Sisyphus, are condemned to roll the rock up the hill only for it to roll back down. However, this does not…
Against Fun: The Ubiquitous Specter of Youth Sports
More to the purpose of this essay, organized youth sports should challenge students to be dissatisfied with amusement or entertainment in their pursuit of excellence. Our culture is soaked in…
Pretend It’s a Book
Fran Liebowitz suggests that “a book isn’t supposed to be a mirror, it’s supposed to be a door.” Universities are the same. They are not meant to simply reflect the…
The Face of Education
As a new school year begins, Jon Schaff takes stock of the effects of Covid on education. Learning is relationship, and, if the point of college, as the very term…
Review: The Soul of The American University Revisited
As our society considers higher education in the twenty-first century, the best way to decide what universities should be is not to gaze into the future, but to study the…
Why The Cult of Smart is a Book for Every Parent in 2020 (Whether Anarcho-Socialist or Not)
The Cult of Smart is deeply entrenched in most modern systems of public education around the world, and the increasingly clear reality of cognitive and genetic differences between different human…
Lives at Stake: Education in the Academic Year 2020-2021
Students may return to universities that post a philosophy statement but have no philosophy department. Yet as we look at our country, divided over history and by economics, home to…