As states and localities battle over issues from how or even whether to re-open schools, all the way to defining the circumstances under which small children will be required to wear masks, a devolution of decision-making is certainly welcome. Hybrid homeschools can provide many more families with a way to both get past virus-related [...]
In 1954, “Lucky Jim” was a new planet: When Kingsley Amis wrote it, English satirical fiction had been for a third of a century a decidedly mandarin and highbrow business. Unlike his predecessors, Amis depicts representatives of the lower orders and the previously inaccessible university world that is not so much a garden of [...]
The bold yet solution-adverse signatories of the “Harper’s” letter are pointing us toward a world where the left and right side of the aisle can once again amicably communicate. Nowhere is this more important than on college campuses, where students should be immersed in a world of thought and discourse that pushes the boundaries [...]
Despite all efforts to cancel good sense, common decency, a real sense of justice, respect for the law, and fear of God, these things will reassert themselves, as will the gifts of faith, hope, and charity. What better summer reading for an age of martyrs than the great works of the Western tradition that [...]
More than 700 Catholic educators from across the country and overseas will gather online next week to explore, celebrate, and strengthen the growing movement to save Catholic schools through the recovery of the Church’s proven tradition of education. The Institute for Catholic Liberal Education’s 8th National Conference was forced to shift to an online [...]
If it’s time to “defund” the police department of Minneapolis, maybe it’s also time to “defund” the K-12 sector of what passes for public education in Minnesota. The idea is to fund parents instead. The radical idea of school choice will directly empower parents, which is something that defunding the police will not do. [...]
Race-obsessed mania could signal the final demise of the American university. It has, however, been a long time dying, and many would say that it has been a long time coming. Those who saw the Academy’s abandonment of the rational foundations on which it was built knew that its collapse was inevitable. “This is [...]
I think every right-thinking individual should get behind the #CancelYale movement. And lest anyone complain that such movements are merely negative, that they cancel but do not replace with something new, I want to accompany #CancelYale with a concrete, positive suggestion: #DummerUniversity. I see that #CancelYale is trending on Twitter and elsewhere in social [...]
A traditional liberal arts curriculum elevates the tastes, ennobles the sentiments, and orders the mind to truth: Socratic questioning forces critical reflection on the content and coherency of one’s ideas; a vigorous and integrated life of grace and prayer keeps the mind and heart strong, pure, integrated, and focused on Jesus Christ. Yet to [...]
The poet’s power is a power to disclose, extol, and communicate the sanctity of experience, protecting it from the ordinary disorientation of the quotidian. The poet calls attention to the ordinary patterns of human life, and is a call to contentment, that rarest of achievements. To attribute to poetry such power is to ascribe [...]
Winston Churchill’s education deserves close study because it shaped his evolution from unsteady boyhood to rational statesmanship. It was this education that enabled him to exercise discernment and discover what was advantageous and disadvantageous, just and unjust, so that—whether in peacetime or in war—he could demonstrate remarkable qualities and serve the country he loved. [...]
If we fail to inspire this next generation to pursue that which is True, Good, and Beautiful, I shudder to think at the consequences. Groupthink will destroy all that we hold dear. We want our students to polish their reason and to prepare to guide and navigate their chariots along the track of life. [...]
The major pro of the shift to online classes during the coronavirus pandemic was our being together, even though we were isolated at our homes away from campus. But the proposal being entertained by some in higher ed to begin the fall semester online has one very glaring con: Starting classes online cold from [...]
To justify the Classics and Humanities, some have tried to argue that they remain a practical option for students, couching their praise in terms readily amenable to the outcome-focused mentalities of today’s high-achieving students. But does reducing the Classics and Humanities to a series of “practical” stepping-stones do the subjects any justice? Colleges and [...]