C. is for Characterby John Leo,U.S. News and World Report. Until quite recently, attempts to shape the character of the young in school were scorned as indoctrination. Now there is growing recognition that schools have to play a larger role in the moral education of students; the demand for character education programs is rising. Though most schools of education, devoted to self-esteem training and postmodern fads, have greeted character ed with stony silence.
Computer Delusionby Todd Oppenheimer. In this Atlantic Monthly article the author argues that there is no good evidence that most uses of computers significantly improve teaching and learning, yet school districts are cutting programs 'music, art, physical education'that enrich children's lives to make room for this dubious nostrum. Lets think through the matter of computers in the classroom clearly before rushing to embrace them at such great cost.
Educating in Virtueby James Stenson . Children growing up today are headed toward some formidable challenges. They must have character as well as catechetical instruction. They must be savvy as well as pious. They must be brought up to be responsible, tough-minded, compassionate, and courageous. James Stenson here provides some basic principles for educating in the virtues.
Humane Learning in the Age of the Computerby Russell Kirk. Russell Kirk's sobering reflections on the computer age are more pertinent today than at their writing in 1987. The mass of miscellaneous information thrust upon us is overwhelming and dismaying. What we need is not more information; what we require, as a public, is the ability to discriminate and integrate that mass of information, and to reflect upon it. And what we need to resist is a schooling that turns out young people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing: people replete with information and unable to digest it.
In Education, Character as Important as Skillsby William J. Bennett. Much was asked of American education at the time of the nation's founding. American education was intended from its inception to plant virtue, to cultivate what Thomas Jefferson called a "natural aristocracy." Samuel Adams described the mission of educators as nurturing the "moral sense" of children. "Great learning and superior abilities," Abigail Adams told her son John Quincy, "will be of little value and small estimation unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them." We should not settle for less now.
Invitation to the Classics: book reviewby Raymond Matthew Wray. As liberal arts programs in universities around the country have marginalized those Great Books which constitute the Western Canon, Louise Cowan and Os Guinness have given us Invitation to the Classics, a concise primer for the literary classics.
Is the Public School Still Possible?by Brian Caulfield. Called by some the "Satan case," the legal battle in the Bedford, N.Y., public school district earlier this year raises issues of community values and parental control over a child's education.
Neutral Fictionsby Josh Gilder. Public education in America is supposed to mean a morally neutral education, yet in literature class, students are exposed to short stories and novels which consistently share a common philosophy and atheistic worldview.
On Teaching the Important Thingsby Rev. James V. Schall, S.J. . If one of our main purposes in life is to become wise, to understand the things that really matter, then we must seek where these important things are taught.
Our Public Schools and ReligionAn excellent article by Archbishop Elden Curtiss on why secular public schools are not an answer for Catholic parents. (from The Catholic Voice)
Program puts home and school at oddsby J. Fraser Field. To make mandatory in the schools a program whose catechism is diametrically opposed to the understanding of most traditionally religious people, let alone most parents, is an outrageous challenge to the rights of the citizens and means that what many parents are teaching their children at home is being directly contradicted and undermined by what is going on in the classroom.
The Listby Unknown. By now a well-known story on the web, but one that always bears repeating.
Theologians Have Always Needed Mandates to Teachby Fr Kevin M Quirk. This article about Ex Corde Ecclesiæ provides a summary of the Church's involvement in the approval of teachers from the beginning of its university system. (from National Catholic Register 13-19 June 1999).
Threat of Flunking Motivates StudentsThe Waco, Texas schools are featured by the national magazine in a report on "the broad national trend against social promotion, which reporter Ben Wildasky called "the long entrenched practice of advancing students to the next grade even if they haven't learned what they should have."
Toward the Third Millenniumby Daniel McInerny. How to develop in our students the desire to undertake "great and difficult things" and to follow and imitate Christ is the subject of this stimulating article by Daniel McInerny.
Value of a Catholic Liberal Arts Educationby Dominic Aquila. Rather than seeing Catholic education as merely the addition of a religion course to the usual academic subjects, we want our students to make Christian sense out of what they learn in their natural science, math, and history courses, in their study of art, music, and literature.
What A Student Owes His Teacherby Rev. James V. Schall, S.J. . Students have obligations to their teachers, obligations arising from the fact that the teacher-student relationship is primarily a spiritual relationship. Students do not go to school to learn what teachers happen to think.
Whatever Happened To Competition in School?What's wrong with competition? Some people are at war against the whole concept. They think it is undemocratic, unfair, and elitist.
Why Has the West Become Neopagan?by Michael O'Brien. Educators are rightly concerned that young people are not learning to enjoy reading. But in an effort to stimulate interest, they are introducing many books of questionable merit, books which present to the young a neopagan world view.
Education