Without wasting more time on the yet to be ‘decided’ races, the nature of the candidates, or their supporters, the fact that these supposedly deeply divided elections are coming down to mere percentage points of differences, indicates that the real bat…
If you’re in the Washington MO area this weekend, I’ve been invited by We The People of Franklin County to speak on SEL, Common Core, and how our educational system got to this point.Come on out this Sunday Nov. 6th, from 5:00-7:15 p.m., for a good dis…
Here’s an odd question: Do you think that knowledge is relevant to Education? Odder still, how you answer that question puts you on one side or the other of a wide Grand Canyon-like divide in epistemology. Epistemology being: “…the study or a theo…
As Americans hurried into the opening of the 20th Century, most did not notice that the old ideas which ever fewer Americans were still being educated well enough in to understand, were being left ever further behind with each new reform, and with each…
“…They constantly try to escapeFrom the darkness outside and withinBy dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.But the man that is will shadowThe man that pretends to be…” T.S. Eliot, The RockWhile walking through the problem…
When you’re not sure whether or not you’re lost, you check your position and visible landmarks against a map. If your educational map doesn’t show an expected landmark of low graduation numbers with graduates who can’t or won’t read, or read only for i…
“Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost.Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say What was this forest savage, rough, and stern, Which in the very thought renews the fear.So…
As noted previously, the good intentions that our Founding Reformers had in mind when they began the movement towards reforming education in the late 1790s, had a lot in common with our own good intentions today, but those good intentions are just abou…
We’ve already noted the abundance of good intentions that patriots like Noah Webster, Dr. Rush, and Ben Franklin had when urging a ‘New!’ system of education upon us as a means to improve people and fit them to secure their new Republic, much of which …
From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, Philadelphia August 11. 1777:I wish to turn your Thoughts early to such Studies, as will afford you the most solid Instruction and Improvement for the Part which may be allotted you to act on the Stage of…
The fact that even with twelve plus years of schooling, many of our students today can’t or won’t read, or write, or count, says all that should need to be said about the methods of modern schooling in general and of public education in particular. Wha…
American’s changing understanding of what ‘education’ is and is for, has changed us from being a people who were literate enough for The Federalist Papers to be written for persuading the common farmer and ‘man in the street’ on adopting a constitution…
“…As for literature–to introduce children to literature is to install them in a very rich and glorious kingdom, to bring a continual holiday to their doors, to lay before them a feast exquisitely served. But they must learn to know literature by bei…
What should, and should not be, in a school library? Who decides that? Do school libraries serve different purposes than public libraries? Is removing books from a school library the same thing as banning or censoring books? Questions like these have b…