The material for the first seven hours of the worldview training I’ve been developing for our homeschool are up. This is section 1a, and it covers the ways in which we know things, or more specifically, epistomology. This section just represents a broad overview of the topic, rather than an in depth review; the idea is to give the student a general understanding of the topic, rather than a deep philosophical education.
This section has three readings; Mediation in a Toolshed, from C.S. Lewis’ God in the Dock; a reading from the book of Job, and the story of [...]
The New York Times reports that 27 states are planning to adopt the set of national standards developed by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) — standards being backed by the Obama administration with federal funds. … National standards — “federal norms” for what’s taught in your local school, as the Times puts it — represent a massive change in American education. Yet there has been virtually no public or legislative debate about this federal takeover. … The problem, ultimately, is that these national standards and tests are a distraction from [...]
I have a lot of friends who send their kids to the government run public schools; their reasoning for keeping their children in public schools generally fall into one of these:
1. I can’t teach my children a specific subject. 2. My school/class is fine; my children’s teachers are Christians. 3. I teach at home to make up for and counter the academic and worldview shortfalls of public school. 4. My children provide a witness to those around them in their public school.
For the first objection, I would just say this: it’s better to do a second rate [...]
Take a look at these documents from a Texas classroom, if you want to really know.
Read them carefully… Do you notice anything wrong with the explanations of liberals vs conservatives? If liberals trust people more, then why are liberals always for bigger government, and more control? Big government is bad because people are fundamentally flawed; it’s a logical contradiction to place some fundamentally flawed people in charge of other fundamentally flawed people and expect good results.
Note the fundamental twisting of the Christian worldview into evil incarnate, and the fundamental denial of history and reality. This is [...]
It sounded like a great idea: Stanford education professors would create a model school to show how to educate low-income Hispanic and black students.
Or, as it’s turned out, how not to.
In March, Stanford New Schools (aka East Palo Alto Academy) — a charter high school started in 2001 and elementary grades added in 2006 ““Â made California’s list of schools in the lowest-achieving five percent in the state.
…
How did it happen? Stanford New Schools, run by the university’s school of education, seems to stress social and emotional support over academics.
-PJM
There are three essential [...]
The chart to the left, found over at Heritage, shows the number of students per teacher in the public school system since 1950. The remarkable thing is that the number has been declining for the last 60 years; it’s almost half of what it was during the days of I Love Lucy. At the same time, there has been a phenomenal growth in the number of people in public school administration. I can clearly remember that we had precisely two principals and one or two administrative people in my high school, with 1200 students. Today when I walk into [...]
The theory is that under communitarian forms of government, such as communism and socialism, everyone is treated the same; from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. In other words, the point is to make certain you have equal outcomes, so that people aren’t “left behind,” because they are poor, or because of physical disabilities, etc. The reality, of course, is far different. In a collectivist system, there will always be those who are “more equal” than others. Instead of those who produce the most getting the most, however, it is those who are [...]
“The California Teachers Association spent $211.8 million – more than any other special interest group – over the past decade to influence state voters and politicians, according to a state report released Wednesday” -SFGate
Why would a teacher’s union spend so much money at the state level? What did they spend the money to support, or fight for?
CTA believes quality health care is a basic right of all Americans and supports health care proposals which incorporate universal access to quality health care at an affordable price.
California voters, parents and teachers do not support school voucher programs because [...]
The girl came home from school upset. A classmate had called her names. Told her everyone hated her. Said she couldn’t sit with the others at lunch. The other girls all went along with it. Such “mean girl” behavior is not new. Girl-on-girl cruelty has long been the subject of books, TV shows, and movies about tween and teen girls. But this girl was 7 years old.
…
“I think what’s different is how uninhibited it [bullying] has become. There’s just a real lack of empathy,” said Deborah Weaver, executive director of a self-defense and safety program for [...]
America’s superpower status in the field of higher education is steadily slipping as the efforts of other countries to improve their universities pay dividends. The most recent rankings report shows that, as the grip of U.S. domination weakens, institutions in Asian countries such as Japan and China are gaining ground. … The United States had 63 institutions ranked in the top 200 when the report was first published in 2004. Over the last five years, that number has fallen to 54. While the U.S. still has more schools in the top 200 than any other nation, the steady [...]
Just another “isolated incident” at a school far far away. When do we start adding all the “isolated incidents” up, and realize this is a trend? And when is it time to finally pull our kids out of this mess we call the “public school system?”
You might—or might not—have noticed that part of the entire health care debate is centered around children, and the health care they receive. For it is on our children that the main burdens of the new debt we are taking on to pay for health care will fall, and it is they who will wind up with their entire lives electronically recorded by a government run health care system. Of course, I’ve discussed the government’s desire for our children in terms of school many times on this blog, and I believe there is a concerted effort to “take [...]
When my kids went to a private Christian school, we spent about $5000 per child per year, not including supplies, field trips, and uniforms. It sounds like a lot, I know, but do you know how much the public schools take in per pupil? From the Wall Street Journal:
Those polled by Education Next estimated that schools in their own districts spend a little more than $4,000 per pupil, on average.
And up until I spent some time looking at real numbers, I would have figured that was about right. Remember, of course, the number we’re talking about [...]
John Loeffler of Steel on Steel had an excellent program on the 5th of September; I highly recommend his podcast. In this specific case, here is a two minute audio clip on the foundations of the public school system.
This entire program was excellent. In the section after this, he has clips from an interview with a KGB officer describing how the KGB spent 85% of their budget on “information campaigns” in the US, trying to make certain three generations of children within the US were raised within the dialectic system, and hence how we need [...]
If you were a Christian parent (I somewhat assume you are a Christian, if you’re reading this blog, but whether you’re a parent or not, I’ve no idea), what would you consider the most important thing you can teach your children? If you had to choose one subject, and one subject only, to teach, what would it be? Would you choose language, so the child can communicate, and learn other things more easily? Would it be math, so the child can do their checkbook, and survive in the world? Or would it be theology, the study of who [...]
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