The First Topic of Invention

My son David at Beside the Queue directs us to Jeffrey Overstreet who points us to Youtube to get us asking the great question:
This is hysterical.
 

The Lost Tools of Writing and Al Gore’s Speechwriter

If you are hired to write speeches by the Vice President of these United States, you can write speeches. You can imagine, therefore, why my attention was aroused when I discovered an interview of Daniel Pink (speechwriter to Al Gore) by Tim Ferriss (author of The Four Hour Work Week).
Of course, I wanted to see if [...]

the framework of the science curriculum

This is part two of this post.
In that post, I argued that the reason we aren’t producing the scientists we need is fundamentally because we are teaching science incorrectly: we are teaching the class without the tools, which are the seven liberal arts.
Well, it’s time for me to fulfill my duty and offer some suggestions about what we [...]

Why Our Schools Aren’t Giving us Enough Scientists

Nearly every day I receive another notice or article about the struggles to build a science curriculum that meets the need of the day to produce scientists to keep the economy moving, to cure diseases, and to stay ahead of the enemy technologically.
And no wonder: the power of science to solve physical problems has proven [...]

In and Out of Humor

Sometimes we don’t realize what is most practical in a given situation. For example, the CiRCE conference theme this summer is humor. I don’t know how many people have done research on the necessity of humor in the life of a school, but I suspect scarcity defines the number.
And yet… And yet. How many [...]

The growth of an ideal

By the time a child turns 15 or so he has formed a very strong sense of his ideals. In fact, the foundation of those ideals was laid 15 years earlier.
Some children become so confused over their early ideals (by experience, hypocricy, etc.) that they have become cynical by the teen years. Regrettably, that happens [...]

The problem of objectivity

The motto of the Fox News Channel is “We Report.  You Decide.”  The idea behind the statement is that they are attempting to report the news without bias or prior interpretation.  They are claiming objectivity, in the sense of being “without bias or prejudice; detached.”  Of course, claims to objectivity are numerous, extending to nearly [...]

Does the theory of Evolution Matter?

Chesterton argued that it did not. Consider this, published in Gilbert magazine.

An effective Approach To Reading a Poem

Since a poem has the four qualtities identified and haltingly addressed in this post: it’s music, its imagery, its logos, and its unspeakable quality that I’ve reluctantly and insultingly reduced to its connotations, we can develop a strategy when we approach a poem that is consistent with the nature of poetry. We don’t need to [...]

Dance and Permanance

Why does a folk-dance last for hundreds of years (think Sound of Music), while a modern popular dance goes out of fashion in 2 or 5 or maybe 10 years (think Funny Face, the Twist, even Swing, despite it’s nostalgic renewal)?