My Greatest Fear

I’m a tough guy. I’m from the hard-wrought cotton fields of Arkansas, and I have been in more backwoods fights than I can remember. My mom used to buy us (my brothers and me) boxing gloves for Christmas. I can’t really remember being afraid of anyone – except maybe my dad and [...]

Immanuel Kant and the “Aim” of Education

I’m sitting in the library at Hiram College visiting my daughter and checking out the books. I came across this by Immanuel Kant, from his book Education. It made me laugh.
1. Man is the only being who needs education….
2. Animals use their powers… according to a regular plan–that is, in a way not harmful to [...]

An Obviousness

It is imperative that young children experience repeatedly the joy of solving puzzles and problems of increasing complexity and difficulty. Without the self-confidence this cultivates, thinking is destroyed by apprehension.
Such puzzles will also help them discover and live with the limits to their abilities and authority. Success in life rests on understanding and relating properly [...]

The Christ-Centered Curriculum and the Idea of Nature

I lifted my head from conference preparation to find myself on the brink of an ecstacy, so I figured I’d better write something to get my spirit under control. It happened when I was talking with Vigen Guroian about our theme: a contemplation of nature, and we got talking about what to read during the [...]

President Obama, Stem Cells, Science, and Ideology

We all sympathized with our President the other night during his press conference when that mean man from the Washington Times asked him about the morality of stem cell research adn he described the agony of the decision he was compelled to make.
Of course, I don’t mean that we sympathized with his agony, which, I’m [...]

Honor Roller

This is an exchange on a question some of you probably have to deal with that I was given permission to post. I’m doing so to get your input and ideas on this subject as well. 
Here’s the E-mail I received:

Dear Mr. Kern,
 We are reviewing our policy on having an Honor Roll at [our school].   Right now, [...]

What I’d like to see schools assess

Rates among their graduates of the following:

Cheating at work or school
Suicide
Divorce
Drug use
Sexual promiscuity
Violent crimes
White collar crimes
Preservation of the tradition

I would want a low rate of all but the last of those, just to be clear.

Pope John Paul II on Family and Education

Those in society who are in charge of schools must never forget that the parents have been apppointed by God Himself as the first and principal educators of their children adn that their right is completely inalienable.
I think they forgot.
But I think Christian school teachers forget too. We must remember the principle of limited government, [...]

Boredom

We easily underestimate the destructive power of boredom, perhaps nowhere more than in education, where some miserable, disappointed scholar decided that boredom, as opposed to painstaking labor, was the price of learning.
The stereotype of  the conventional teacher, hiding behind her “practical” needs – by which she means today’s immediate stresses, jobs, standardized tests, etc. - is the great [...]

On the Nature of Things

The Circe conference this year is centered on the theme of Nature. From what I understand it is not just about the natural world, but also about the nature of things: the nature world around us, the nature of God, the nature of students, the nature of the seven liberal arts, the nature [...]