1901 - The Cat Escapes the Bag

From Diane Ravitch’s Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms (essential reading for anybody who wants to understand American education - and that must include teachers! Doesn’t it?):
In 1901, sociologist Edward A. Ross… explained that free public schooling was “an engine of soical control.” It was the job of schools, he wrote, “to collect [...]

Raising Children on Sin

We have received from the Enlightenment a rather boring, two-dimensional view of man. We have learned to regard ourselves in binaries such as mind/body, right brain/left brain, scientific/artistic. On a good day someone might speak of the mind and the heart, but usually by heart he means appetites or emotions, and both of those, on [...]

Choosing Heroes

We Christians have a different way of seeing things, of setting values, and that leads us to honor different heroes than those who see things more conventionally. We value God’s blessed creation, for example, so we honor those who make the great discoveries. But we don’t value it as an arbitrary, pointless thing that simply [...]

Why not read pagan literature?

Last Tuesday night I got involved in a discussion on why Christians are uncomfortable with pagan literature and how to deal with that problem. Then we ran out of time. Next Tuesday we’ll be renewing that discussion on the Pluto and Plato Radio show/teleconference. I hope you can be there because this is an important [...]