In American schools, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is usually read in 8th or 9th grade. As such, because students at that grade level have only had so much life experience, some of its more penetrating social critiques are often missed. The other day I came across one of these critiques. The significance of
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As recent years have seen a rising number of high-stakes tests for children in elementary, middle, and high school, more and more Americans are beginning to question the wisdom of testing. Claims of burnt-out, stressed children permeate the news and have caused many parents to join the growing opt-out movement. Like today’s parents and teachers,
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Does teaching younger children philosophy make them smarter? A “large, well-designed study” conducted by the Education Endowment Foundation suggests that the answer is yes. As Quartz reports: “Nine- and 10-year-old children in England who participated in a philosophy class once a week over the course of a year significantly boosted their math and literacy skills,
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Friends are important. The people we choose to let into our circle often shape our ideas and character. In a well-known passage from the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle outlined the three primary types of friendships humans often make. Most would agree that Aristotle’s categories of friendship are not equal; some clearly are deeper than others. If
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Do you want to rule a world? Blow apart a sun? Test a theory of community? Explore the very depths of depravity? End slavery and misery? Destroy all empires? It is possible. . . At least in the imagination. “The proper study of man is everything. The proper study of man as artist is everything
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Book-burning serves as a powerful symbol of the dangers of totalitarianism and ideological intolerance. It conjures up images of Nazis throwing books deemed “un-German” on bonfires. It inspired authors of dystopian novels, such as George Orwell and Ray Bradbury, to warn of the destruction of freedom which the burning of books symbolizes and represents. Yet
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