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3 Reasons Why Laura Ingalls Wilder Was a Good Writer 0
- Education
- July 7, 2016
Recently, an interesting but telling scene from These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder has been running through my mind. As the book explains, teenage Laura had just completed her first teaching stint in another school and was happily settling back into life as a student in her home school. On her first day
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It’s Not Just Trump Who Thinks America is in Decline 0
- History
- July 7, 2016
As you well know, at least part of Donald Trump’s campaign success has been due to his slogan “Make America Great Again.” The implication behind the slogan is that America is in decline. After all, as professor Noah Smith pointed out earlier this year, “you can’t ‘make America great again’ unless America isn’t-so-great right now.”
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Crazy = Thinking Student Loan Debt is a Path to Success?0
- Culture
- July 7, 2016
A Forbes article recently caught my eye by proclaiming that it is possible to retire in your 30s and travel the world. The article by Laura Begley Bloom went on to describe 33-year-old Anita Dhake, who is already enjoying retirement after spending a handful of years as a lawyer. Because many of us (myself included)
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How Equality Destroyed the Carnegie Family 0
- Economics
- July 6, 2016
Oh, how Andrew Carnegie adored creative destruction! How much he hated the past! His 1886 book, Triumphant Democracy,[1] a breathless paean to “the Republic,” feels like a prayer, spoken as much in numbers as in words. Among the words of his prayer, none charms like Equality—none possesses a more explanatory power or expresses such warm devotion. Even
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8 Penetrating Quotes from Elie Wiesel 0
- Culture
- July 6, 2016
1) “Time does not heal all wounds; there are those that remain painfully open.” 2) “If you ask me what I want to achieve, it’s to create an awareness, which is already the beginning of teaching.” 3) “Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.” 4) “I don’t believe in accidents. There are only encounters in
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Professor: ‘Textbooks are enemies of education’1
- Education
- July 6, 2016
The PreK-12 education system is becoming increasingly centralized. As I’ve pointed out before, the number of school districts in America has decreased by over 90% since FDR’s New Deal. With this increased centralization—and the standardized tests that have come with it—teachers have lost a lot of autonomy over their classrooms and what gets taught in
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