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File This Under ‘Things You Would Never See in America’0
- February 11, 2016
At Intellectual Takeout, we often wish that people would be more passionate about ideas. But this might be taking it a bit too far… In 2014, the Independent reported that a teacher in Russia killed his friend over a dispute about… wait for it… the merits of poetry versus prose. “A Russian teacher allegedly killed
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In Defense of Memorizing 1
- February 11, 2016
If you ever read the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace as a kid, you probably know that Betsy and her friends were big fans of producing home-grown entertainment programs. And the entertainment perpetually ran along the same lines: Betsy and Tacy performed the Cat Duet, little Tib did the Baby Dance, talented Julia played
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Cohabitation is Socially Acceptable, But is it Socially Beneficial?0
- Culture
- February 11, 2016
In case you hadn’t noticed, acceptance of cohabitation has seen a rapid increase in recent years. According to NPR, “more than 65 percent of first marriages start out” in cohabitation, and “young adults born after 1980 are more likely to cohabit than any previous generation was at the same stage of life.” But while cohabitation
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T.S. Eliot on Early Childhood Education 0
- Culture
- February 11, 2016
In the face of abysmal reading, writing, and math proficiency by elementary students, many Americans these days are pushing for universal early childhood education. It’s an odd position we’re in when our education system has expanded itself so incredibly over the 20th century by arguing that it indeed can take kids from all manner of backgrounds
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Why Aren’t Apprenticeships More Popular?0
- Culture
- February 10, 2016
Last night I found myself walking down a hallway at a local private college. As I passed what was presumably the philosophy department, I noticed a couple of posted articles declaring the value of a philosophy degree and decrying the recent rush toward apprenticeships. Apparently the philosophy department was doing some thinking and came to
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Preschool Isn’t Giving Kids Enough Time to PLAY 0
- Education
- February 10, 2016
Our kids are failing at preschool and preschool is failing our kids. At least, that’s the sense one gets from Yale educator Dr. Erika Christakis. In a recent interview with NPR, Christiakis explained that today’s preschools are seeing a lot of problems: “[M]any young children are doing poorly in our early education settings. We’ve got
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