Feeding Mind, Pursuing Truth
Blog 3 Columns
- Home
- Blog 3 Columns
Why Books are the Best Furniture0
- Culture
- January 25, 2016
My son walked in from school the other day, a new book from the library tucked under one arm. “What’s the book about?” I asked. “A book on the Alamo,” he replied. “The librarian said it was beyond my level.” “What did you say?” I asked. “Ahhhh . . . I just took it out
READ MORE
The Top 20 Books Being Taught at Today’s Colleges0
- Education
- January 25, 2016
The Open Syllabus Project has collected over 1 million college syllabi, according to the New York Times. Analyzing that data, they have compiled a database of texts used in college classrooms and just how often they are used. The architects of the project hope their data will shed new light on “teaching, publishing and intellectual
READ MORE
The Educational Magic of Lego0
- Culture
- January 25, 2016
Over the weekend, the U.K. Telegraph announced twenty unique job openings. The title of the job descriptions? Lego builder: “The job specification says the candidate: ‘Must have Lego building experience and be able to design and build sturdy, accurate, complicated, safe and installable Lego models for a wide variety of Legoland attractions including miniature scale
READ MORE
Successful Political Speech Measures at a 4th-Grade Level0
- Culture
- January 25, 2016
For those curious to know what type of books American school children are reading, look no farther than Renaissance Learning’s 2016 report What Kids are Reading. Compiled from reading data from 9.8 million students, the report lists the top 25 most read books for each grade along with their reading level. While some tried and
READ MORE
Some Americans Think MLK is Endorsing Trump for President0
- Culture
- January 25, 2016
We’ve long suspected that American students are being given the short end of the stick on subjects such as reading and history, while gaining heavy instruction about diversity in race, class, and gender. But if the video below is any indication, it would seem that Americans aren’t learning much history about diversity either. The video,
READ MORE
Are Schools Increasingly Becoming Re-Education Camps?0
- Politics
- January 25, 2016
Apparently the new government of the Canadian province of Alberta has decided that its schoolchildren need to be re-educated about what ‘family’ means. As Charlotte Allen quips: “It used to be: ‘Heather has two mommies.’ Now, it’s: ‘Heather has two non-gendered and inclusive caregivers.’” Allen continues: Here’s the pertinent language from the rainbow-adorned ‘Guidelines for Best
READ MORE
The Books That Influenced C.S. Lewis as a Child0
- History
- January 22, 2016
In a lecture delivered in 1954, C.S. Lewis (1893-1963) told his audience, “I myself belong far more to that Old Western order than to yours… I read as a native texts that you must read as foreigners.” In saying this, he did not intend to be arrogant; rather, he was simply making a point about
READ MORE
Scientists Can’t Avoid Philosophy0
- January 22, 2016
For the past generation or so, more and more physicists have been asking and speculating on questions traditionally thought of as philosophical. Much of that is summed up in journalist Jim Holt’s witty, absorbing book Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story (2013). However, a certain subset of those physicists—the best-known being Stephen
READ MORE
Religion is Down, Spirituality is Up0
- Culture
- January 22, 2016
An interesting conundrum was raised by Pew Research earlier this week. Writing for Pew, David Masci and Michael Lipka noted that although religion is on the decline in America, the number of individuals who experience “spiritual peace and well-being” and “wonder about the universe” has seen a dramatic increase in the last several years. “The
READ MORE