January 15th marks the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the great leader of the American Civil Rights Movement. As the quotes below illustrate, Dr. King promoted a traditional understanding of education in which students learn to think for themselves while simultaneously developing in virtue. Are today’s schools failing to give students the kind
READ MOREThe West stands for secular law while Muslims want to impose a religious Sharia law, right? Not so fast, says Remi Brague, professor of philosophy at the University of Munich. In his essay “Are Non-Theocratic Regimes Possible?”, Brague argues, “The two conceptions of law that face each other [Western and Muslim] both rest on a common
READ MOREMulticulturalism is all the rage in today’s school curriculums in the West. The theory is that giving equal treatment to a diverse array of peoples, histories, and customs will teach students to be more open-minded, tolerant, and informed in a global society. In actuality, I suspect the opposite is the case. Both educationally and socially,
READ MOREAccording to a new report from the CDC, the average age of women at the time of first childbirth has risen from 24.9 to 26.3 in the last 15 years. Reporting on this increase, NPR writes, “The main force pulling the average age to the older end of the spectrum is a decrease in the number
READ MOREIt’s no secret that American students are sadly falling behind. One look at the Nation’s Report Card tells us that not even half of students at the 4th, 8th, or 12th grade levels are able to achieve proficiency in math, reading, history, or any number of other subjects. To an outsider, such scores would lead
READ MOREAn interesting debate is taking place in Minnesota’s Twin Cities over the definition of “segregation”. The controversy at this times is swirling around public charter schools in the urban core of Minneapolis and St. Paul that have a concentration of minority students in them. Is it a form of segregation? Those charter schools are open
READ MOREWhile stringent ethical guidelines govern modern reproductive technologies, the 19th-century origins of artificial insemination are unpleasant to say the least. Elizabeth Yuko describes the “ethical nightmare” of the first successful artificial insemination in a woman for The Atlantic. The first artificial insemination resulting in a live birth was performed in 1884. When the woman’s doctor,
READ MOREThese days, a lot of our society tends to make things up as it goes along. Folks must do so since our current notion of progress tends to resemble a perpetual revolution. If we are constantly rejecting not only the past, but also the ‘now’, in the hope of creating a better future, it’s hard
READ MORELottery obsession is nothing new, Nina Martyris tells us in a story for NPR. In fact, Charles Dickens was horrified by the lottery. As recounted in Dickens’ Pictures from Italy, he was fascinated by the disturbing lottery practices he witnessed in Naples in 1845. So popular was the local lottery of the time that Neapolitans
READ MORE