Feeding Mind, Pursuing Truth
Blog 3 Columns
- Home
- Blog 3 Columns
Check Out David Foster Wallace’s Course Syllabus0
- August 3, 2015
With the July 31 release of the biopic The End of the Tour, the late author David Foster Wallace is once again in the news. Wallace is best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, which Time named one of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. For your interest, here is a link
READ MORE
Wendell Berry’s Unsettling Description of Modern Life1
- July 31, 2015
“Man is a political animal.” Chances are that you’ve come across this line from Aristotle. You’ve also probably encountered the John Donne line that “No man is an island entire of itself.” And you may have heard them used to justify our life in modern society, where many of us are packed into cities and
READ MORE
Is It Okay to Bribe Your Kids?0
- July 31, 2015
One of the “joys” of parenting is struggling to get your children to perform required tasks. The most difficult struggles usually involve getting them to do chores and homework. Sometimes, after initial pleas and threats have been fruitless, after the child has done a mediocre job, or even after the child has been punished,
READ MORE
I’m Tired of Celebrating “Teachers”0
- July 31, 2015
The latest Key & Peele sketch “TeachingCenter” is still going viral. It’s a spoof of SportsCenter that imagines a world where we put as much time, energy, and money into honoring teachers as we do athletes. In case you haven’t seen it, here it is: Most of the reactions have been predictable: “If only…”; “Teachers
READ MORE
Cursive: Easier Than We’ve Been Led to Believe?0
- July 31, 2015
You’ve either heard of a situation like the following or been in it yourself: The 29-year-old head of the customer service department walks down the hall and passes a hand-written complaint to a middle-age employee. “Here,” she says, “can you read this note for me? I can’t read the woman’s handwriting.” Puzzled, he looks at
READ MORE
Was Your High School English Class Better than Your Grandma’s?0
- July 30, 2015
My grandmother passed away a few months ago. While looking through her belongings, I discovered several scrapbooks from her school days in the 1930s and 40s. One page in the scrapbook focuses on her 9th-grade English course in a small, rural high school in Minnesota. Pasted to the page is a workbook of sample questions
READ MORE
Walter Palmer: Scapegoat?0
- July 30, 2015
Many people are confused why more vitriol is being directed toward Walter Palmer, the killer of Cecil the Lion, than toward Planned Parenthood after another undercover video of their actions was released. Many assume it is because the mainstream media is actively colluding with Planned Parenthood, or is suppressing news about the video because they are
READ MORE
Mythbusters Star Argues That Schools Should Bring Back Shop Class0
- July 29, 2015
With the growth of standardized testing in recent decades, America’s education system has increasingly removed classes in the visual, performing, and mechanical arts. In the latter category, the iconic shop class of America’s educational past is now a rarity in today’s schools. But, if this viral newspaper clipping below is any indication, Americans want shop
READ MORE
Men and Women: Equal but not the Same?0
- July 29, 2015
Those of us born after the sexual revolution of the 1960s have been raised to believe that there is no inherent difference between men and women. Furthermore, we have been told that those differences which seem to exist are only surface-level and can be overcome simply by enabling women to do the same things as
READ MORE