In the news, we often hear distressing statistics about how few books Americans read in a given year. As a result, we tend to be ecstatic if people simply read at all. But intellectual growth requires more than that; it requires that one becomes not only a reader, but a mature reader. In his famous
READ MOREEveryone has a conscience. But most psychologists think that people with “antisocial personality disorder” don’t. For example, Robert D. Hare, a Canadian expert on psychopaths and the author of Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, says they are “completely lacking in conscience and feelings for others,” so that they “selfishly take
READ MOREYou know the PC culture has gone too far when schoolchildren are prohibited from being good or doing good to others. Unfortunately, recent news has offered two prime examples of such behavior. The first incident occurred when a Minnesota high school girls’ basketball team was banned from playing in their league’s tournament. Their crime? They
READ MOREIt is often said that the measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members. But when it comes to education, historically, the opposite is true: one can often judge a civilization’s staying power by its most highly-educated members. In Education and Culture in the Barbarian West, historian Pierre Riché notes that classical
READ MOREThe Brits traditionally have a reputation for being prim and proper in any occasion. But apparently, that reputation has gone by the wayside – so much so, that British parents are regularly showing up to their children’s school events looking like they just rolled out of bed. Such actions, however, went too far for teacher
READ MOREThe 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
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