Homeschooling Archives • Outliers Academy

Mathematics

‘The Dance of Number’ Is the Way Forward for Teaching Mathematics in the Classical Christian Tradition

By Terence Gillespie August 13, 2019

I’ve been pouring over James Nickel’s work for the past two months and began vetting his new math curriculum three weeks ago. Since the first four books of his “Dance of Number” arrived I’ve been exploring its structure and going through the lessons. It wasn’t long before deciding it will be the centerpiece of the math education for our boys. I’ll explain why and also present an argument for the title of this article: Nickel’s curriculum is the way forward for teaching mathematics in the classical Christian tradition.

Not Your Father’s Math Textbooks, Please!

My relationship with math textbooks has been no love affair. Whether mathematicians can’t write or clarity is anathema to the profits of their publishers, the words in my books were as clear as mud. That mud trained me to skip right to the examples in the solutions manual (often written by someone else and purchased separately.) Whoever wrote the solutions manual couldn’t play games; they had to list the steps of the derivations. Whatever concepts I managed to grasp were incidental to the derivation steps in the solution manuals.

My “learning process” was devoid of historical context and practical application. Some of the science — made possible by the math — seeped into physics class. However, the only thing beautiful in the whole experience was a GPA that made it possible to get a job.

The Beauty of Math, Revealed

In contrast, Nickel teaches math thoroughly and takes pains to reveal the logic behind the concepts. Math is presented alongside the science, history, theology, and practical applications related to the lesson; and the integration is seamless.

None of the leading contenders for the precalculus stages of mathematics even attempt to do what Nickel has done.

I want our boys to have that keen sense of number you sometimes see in carpenters and engineers. The best way to do that is to provide context, application, and meaning to each building block. James Nickel has done this in beautiful sequence. I’m as excited to teach my sons as to relearn mathematics, myself!

The Way Forward

With the perspective imparted this summer by a slow read of David Hick’s “Norms & Nobility”¹ it seems no risk at all to support Nickel’s curriculum as “The Way Forward.” I also thank Andrew Kern for his distillations of the many terms surrounding the pursuit of Classical Education.²

Hicks defines a classical education as “a spirit of inquiry and a form of instruction concerned with the development of style through language and of conscience through myth.”¹ These are penetrating words but require the context of Hick’s book to unpack and grasp fully.

On the other hand, Kern’s definition is a one-stop-shop:

“A Christian Classical Education is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty by means of the seven liberal arts and the four sciences so that, in Christ, the student is enabled to know, glorify, and enjoy God.”²

The Argument for “The Dance…”

On the jacket cover of “The Dance of Number,” Nickel makes lofty promises. He claims his curriculum:

“Teaches mastery of number sense and algebraic syntax.”
- It does. The student also learns how to use an abacus and an improved version of Stoddard’s speed math (having already mastered the abstracts of number.)
“Integrates math themes with history, science, and personalities.”
- It plainly does.
“Coordinates beauty, truth, and goodness with rigor and heuristics.”
- In a math curriculum? Yep.
“Structures mathematics as an interconnected framework, and explores the dynamic interrelatedness of Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Science.”
- This is one of Nickel’s passions. He laments of so many students beginning Algebra before mastering Arithmetic. The error is compounded by attempting geometry and trig before learning Algebra. Problem solved in “The Dance …”.
“Brings to light the multiplicities of the perichoretic nature of creation and mathematics.”
- Perichoretic refers to the mutual indwelling nature of the Trinity and is the word that inspired the curriculum’s title. In “Mathematics: Is God Silent?” Nickel traces how impasses in mathematics were overcome by the Christian revelation of the Trinitarian nature of reality. The distinction between Creator and Created — when widely accepted — broke the Platonic spell and paved the way for the technological achievements of the middle-ages (which were anything but “Dark.”)

In short, Nickel’s “Dance” does what no other on the market does; and the classical integration (or interpenetration as James might say) is seamless.

Flipping the Argument

Has any math curriculum you know of even attempted to do what Nickel’s has done?

How do the accomplishments, listed above, compare with the math curriculum deployed at your classical school?

A Whole New World

Do western students know how to use an Abacus? Why not? And what’s the harm in teaching Stoddard’s “Speed Mathematics” (which Nickel further streamlines with Vedic methods) as long as the student has a firm grasp of the fundamentals? These and a seemingly endless stream of surprises are in store for the student. Nickel draws from his 40-year teaching experience and 1400 volume library to show the student the context of the mathematical insights that shape our lives and unify our impression of the Divine Creator.

Nickel’s approach to teaching mathematics can impart that intuitive sense of number you sometimes see in carpenters and engineers. That’s not to say that mathematics is any less abstract than it always has been. But Nickel explicitly reveals its poetry and the stunning natural beauty upholding “The Dance.”

Those with a gift for math will be lit up at the beginning of their study like never before possible. Those less gifted can learn at rest, knowing that a logical and inspiring presentation is in store.

Thoughts on Implementation

This is not an assign-and-forget curriculum; it’ a “hands-on” journey for Teacher and Student to embark on, jointly.

The curriculum is recommended to start at age 12 (through 16). Therefore, a bridge is needed for younger students. Our 11-year-old is ready though we’ll be going through each lesson in tandem.

Nickel recommends the student read through each lesson with the teacher joining in when the student begins the exercises. The lessons are quite accessible but also what one might expect from a curriculum integrating mathematics with history, theology, science, and the beauty of practical applications: Deep with a capital ‘D’.

Until our youngest is ready for “The Dance of Number” we’ll be using Math U See. However, since dad is going through “The Dance …”, in advance, I’ll be able to verbally fill in gaps per Nickel’s framework.

Conclusion

Nickel seems to have used Kern’s definition of a Classical Christian Education as a specification. More surprisingly, his curriculum delivers on that specification. What do you do with something like this and whose first paragraph defines the word “Elohim”?

You’re reading my answer: adopt it as the centerpiece of the mathematics curriculum for your school and tell everyone you know about it!

James Nickel has given us the way forward in Mathematics! For imparting the subject in the classical tradition, there’s not even a close second out there to this monumental achievement.

David Hicks, Norms & Nobility, a Treatise on Education, University Press of America, 1999 ↩
Andrew Kern, Circe Institute’s “Definition of Terms.” ↩

Children

The History and Results of America’s Disastrous Public School System

By Guest Post May 16, 2019

by Mike Margeson, Justin Spears

While it’s almost universally understood that the American school system is underperforming, “reform,” too, is almost universally prescribed as the solution. Yet in other walks of life, bad ideas are not reformed—they are eliminated and replaced with better ones. Our school system is rarely identified as a bad idea.

The motivations at the origins were not pure; they were never to educate but to nationalize the youth in a particular mold.

The system is reflexively left alone while the methods are the bad ideas that get cycled in and out: open concept schools, multiple intelligences, project-based learning, universal design for learning, merit-based pay, vouchers, charters, and most recently, educational neuroscience. Every decade or so we are told by the pedagogic experts that they have found an answer to our school’s problems. The trouble is, they’re looking right past the problem.

Schooling Monopoly

The problem is the monopoly that schooling has gained over education. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 97 percent of kids go through traditional schooling (as opposed to homeschooling or unschooling), and just over 90 percent of those attend government schools. That is to say, there is basically one accepted way to educate kids today: school them.

Given the relatively poor performance of American students on international achievement tests, you would think schooling might receive a second look. Quite the opposite, actually. It is instead made mandatory, and taxpayers are forced to subsidize it. This begs the question: Why would the government continue to propagate a system that produces such questionable results? The answer lies in their motives, and their motives are best understood by reviewing a brief history of compulsory schooling.

Roots in Germany

The earliest ancestor to our system of government-mandated schooling comes from 16th-century Germany. Martin Luther was a fierce advocate for state-mandated public schooling, not because he wanted kids to become educated, but because he wanted them to become educated in the ways of Lutheranism. Luther was resourceful and understood the power of the state in his quest to reform Jews, Catholics, and other non-believers. No less significant was fellow reformist John Calvin, who also advocated heavily for forced schooling. Calvin was particularly influential among the later Puritans of New England (Rothbard, 1979).

Considering compulsory schooling has such deep roots in Germany, it should be no surprise that the precursor to our American government school system came directly from the German state of Prussia. In 1807, fresh off a humiliating defeat by the French during the War of the Fourth Coalition, the Germans instituted a series of vast, sweeping societal reforms. Key within this movement was education reform, and one of the most influential educational reformers in Germany at the time was a man named Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Like Luther before him, Fichte saw compulsory schooling as a tool to indoctrinate kids, not educate them. Fichte describes his aim for Germany’s “new education” this way:

Then, in order to define more clearly the new education which I propose, I should reply that that very recognition of, and reliance upon, free will in the pupil is the first mistake of the old system and the clear confession of its impotence and futility.

But actual education is an organic process and requires free will; this was not an attempt at education. Schools were to be factories that would churn out the type of obedient, compliant workers the state preferred. Here’s Fichte again explaining the desired interaction between teachers and students:

[Y]ou must do more than merely talk to him; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than you wish him to will.

Fichte understood full well that a statist vision could most easily be realized if governments were given kids’ minds early on:

Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished … When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.

If such a totalitarian vision were quietly isolated in Germany, or even Europe, it might be of very little consequence. But it would be this Prussian model of control-by-schooling that 19th-century American politicians would bring to our nation—and the one that is still with us today.

Horace Mann’s Evaluation

Image Credit: NPS Photo by John Tobiason

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Children

How Learning Works: 10 Research-Based Insights

By Guest Post April 11, 2019

By Babe Liberman

10 Insights from Learning Sciences about How Learning Works

1. Learning is a process that involves effort, mistakes, reflection, and refinement of strategies.

2. Thinking deeply about the to-be-learned material helps students pay attention, build memories, and make meaning out of what they are learning.

3. Communicating high expectations and keeping learners at the edge of their mastery helps each student reach their potential.

4. Retrieval practice strengthens memory and helps students flexibly apply what they learn.

5. Spacing out learning, and interweaving different content strengthens learning.

6. Students are more motivated to learn when they are interested, have a sense of autonomy, and understand the purpose behind what they are learning.

7. Students learn well when they feel safe and connected.

8. Collaboration and social interaction can be powerful learning experiences because they encourage deeper processing and engage the “social brain.”

9. Students’ physical well-being, including nutrition, sleep, and exercise, impacts learning.

10. The entire environment, from space to temperature to lighting, can affect learning.

How You Can Apply These Findings in the Classroom

Knowing how learning works is all well and good. But how do you take these research findings and apply them in your classroom? Below are a few tips based on research from the Institute for Applied Neuroscience, for providing your students with the best learning experience.

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Apprenticeship

Preparing Learners for the Uncertain Future of Work

By Guest Post April 10, 2019

By Katherine Prince

Continuous learning, cultural awareness, change expertise, adaptable and effective communication and the ability to learn from failure. These are just some of the capabilities that participants in KnowledgeWorks’ convenings on the future of work identified as being important for graduates. Finding resources to solve problems, time and project management, reflective leadership and a sense of responsibility to the broader community also promised to help all young people thrive no matter what future of work emerges.

That question – what future of work will emerge – is unanswerable, making it critical to help young people, along with other education and employment stakeholders, plan for multiple possible futures. From today’s vantage point, we can identify two critical drivers of change shaping the future of readiness for further learning, work and life: the rise of smart machines and the decline of full-time employment. But we cannot yet know what extent of technological unemployment we will face or how much support individuals will have in navigating the changing employment landscape.

A New Foundation for Readiness

In the face of such uncertainties, stakeholders need to help people develop our uniquely human attributes along with developing flexible skills that we can apply across settings. Putting social-emotional skill development at the center of learning promises to help individuals develop the foundation necessary to navigate uncertainty throughout their lives. The new foundation for readiness shown below illustrates how redefining readiness from the inside out – focusing on human development rather than attempting to prepare learners for any particular future of work – can provide a platform for future success.

This new foundation for readiness is grounded in the human qualities that are most central to our relationships with one another and which are most difficult to code. Social-emotional skill development will need to be supported in integrated ways alongside the mastery of content and the application of skills and knowledge to specific contexts. Education institutions will need to balance supporting learners in preparing for their first-careers while also helping them develop the adaptability and resilience needed to navigate the changing economy and the ways of thinking necessary to address complex problems.

Flipping Education’s Focus

Establishing a new focus on feeling and relating will help education institutions and systems align with a future of readiness in which foundational skills and practices will be more important and enduring than specific content or job- and task-related skills.

For K-12 education, flipping the focus of learning to whole-person development could mean that:

Curriculum needs to be inverted, with core social-emotional competencies shaping the design of inquiry projects and the school and classroom rituals that anchor the learning climate and culture.
Students need to be grouped in new ways to follow flexible learning pathways.
Classrooms need to become more fluid and open, enabling new ways of structuring learning.
School schedules need to be transformed to allow for more interdisciplinary collaboration, deep reflection, and personalized learning.
Educators’ roles need to be reconfigured to focus less on content or grade specialization and more on foundational skills and practices, as well as on interdisciplinary, phenomenological or challenge-based learning.
Community partners need to become key assets for introducing new kinds of learning experiences that stretch students’ comfort zones and expand their aspirations.
K-12 schools and districts need to explore where and when it may be more appropriate for them to serve as brokers, rather than direct providers, of learning experiences.

At the postsecondary level, institutions might need to:

Focus more on supporting deep personal development as well as context- and discipline-specific skills and knowledge.
Diversify offerings and business models, with a multitude of formats and structures engaging learners and increasing access.
Contribute to student-driven and student-designed ecosystems of support that evolve over time and reflect students’ strengths, weaknesses, and needs.
Help students plan for both their careers and their lives and respond to changing conditions.
Enable learners to weave in and out of learning experiences as their career development needs dictate.
Collaborate more extensively with workplace partners.
Shift the focus of faculty professional development toward supporting students’ development of foundational skills and practices and attaining ongoing learning related to relevant workplace skills.

Strategies for Redefining Readiness

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Technology

Future Shock & The Classroom in 2040

By Terence Gillespie February 16, 2019

by Michell Zappa

“Education lies at a peculiar crossroad in society. On one hand it has the responsibility of anticipating real-life skills by preparing us for an increasingly complex world – but education methodologies can only be formalized after practices have been defined. This dichotomy is particularly aggravated when it comes to technology, where fast-paced innovation and perpetual change is the only constant.

This visualization attempts to organize a series of emerging technologies that are likely to influence education in the upcoming decades. Despite its inherently speculative nature, the driving trends behind the technologies can already be observed, meaning it’s a matter of time before these scenarios start panning out in learning environments around the world.”

Envisioning The 6 Domains of Future Technology In Education

6 Domains Of Education Technology

1. Digitized Classrooms: Rather than considering IT a standalone tool or skill, digitization tends to disperse throughout every facet of the classroom.
Examples: tablets, electronic screens, interactive whiteboards, data projectors,

2. Tangible Computing: Embedding computation to the physical via intelligent objects, the internet of things, and connectivity with a profound impact on learning mechanisms.

Examples: reactive materials, reactive furniture, 3D printers, digitally intermediated field trips

3. Gamification: Billed as an evolution in grading mechanisms, gamification brings instant feedback to acquired knowledge through achievements and points systems.

Examples: student-developed apps, educational games, educational programming tools, achievement badges, self-paced learning

4. Virtual/Physical Studios: Bridging the online-offline gap, these future technologies offer a potential future where embodiment is secondary to information access.

Examples: eyewear/HUDs, retinal screens, holography, neuroinformatics, immersive virtual reality

5. Disintermediation: Undoing the traditional teacher-student model, these technologies offer a scenario where AI handles personalization while teachers focus on teaching

Examples: telepresence, algo-generated lessons, mobile learning platforms, task-assignment algorithms, S2S teaching platforms, assessment algorithms, student-designed learning mechanics

6. Opening of Information: Dissemination of information outside the physical silos of schools and classrooms, offering feedback and assessment to students anywhere.

Examples: portable academic histories, flipped classrooms, inter-school teaching platforms, digitization of books, open courseware, education app stores, online school communities, video lessons, formal communication backchannels

Image attribution flickr user radarcommunication; Envisioning The Future Of Technology In Education

Apprenticeship

Mentorships and Kids

By Guest Post February 11, 2019

by Joanne Foster, EdD

Synopsis

Here’s an overview of why mentorships are increasingly popular, including benefits, structuring guidelines, and lots of helpful information for parents, teachers, and kids.

“The term ‘mentor’ comes from Greek mythology: Odysseus’ son Telemachus was entrusted to the care of Mentor, a wise advisor. History and literature from classical times to the present abound with examples of mentorships in politics, business, science, the arts, and education. Aristotle benefited from his mentorship under Plato, as Mickey Mouse benefitted from his in Fantasia’s ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.’”

~ Excerpt from p. 160 of Being Smart about Gifted Education

WHAT, EXACTLY, IS A MENTORSHIP?

A mentorship is a supportive relationship established between a learner and someone who is more experienced in a particular domain. (For example, sciences, business, creative arts, technology, and so on.) The mentor offers guidance, knowledge, and understanding. Mentoring requires an investment of time and patience, and a willingness to support and encourage the learner. Typically, the “mentee” is deemed to be the learner, but in truth all strong mentorships are mutually rewarding experiences wherein both parties interact meaningfully and respectfully with one another, learn, and derive benefits.

WHAT KINDS OF BENEFITS?

Here’s a list of ways mentorships can strengthen a child’s or teen’s learning:

Enriched perspectives relating to an area of interest, including useful information, skill sets, creative and critical thinking opportunities, and practical applications
Transmission of values and attitudes
Enjoyment
Enhanced and authentic connections to important domains of competence, and to others within the “real world” (This includes exposure to fields of interest—leading to greater career path awareness, preparation for taking on roles, and appreciation of accomplishment in the chosen area.)Emotional support
Discovery of resources beyond the classroom
Intellectual challenge and increased competence, including perhaps the creation of a possible portfolio of acquired learning achievements
Encouragement and guidance for self-directed learning
Expansion of understandings of diversity and possibility (For example, non-traditional minority professionals can challenge gender and cultural stereotypes, and mentorships can be particularly beneficial for students from culturally diverse or economically disadvantaged backgrounds.)
Respect for expertise
Relationship-building experiences
Positive role models, including helping kids better understand pathways to high achievement
Potential for academic credit

Here’s a list of benefits for mentors:

Ongoing learning
Rejuvenation of spirit
Sense of fulfillment
Sense of respect and of being valued
Fresh perspectives—seeing things anew from the point of view of mentees
Involvement and enjoyment
Contribution to the skills and expertise of young people interested in possibly entering the field of interest
Vicarious satisfaction through accomplishment of the protégé
Connections to the educational system
Inter-generational friendship
Community engagement

HOW TO STRUCTURE A MENTORSHIP?

In any mentorship arrangement, it’s important to clarify expectations. These should be agreed upon by both the mentor and the mentee, with parents and teachers overseeing the process, and with their approval. It’s a good idea to draw up a written agreement outlining intents and responsibilities. This includes the right of withdrawal from an arrangement if it does not seem to be working out well. Periodic review of this “contract” will help to ensure that everyone’s expectations are being met.

A mentorship can be a one-on-one program between two people, or it may take the form of more a complex arrangement with others involved. Either way, it should be part of an individual student’s overall educational plan, and it should also be valued as an integral component of it.

Heads up—any program involving kids requires careful supervision and consistent monitoring by adults. With that caveat uppermost, here are a few possible “models” for mentorships.

Co-creation of an individualized program by the mentor and the student, always under the guidance of parents or teachers

School visits by vetted community experts who can help to increase the depth of programming that classroom teachers are able to provide

Job-shadowing programs, whereby students prepare for the mentorship phase in school, and then spend time in the pre-approved career setting of their mentor

Online or virtual mentorship programs—especially good for children and teens who want to investigate a field or learn about something that is not otherwise readily accessible to them (Note: Online options demand attentive supervision.)

Creative approaches, whereby a mix of the above might be contemplated, or an innovative mentorship format is designed for specific purposes. For example, mentorships are a frequently recommended practice in gifted education. Unique or differentiated learning experiences can provide gifted learners with targeted and enriching educational opportunities and challenges in areas of heightened advancement. (Click here for an article with additional information about fostering giftedness.)

WHERE TO FIND A MENTOR?

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Education

27 Ways To Enhance Learning Retention

By Terence Gillespie February 8, 2019

The more of the five (or more) senses brought into the learning process, the more likely you are to retain what you’ve learned. This infographic from Mia MacMeekin shows 27 ways to enhance learning retention.

27 Ways To Enhance Retention In Your Students

Children

Education and the dismantling of the mind

By Guest Post January 29, 2019

When the solution is worse than the problem

by Jon Rappoport

Are there any States in the Union that allow public schools to opt out of providing sex education to children?

Of course, a counter-argument would be made that, although there was once a time when our country abounded in responsible two-parent families, that’s not the case anymore. Therefore, education about sex is lacking. Therefore, schools have to step into the breach and supply what is missing.

Otherwise, children won’t know about STDs, pregnancy, contraception, etc.

Over the last 40 years or so, school systems, under the aegis of government, have expanded their role. Using “duty” as the prow, these institutions have generated enormous programs to teach children what to think about everything from aluminum cans to bestiality.

Because it’s “right” and “important” and there is a “duty.”

Translation: outside groups with agendas worm their way into schools.

If I were obsessed with four-legged critters on the moon, and I had enough money and political clout and media/think-tank/foundation support, I could introduce Lunar Critterology as a vital subject into every public school in America.

If I were Bill Gates, I could push the need for computers in schools, despite the fact there is no credible evidence that computers improve literacy.

I went to school in the 1940s and 50s. At that time, the focus was simple. You learned to read, to write, and to do math. The textbooks were often old and worn. There were no visual aids. The lesson plans in every class were step-by-step. Learn a new thing, drill it to death, take a little quiz, learn the next new item, drill it, take a quiz.

It worked. It may have lacked glitz, but it worked because the vast majority of people can’t learn to read, write, or do math any other way.

You can’t gloss over these subjects with a broad brush and a lot of personality or caring. It’s all about digging in the dirt, one scoop at a time.

Some people would call it robotic education. I don’t think it is. It’s just doing what’s necessary—unless reading, writing, and math are deemed unimportant. In which case, you have a whole new idea about what education is.

If you spend time in the classroom on enterprises that are supposed to save the world or revolutionize society or build tolerance or cater to kids who don’t want to learn, then you take away hours from the core idea and practice of what learning is.

When I went to school, there could have been a better curriculum for history and science, but all in all, the teachers did a good job.

Now, we’re in a different world.

It’s assumed that most children are operating at a deficit, and they need to be brought up to speed on morals, on compassion, on sex, on greenness, on hope, on race and religion, on global concerns. At age five, eight, 12, 14.

And a great deal of this “new education” is about cashing in, for book publishers, for educrats, for federal overseers, for busybodies of all stripes who belong to agenda-driven groups that want their say and their moment in the sun.

I say this is all hogwash, and I believe anyone who consults national test scores and current levels of literacy would be compelled to agree.

Education is on the way out.

A few astute writers assert that perhaps 80 years ago, the whole thrust of early education in America was altered intentionally, to produce worker-ants for a highly controlled society of the future. With all due respect, I think it’s worse than that. Because now we’re turning out kids who are essentially confused, badly schooled, drifting on the wind, lost in a mind-territory of fantasized entitlement. They aren’t androids ready to work on some non-existent assembly line. They’re just lost. They’re riddled with self-esteem that doesn’t work. They’re consumers looking for magic credit so they can buy their way into happiness. They’re loaded with sugar and other chemicals that scramble their synapses. They’re not only unsympathetic toward work, they have no passion of their own.

Logic? Imagination? Never heard of it.

When I went to school, there was virtually no classroom disruption of any kind. And my schools were attended by an economic, social, racial, and religious cross-section of students. We weren’t striving for diversity. We had it. The relatively few kids who were out of control and resisted any kind of discipline were herded into classes together and teachers dealt with them.

The public schools of today lack the courage to say, “Look, if you’re here to learn, we want you. Otherwise, you’re out. Goodbye.”

If you need metal detectors at the school entrances, you went over the edge a long time ago. No one deserves to be subjected to that kind of environment.

The bullying problem? It’s an industry now. People with degrees write papers and books about it, and task forces gear up to study it and make recommendations. It’s a structure of carbuncles on the body-politic of education.

Once upon a time, no bully was allowed to attend school. If he pressed his attitude and his actions, he was expelled. Period. It wasn’t a question of why he bullied. He was gone. Learning couldn’t take place as long as he was on the scene.

And “gangs in schools?” I’m sorry, but there are no gangs in schools. There are schools in gangs—that’s what you have when groups of kids with violent tendencies inhabit classrooms and corridors. If you can’t expel them en masse, give up. Shut down the place.

If you want to make schools into six-hour-a-day babysitting machines, call it that. Try to obtain public funding for it. Hire guards and nurses and cops to staff it. Put it behind barbed-wire fences and install those metal detectors.

Or if schools are really lunch cafeterias, run them that way. Free public lunches. Have kids show up at noon, eat, and leave.

If you think kids of various religions should be allowed to commandeer a room to hold prayer groups, call it Government-Funded God. Rent a hall somewhere and schedule everybody from Christians and Jews to Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and Zoroastrians.

“Well, we have these kids who are great football players, and they score very badly on all the tests, but we need them on the team.”

No you don’t. Start your own community team. Make up a name. Raise money for uniforms and coaches. Form a league. If these kids want to stay in school—which is a completely different matter—they’ll have to learn how to attain grades for real.

And this long-standing rule about passing kids on to the next grade, no matter how poorly they perform? Graduating them from high school even if they can’t read at fourth-grade level? Because they need to feel good about themselves? Because that’ll somehow help them wend their way through life later on?

Invent a new type of school for them and put it somewhere else. Bring in tutors. If that fails after an honest attempt, teach trades. Some of these kids will end up making more money in a trade than Harvard business-school grads.

All of the above, by the way, makes a good case for home schooling. Unless the parents themselves were shot out the top end of their schools, long ago, ill-prepared to handle reading, writing, and arithmetic.

No, the problem isn’t cookie-cutter education. It’s no education.

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Children

The Consequences of 200 Years of Unthoughtful Consumption

By Guest Post January 22, 2019

I’ve just discovered Dangerously Irrelevant and was impressed to read Scott Mcleod ask: When will we take seriously the challenge of preparing our graduates for our new information landscape? And what are we going to do about all of our graduates?

Our new information landscape is digital bits in the ether instead of ink dots on paper. There is no foreseeable future in which we go back to analog. One of schools’ primary tasks is to help students master the dominant information landscape of their time. Schools are knowledge institutions preparing students to do knowledge work. So let’s be clear about what our new information landscape looks like:

In a followup article, Scott comments:

We spent the last 200+ years (at least) pushing consumption models of learning on most of our students. We asked them to be passive recipients of whatever information came from the teacher or textbook. We gave them few opportunities to question the reliability or validity of the information that we spoon-fed them. We trusted that someone else did the filtering for us and them beforehand. And in many cases, we actually punished kids who dared to ask questions or present alternative viewpoints.

So we shouldn’t be surprised that we now have an information / media literacy problem with our adults. We shouldn’t be surprised that most of our citizens have trouble determining the validity and reliability of digital and online information sources. We shouldn’t be surprised that we are easy prey for those who spread misinformation, deception, and outright lies.

Read the whole article, “Unthoughtful Consumption” on Dangerously Irrelevant.

Children

Get Out Now: Why You Should Pull Your Child from Public School Before It’s Too Late

By Terence Gillespie January 11, 2019

Why don’t all parents send their kids to a private school?

Money.

“You know those two Mercedes we have parked in the driveway?”, I say to parents at church (a rhetorical question since we have no luxury cars.)

“Right, that’s because we send our kids to private school.”

The cost of the monthly lease payments for two luxury cars is about the same as sending our two boys to private school. Of course, we also pay for the public school they’re not attending in the form of property taxes.

What Should Be an Easy Decision for Christian Parents

For Christian parents, public school is now a dire compromise for which there’s no spiritual or philosophical defense. Anyone can understand not having enough money. What’s less understandable, or even comprehensible, is the extent to which parents will compromise out of fear or ignorance of homeschooling.

… and for Teachers

As for teachers, I’ve talked with three who recently fled public school teaching positions due to classroom turmoil (that school policies left them powerless to prevent), physical endangerment, and the frustrations of having no control over what or how they teach ( a defining feature of common core rebranded as “Next Step”).

But Really, How Bad is it ‘Out There?’

The question has now been meticulously answered by Mary Rice Hasson, J.D. and Theresa Farnan, Ph.D.:

Should we stay or should we go? Millions of parents with children in public schools can’t believe they’re asking this question. But they are. And you should be asking it too. Almost overnight, America’s public schools have become morally toxic. And they are especially poisonous for the hearts and minds of children from religious families of every faith—ordinary families who value traditional morality and plain old common sense. Parents’ first duty is to their children—to their intellect, their character, their souls. The facts on the ground point to one conclusion: Get Out Now: Why You Should Pull Your Child from Public School Before It’s Too Late.

The negative consequences of sending your children to public school need no longer remain in doubt. The final section of “Get Out Now” ends with 100 pages of endnotes and hard documentation supporting author accounts and claims.