One of the awful ironies of the pandemic lockdowns is that the people least at risk from Covid were among those whom the lockdowns hurt the most. We refer, of course, to the restrictions placed on children. Parks, zoos, and swimming pools were shut down. Little League seasons were canceled. In many states schools went…
What’s loud isn’t what’s popular. Your decibel level you play your music at doesn’t make your music better. Rush will always be better than hip-hop, regardless of how loud you listen to hip-hop while driving through my neighborhood after 9pm. The same concept works with ideas. Yet, people tend to have a different reaction to…
I was raised with conflicting feelings about sports. My brother was a bit of a jock, playing several sports, but especially excelling at wrestling. (Real wrestling, not that rasslin’ business you see on the television.) My sister was involved in cheerleading, which is at least kind of a sport. Depending on who you ask. In…
Imagine yourself walking into a café one morning and, after being shown to a seat by the waiter, you order a basic latte. However, he tells you that there is nothing available but green tea. Confused, you decide to leave because you are not able to order what you want. Then, the waiter tells you…
Mandatory teaching standards that focus on critical theory and identity politics to the detriment of liberalism and individualism are already working their way through state legislatures. Now, math education itself has been deemed “racist.” A group of educators just released a document calling for a transformation of math education that focuses on “dismantling white supremacy…
I have never been a huge proponent of government schools. However, as parents, we have to make decisions based on our situations. Due to various reasons, we sent our kids to public schools. The original plan was to move to homeschool education once they were older and a little more self-sufficient. But something frightening happened…
Homeschooling—a few weeks ago the domain of about 3% of the school-aged population—made headlines this month as COVID-19 rapidly closed schools across 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Indeed, the coronavirus has meant that “We’re All Homeschoolers Now.” While millions of children—and their parents—are experiencing homeschooling for the first time this month, policymakers at the local,…
Sometimes the best way to go forward is to go backward. In 1899, the population of Boonville, North Carolina was under 200. It was a tiny crossroads town in the middle of farming country. It was also the home of the Yadkin Valley Institute and School of Business, which 20 years later would become a…
As the global coronavirus outbreak closes more schools for weeks, and sometimes months—some 300 million children are currently missing class—parents, educators, and policymakers are panicking. Mass compulsory schooling has become such a cornerstone of contemporary culture that we forget it’s a relatively recent social construct. Responding to the pandemic, the United Nations declared that “the…
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders spent a large part of the last week defending earlier statements he made regarding Fidel Castro and Cuba. While denouncing the dictatorship of Castro, he praised the social programs that were implemented under his rule, notably with regards to literacy. He pointed out that there was a rapid increase in literacy rates in…