Free Republic

The classics are classics for a reason and offer valuable, time-worn lessons about humanity itself.We were excited to see the sign at the Lansing Mall: Barnes and Noble Booksellers. My roommate and I, on our spring break excursions, were shopping in another city when we spotted the national bookselling chain. We envisioned a long hour of perusing the great books — from Cicero to Tolstoy, Shakespeare to Dickens, Plato to Faulkner. My roommate joked she never made it out of a bookstore without purchasing at least one volume.After walking through a maze of board games, Harry Potter paraphernalia, and $10...

The turn language is taking in politics calls to mind that controlling language to control thought was a prime goal of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s ‘1984.’Back in the 1990s, an adjunct English professor at Bakersfield College used to start first-day freshman composition by writing the F-word on the whiteboard in big capital letters. She’d then turn around and explain the word’s etymology, point out that its moral connotation was entirely a construct, and tell the students in no uncertain terms that any scandal they felt was due to their parochial ignorance. She would disabuse them of this...

Removing time-tested classics and assigning easy fiction with leftist themes fails in cultivating any love of reading in the students that need it most.Burbank Unified School District in California recently made headlines with its decision to ban the classic novels “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Of Mice and Men,” “The Cay, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry,” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” District leaders apparently responded to several complaints from parents who took issue with the purported racism of the books as well as incidents of white students taunting their nonwhite peers with racist language from their assigned reading. Yet,...

Last week, amid churning news cycles about impeachment and Iran and global trade deals, an era quietly ended. Christopher Tolkien, the third and youngest son of “Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien, died at the age of 95. The younger Tolkien, who spent the last four decades of his life completing his father’s grand artistic vision, was one of the great unsung literary heroes of the last century. For countless readers whose imaginations were molded in part by the legendarium of Middle Earth, his passing severs the last living link to another existential plane.His obituaries variously describe Tolkien as...

'Little Women' is so important and transcends each generation because it captures the differences between women — in personalities, desires, and fortunes. Greta Gerwig's rendition didn't quite cut it. “Little Women” is a timeless story that should make you cry. For goodness sake, Beth dies. The fact that I wasn’t a bit emotional watching the latest retelling of the classic story is quite concerning, and even more so, disappointing. Greta Gerwig’s new version left me completely devoid of feeling, although the story is full of it.In fact, two other recent adaptations — Clare Niederpruem’s modern adaptation of “Little Women” (2018)...

A group of Woodland Park parents and educators want to get rid of the Common Core Academic Standards that are being implemented in Colorado Schools. Teller County Citizens Against Common Core Standards maintains the new academic guidelines aren't as good as the ones in place. It also argues that the system is unconstitutional because it takes local control away from school districts. It may lobby Woodland Park School District RE-2 and the state to drop out. "We want to get the word out. The standards were just a money carrot for the state to get federal money," ... Among other...

Education board may take conservative turn on reading, writing standard AUSTIN - The State Board of Education, an elected body with a history of fierce ideological debates about textbook content, now wants to put its stamp on the curriculum that guides the instruction of 4.4 million Texas schoolchildren. At its meeting Thursday, the 15-member board is expected to scrap a curriculum revision process dominated by teachers and the Texas Education Agency and discuss a new timetable for revising the English reading and writing standards. Many on the board want to replace a student-centered curriculum that calls on students to use...