Free Republic

Last night I saw the future of education in Britain – and it worked. The occasion was the launch of Katharine Birbalsingh’s free school in Lambeth, South London. As a local parent I was naturally very interested in this because at the moment round these parts you have two options when your kids turn 11: either you consign them to the dustbin of whichever failing state school you’re unlucky enough to get them into. Or you consign yourself to an old age of misery and penury by forking out for one of the many excellent local private schools. Having just...

On January 2, 2011, Stan Soklovski’s gun vault was violated. Thieves had removed 40 weapons. Most were pistols along with several rifles including a couple of assault weapons. He had constructed the gun vault in his basement to prevent theft, he had a state concealed gun license, he was registered with the federal government as a gun collector and he loaded his own rounds. This gentlemen knew the gun laws and obeys them. A peaceful law-abiding U. S. citizen. He called the cops. The Keystone cops came and called the State Police and their CSI, the fire department, the ATF....

At the close of his second epistle, in II Peter 3:18, the apostle Peter offers a stirring exhortation to all Christians: “…but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.” (NKJV) Peter encourages followers of Christ to take action, to “…grow.” This word is translated from the Greek term AUXANO which means: “to grow (‘wax’), …enlarge…increase.” (1) Basically, we are told that we should increase our “knowledge” of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ and His gospel and enlarge our understanding of how to better...

[New YouTube video is short, graphical, and has good jazz; this is script for it--] A century ago, Maria Montessori reached a brilliant insight. Observing children at a mental institution, she wondered: “Suppose we created a jazzed-up environment that constantly challenged and inspired young minds...?” Montessori created a new kind of school for impaired children. Quickly, her students were equal to “normal” children. She became the toast of Europe; as she deserved to be. Montessori’s vision has to inspire all true educators. But what, after all, is Montessori telling us but common sense? If you want intellectual and cognitive development,...

Amazing we have a government at all

A major review of school subjects…..is expected to lead to a focus on the essential knowledge pupils should grasp at each key stage of their education. The move is intended to reverse more than a decade of dumbing down of primary and secondary school subjects in favour of trendy skills-based lessons and “cross-curricular themes”. Launching the review, the Coalition said the last Government stripped vital content from the national curriculum, leaving pupils with a poor understanding of English literature, maths, science, foreign languages, history and geography. ….Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said “profound mistakes” made with the curriculum by Labour...

Fools and Their Knowledge“The wise man built his house upon the Rock. The wise man built his house upon the Rock. The wise…”. It is quite likely any person reading the above words knows they are from one of the first Sunday school songs a child learns. They are based on the Biblical passage Matthew 7:24-27. In a nutshell, a wise man builds the house of his life on the Rock foundation which is Christ. The foolish man builds his house upon a foundation of sand which is the foundation of man and is not stable. When the storms of...

Here’s some background for linked YouTube video titled “HOW TO TEACH ANYTHING & EVERYTHING.”====== To keep the video under 4 minutes, there’s no background given. Teachers would know a lot of it. So these comments are directed more at parents who will be experiencing this con from a distance. One of the big developments in the last 20 years is that the Education Establishment wants to turn teachers into “facilitators.” These people won’t have to know very much because they won’t be allowed to teach very much, not in the old-fashioned sense. They will guide from the side; throw hints...

Recently the Pew Research Foundation took a poll on religious "knowledge".  The media is spinning the results of this poll to say that atheists are more knowledgeable about religion than are those who profess to be religious. Before showing why the results of the poll don't support that conclusion let's look at what the scores were.  Atheists/Agnostics correctly answered 20.9 of the 32 questions.  Jews correctly answered 20.5 questions.  For some reason Protestants and Catholics were broken out by race while Atheists/Agnostics weren't.  In any case, Catholics averaged 16 right answers while Protestants averaged 17.6. The first thing to...

A new survey of Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths. Forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn't know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the body and blood of Christ. More than half of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the person who inspired the Protestant Reformation. And about four...

Researchers from the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life phoned more than 3,400 Americans and asked them 32 questions about the Bible, Christianity and other world religions, famous religious figures and the constitutional principles governing religion in public life. On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith. Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics, as well as two religious minorities: Jews and Mormons. The results were the same even after the researchers controlled for factors like age and racial differences. “Even after all...

A new survey of Americans’ knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths. Forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn’t know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the body and blood of Christ. More than half of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the person who inspired the Protestant Reformation. And about four...

I confess--I had never heard the phrase "the Queen of the Sciences" until a few months ago. Even when I read it, it made no sense. They seemed to be talking about geography. What was all this??? Apparently, the wise and scholarly had much more respect for geography a thousand years ago than we do now. Once you start thinking about this decline--from Queen to corpse--you gain new insight into how radical (in the worst sense) our Education Establishment is. These people never saw a fact they didn't want to drop overboard in a deep part of the ocean. So...

If you could only choose one, which would you choose having...knowledge or wisdom? And why? Could you cite historical event(s) in support of your choice? I like to read Psalms, Proverbs and Isaiah before going to bed.

After getting frustrated out of the lemons his problems gave him, David Miller made his own corporate lemonade. Due to the frustration of always having to call technical support to solve his own frequent hardware problems, he started taking the initiative to educate himself.

Though the U.S. is indisputably a first-world nation, this is not the typical human condition. Far more commonplace are the billions of people who, in the words of political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, live lives that are nasty, brutish, and short -- the third world. Here things work sporadically, if at all. Third-worldism might be viewed as a communicable illness, a situation often witnessed when nice neighborhoods almost overnight slide into crime-infested, trash-filled slums. So how can we spot the early warning signs of creeping third-worldism? Diligence is required, and while some outcroppings are clear -- e.g., crushing government debt to...

The world is a far better place when we embrace the transnational flow of people and ideas, limit the urge to engage in academic protectionism, and expand the reach of the global meritocracy. For some Americans, references to the “global higher education market” call to mind hazy semesters spent guzzling beer in some European capital, the exceptionally intelligent Asian or South Asian classmates in a computer science course, or that sophisticated friend who went abroad to get a master’s in “Catalan Identity” (apologies to Woody Allen). Through this lens, the globalization of higher education is the process by which the...

Our Education Establishment is dumbing us down. How sad, sick, and pathetic. People calling themselves “educators” devote their careers to making sure no one is educated. Everyone has heard the complaints. But the fascinating question still remains: HOW DO THEY DO IT? Is it all just bumbling incompetence or do these people have secret techniques? One familiar technique is to remove content whenever possible from the schools. All right, that technique we can see. But for many years I’ve had the sense that deeper and weirder shenanigans were going on, but I couldn’t pinpoint them. Now I think I can....

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama stated "categorically" Wednesday that the White House had no prior knowledge of civil fraud charges leveled by US regulators against Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs. The charges against Goldman by the Securities and Exchange Commission came at a pivotal point of his drive to pass what he has billed as the most sweeping reform of risky business practices in the US finance industry in decades. Asked whether his administration had known about the charges before they were made public on Friday, Obama said "categorically" that it had not. "The SEC is an entirely...

One of the main things gained from experience is a better appreciation of the counter-productivity of taking things to the limit without first testing and retesting the waters. That is not to say that the risks always lead to a disaster — most of the time they don't. And that is precisely why the young man is willing to go full steam ahead. For him who hasn't seen the likes of Nadav and Avihu the risks remain theoretical. But for the old man who has seen the devastating catastrophes that can result from lack of caution, the dangers are soberingly...