Free Republic

Nation-building begins at home. Earlier this month, a reporter for The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., asked students from two local elementary schools why we celebrate the Fourth of July. Kids from one school said what you would expect kids to say. Fireworks, food and lots of fun figured prominently in the answers. But kids from the other school – Nursery Road Elementary – had a very different take on the holiday. Fireworks were barely mentioned. Instead, every single response included the words “freedom” or “independence” – and sometimes both. My personal favorite (from fifth-grader Vante Lee): “We celebrate the...

The Founders Constitution Introduction. This is an anthology of reasons and of the political arguments that thoughtful men and women drew from, and used to support, those reasons. We believe that those reasons and political arguments have enduring interest and significance for anyone who purports to think about constitutional government in general and the Constitution of the United States in particular. For those who know in advance that thought is at bottom reducible to interest, or who regard political argument as synonymous with ideology, such a belief is at best naive. Yet we venture to assert that that belief...

"This is just like being back in lab!" said one recent student tester of the LAAPhysics online virtual laboratory. "If I had to choose between this and a lecture course? No contest—LAAPhysics!" said another, echoing the sentiments of the testing group. "The graphics are terrific!" was another common response. Perhaps the most important reaction—from the developers' point of view—was from a student who said, "I really appreciated not being told I was wrong but rather being led to another [laboratory] investigation that let me see things correctly." And finally, "I finished the whole module in two hours and I had...

The Free Republic Network and The Los Angeles Chapter of Free Republic are proud to announce the first regional scheduling of "Activism 101" Conference! When - April 26, 2003 8am-5pm! Where - LAX Hacienda Hotel, 525 N. Sepulveda Blvd, El Segundo, CA 90245 - 800-421-5900 Price - $69! This conference was rolled out at last year's "FRiva LAS VEGAS" event to rave reviews by the attendees! Partnering with the Leadership Institute, the premiere training ground for conservatives and republican activists and candidates, this conference is a "must do" for all conservatives interested in learning the basics about activism! LA Chapter...

Boom Cars and the Boyz: Is it just "harmless, innocent, fun???

Relegating Student Research to the Past By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo It was once a staple of the high school history class: an in-depth assignment that required students to delve into a single compelling issue, event, or figure. But now, there are signs that the formal research paper—a rite of passage for generations of history students—may itself go down in history Teachers across the country are abandoning this introduction to historical research, surrendering to the constraints of time, curriculum requirements, testing, and other factors that make extended student papers in history and social studies seem increasingly impractical. "When I started...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Even the low-level but chronic noise of everyday local traffic can cause stress in children and raise blood pressure, heart rates and levels of stress hormones, reports a new study by a Cornell University environmental psychologist and his European co-authors. "We also found that girls exposed to the traffic noise become less motivated, presumably from the sense of helplessness that can develop from noise they couldn't control," says Gary Evans, an international expert on environmental stress, such as noise, crowding and air pollution.

Mozart has brought a dramatic improvement to maths lessons at a primary school. Teachers have also noted better behaviour, motivation and speed of learning amongst four- to 11-year-olds in a year-long pilot scheme to assess whether listening to music stimulates the brain in an academic context. As one test, one Year 6 class was played Mozart during maths lessons for a term while another was taught normally. Pupils subjected to the background music performed 10 per cent better than their counterparts. Doulla Simon, the head teacher, said: "We have found that Mozart symphonies which have complicated note patterns stimulate mathematical...

The Chronicle in an editorial today, moans the woeful state of our schools education. In a ground breaking editorial in Sunday's paper. The Chron notes the following; There is an income gap, it claims that middle class neighborhoods score better than poor neighborhoods. It also states that the more years a child is in the public school the larger the disparity in test scores between middle class and poor students. That's a politically correct way of saying, they get dumber. They then to proceed to undercut their entire argument by pointing out that there are major disparities within schools and...

DOES LEARNING BETTER WITH AGE? Age 2... I learned to see clearly with my first pair of glasses. Age 5... I learned that our dog didn’t want to eat my spinach either. Age 8...I learned that when I wave to people, they don’t always wave back. Age 11... I learned that friends are not always friendly. Age 14... I learned to cry when I sing “Silent Night.” Age 17... I learned to cry over matters of the heart. Age 20... I learned that silent company is often more healing than words of advice. Age 23... I learned that I'm glad...

Some people say America's government schools are performing so badly and miseducating children so profoundly that the dumbing down process must be part of a deliberate conspiracy. I tend to disagree because, knowing the nature of government and how inefficient it is, if government were deliberately trying to make our kids dumber, they would likely be much smarter. Such is my faith in government's ability to achieve results – even bad results. But whether or not it's a deliberate plot to dumb down our kids – intellectually and morally – it's time for you to put a stop to it....

March 29, 2001 Old Rum Distillery Buried as Ground Shifts on Its Fate By CLAUDIA ROWE LBANY, March 28 — Nearly every time a shovel breaks ground for downtown development here, it strikes something from the deep past: In recent years, archaeologists hired to do pre-construction surveys have found Dutch cemeteries, American Indian artifacts and, most recently, an 18th-century rum distillery. And just as often, the shovel keeps on going: All of those discoveries have been unceremoniously reburied. Just last Friday, the city dumped backfill over the distillery's vine-tied wooden fermentation vats to make way for a six-story parking garage....

h1>Tips for the Top: How to be a philosopher Brook Sadler Technique 1Begin by making a spurious distinction. Befuddle the reader with your analytic wizardry. The reader will enter a logical trance, from which she will be unable to recall the initial spurious distinction and will feel strangely compelled to accept your conclusions.Technique 2Think of a matter of great importance to life. Reduce it unequivocally to three concepts. Enumerate them. Analyze each concept by distinguishing two independent notions in each. Continue with further analysis (preferably speculative) until you have developed a maze of distinctions that bear no resemblance to any...

Home School Life practical help for home-schooling moms http://homeschool.crosswalk.com America's Greatest Heroes By Mike Smith, Esq. Who are America's greatest heroes in this day and age? I submit that they are America's home-schooling mothers. While social watchdogs lament the lack of positive role models, I ask you, "What better role model exists than a home-schooling mom?" Even though we home-school dads live with these powerful examples, I suspect that some of us do not fully appreciate the magnitude of the responsibility a wife assumes when she agrees to home school the children. On a day when my wife was feeling...