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Scholasticism (Gk. scholastikos, “schooled” or “educated”) Scholasticism was a school of thought which sought to reconcile the established Christian belief within a body of reason or rational thought, especially that of Greek philosophy. The “scholastic period” primarily refers to the period during the late middle ages (eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries) in the West when Christianity was experiencing a renaissance of learning and education and was being challenged by the rational thought of Islam. Early Christian scholastics include Anselm, Peter Abelard, Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Thomas Aquinas. The term can also refer to any system of...

I am a compassionate guy. Really. It is just that I vainly called these students’ names week-after-week wondering where they were. I never received a phone call; not even a note. I have no way to verify whether or not their stories of disease, famine, tragedy, etc, are really true or not...

Some people collect sports memorabilia, or rare coins, or sea shells from the beach at Ocean City. Wilson Watson collects sentences. He taught local community college students for 35 years and has now slipped gently into retirement. But his students’ sentences trail behind him like ship’s anchors, evidence of the sinking of American writing skills. Or, as one of Watson’s scholars wrote so succinctly: “Some people use bad language and is not even aware of the fact.” Or, another: “It’s good I’m doing something with my self; Therefore, I can do better in the foochure.” Or, “People who murder a...

We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban,...

World-Saving Education Deconstructed by: Lance Nation, October 20, 2008 When beginning a piece by Dr. Stanley Fish one is never quite sure what to expect. His new book Save the World on Your Own Time is no exception. The Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and a Professor of Law at Florida International University, Dr. Fish’s new work takes a controversial stance towards the purpose of higher education: “The core of a college or university experience should be the academic study of the question posed by the various disciplines.” “College and university teachers can (legitimately) do two things,” writes Dr....

TAJI AIR BASE, Iraq, Oct. 20, 2008 – When he graduated from Air Force basic training six years ago, he knew he'd be back one day, "pushing" his own flight of fledgling airmen through their first military paces. Air Force Staff Sgt. Matthew Coltrin, left, watches Iraqi air force Lt. Ali explain the importance of military bearing to a warrant officer during parade practice Sept. 28, 2008, at Taji Air Base, Iraq. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Paul Villanueva II   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. But Air Force Staff Sgt. Matthew Coltrin didn’t know he...

A wide variety of concerns and perspectives marked a sometimes disorganized and rancorous PTSA forum about mixed-level classes, scheduled in the wake of a surprise change to the senior English program which eliminated the honors-only level. Over 150 people attended the forum, "Mixed-Level and Honors-Only Classes at ETHS: The Past, The Present and The Future" on Oct. 6. Superintendent Eric Witherspoon provided a backdrop to the discussion through a review of the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, the District's recent positive performance against those requirements and the comprehensive restructuring that has taken place through the System of...

You are a damn elite, not me! That sums up the current political debate—whether we look at charges that John McCain has so many houses he can’t remember any longer the actual number of them; or that poor Barack Obama is depressed at the soaring price of arugula; or that Fightin’ Joe Biden once bootstrapped himself up at ten in Scranton; or that moose-hunting Sarah snowmachines as naturally as Barack Obama trips over himself in a bowling lane.A nation of wood-cuttersIn short, we remain log-cabin America, formed as the frontier antithesis of Europe. Apparently, we are determined, at least in...

Q. Although attending college has long been a staple of the American dream, you argue in your new book, “Real Education,” that too many kids are now heading to four-year colleges and wasting their time in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree. A. Yes. Let’s stop this business of the B.A., this meaningless credential. And let’s talk about having something kids can take to an employer that says what they know, not where they learned it. Q. You’re not the first social scientist to knock the liberal arts, but you may be the first to insist that only 20 percent of...

I'm incredibly frustrated. My daughter, who is in 6th grade, is very good at and very interested in math. Over the summer she asked for 6th and 7th grade math workbooks; she completed the 6th grade books and some of the 7th grade books. She also took an online Math Olympiad course through Johns Hopkins CTY, and also did some work on the Aleks math program (which I love). We also had her tested academically over the summer; she came out generally in the 96-99% for math on both I.Q. and achievement tests. Last year, she had been very bored...

When Students Run the Classroom Here’s an easy question: What would happen if children were allowed to come up with their own grading rules? Common sense — not an immediate recollection of the plot of Lord of the Flies — is all one needs to possess in order to know that rudderless kids just might come up with a system that puts immediate gratification before, say, scholarship. It’s not unlikely, for example, that 20 5th graders could put aside their feuds to agree on the following: Homework grades should be given only when the grades will “raise a student’s average,...

Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Slightly Apart

In a bid to correct what he called a “knowledge deficit” among New York City public school students, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein announced on Monday a pilot program that would overhaul the way children in 10 city schools are taught to read. The program, devised by E. D. Hirsch Jr.’s Core Knowledge Foundation, is being paid for with $2.4 million in private donations raised by the Fund for Public Schools. Called the New York City Core Knowledge Early Literacy Project, it will run for three years, following kindergartners at the 10 schools through the first and second grades. The...

College is not all it's cracked up to be. Dumbed-down courses, flaky majors and grade inflation have conspired to make the letters B.A. close to meaningless. But another problem with today's colleges is more insidious: They are no longer a good place for young people to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. Today's colleges are structured to prolong adolescence, not to midwife maturity. Once upon a time college was a halfway house for practicing how to be a grown-up. Students couldn't count on the dean of students to make allowances for adolescent misbehavior. If they wanted to avoid getting...

The young law professor stood apart in too many ways to count. At a school where economic analysis was all the rage, he taught rights, race and gender. Other faculty members dreamed of tenured positions; he turned them down. While most colleagues published by the pound, he never completed a single work of legal scholarship. At a formal institution, Barack Obama was a loose presence, joking with students about their romantic prospects, using first names, referring to case law one moment and “The Godfather” the next. He was also an enigmatic one, often leaving fellow faculty members guessing about his...

Higher education could heal itself by teaching civics—not race, class, and gender.The university is worth fighting for. No other institution can carry the burden of educating our young people. That’s why we must redouble our efforts to restore integrity, civility, and rigorous standards in American higher education—particularly in the area of civic education.I’ll be the first to admit that the situation is dire. I sympathize when critics throw up their hands in despair. I sometimes feel that way myself. Darkness often prevails in places where the light of learning should shine. I often trade horror stories with my friend Hadley...

Modesto is known as the bible belt of California. It has deep conservative roots in farmland and a vocal Evangelical community. But increasingly, some less familiar notes are echoing through California's Central Valley, CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports. Like many other places, Modesto is becoming more religiously diverse. But unlike any other place, religion is a required course in high school here. "We can't preach, but we can teach," teacher Yvonne Taylor said. Using "Teach Don't Preach" as her motto, Taylor guides the world religions course at Johansen High. "And now we're going to be looking at Judaism, Christianity,...

The environmental fervor sweeping college campuses has reached beyond the push to recycle plastics and offer organic food and is transforming the curriculum, permeating classrooms, academic majors and expensive new research institutes. The University of Maryland teaches "green" real estate strategies for landscape architects. The University of Virginia's business graduate students recently created a way to generate power in rural Indian villages with discarded rice husks. And in a Catholic University architecture studio last week, students displayed ideas for homes made from discarded shipping containers. "It should be part of everything we do," said Ligia Johnson, a Catholic student whose...

An exceptional essay well worth reading. A few excerpts are: "...What the university offered, then, became no different from the fare of a television station, a local movie theater, rap concert, or a government bureaucracy: the more the campus devolved into popular life, the less it had to offer anything of rarity or singular beauty—confirming Plato’s pessimism that the radical egalitarian appeal to mass appetites must lead to arts of a lesser and more accessible quality. If half-educated strippers and sex entertainers are deemed street artists or populist philosophers, then they can now be welcomed to campus, exempt from both...

This month 3,700 recent college grads will begin Teach for America's five-week boot camp, before heading off for two-year stints at the nation's worst public schools. Teach for America offers smart young people something even better than money – the chance to avoid the vast education bureaucracy. Participants need only pass academic muster and attend the summer training before entering a classroom. If they took the traditional route into teaching, they would have to endure years of "education" courses to be certified. On average, high school students taught by TFA corps members performed significantly better on state-required end-of-course exams, especially...