Education and the Classical Curriculum

When I was 15, my favorite question was: What is the purpose of school?

Then as a teacher, I used to ask my high school classes the same question. You can imagine their answer: to get an education so you can go to college and get a great job and make a lot of money. But that's NOT the purpose of school. While the future ability to provide for a family is one of the functions of education, it is certainly not the only function or even the most important.

Education is the vehicle societies use to preserve themselves. That is, older generations educate the younger so the entire social structure can continue to grow. Americans educate their young so the nation doesn't collapse around us like a house of cards. As a teacher, I always saw my role as that of a runner in a relay. My job was to pass the baton to the runner who was to follow in my footsteps. If the baton were dropped, both of us would have failed.

But how do you do it? The United States is by any measure the greatest nation on Earth and the greatest in history, whether you look at economic prosperity, American ingenuity and inventiveness, the development of the world's most elaborate infrastructure, the amount of free time we have, and even the thriving religious diversity--hundreds of denominations, many of them filled with sincere people. The educator's role is to distill the most important principles in that culture and convey them to the citizens of tomorrow.

But it is a daunting task. I taught 12th-grade English, and 13 years after I started that job, I still have not read half of the greatest works in English. No English teacher ever does--there is just too much material. And the same is true of history, science, math, etc. You remember that book you always meant to read? I know you have a book or two in mind--and when you read that one, there will always be more. The amount of material is massive.

And this brings me to: the CLASSICAL CURRICULUM, a kissing cousin to what colleges call the liberal arts. "Had we but world enough and time," we could spend years and years teaching children the best works of every world culture. But we don't. We have 12 short years to make devoted American citizens of them. It is a sacred duty and one not to be taken lightly. And there is so much material that is critical: Shakespeare, John Donne, Beowulf, Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Twain, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo, John Steinbeck, Milton, Bunyan, and the list goes on and on and on, and in every subject. The classical curriculum is the only way to approach education; everything else simply wastes too much time. How can we prepare our children for the world of tomorrow if we waste half their time on material they will never hear of again? Face it, your kids don't want to go to school, and sometimes you'd rather not send them. Is it fair to waste their time on material that has virtually no educational value, material that is chosen not for its relevance to American reality, but for its ability to elicit certain emotional or moral responses, many of them contrary to the things that made this nation what it is today?

Most schools today, including KISD, tend to follow a hit-or-miss curriculum, an unfocused shotgun blast of classical elements, political correctness, multi-culturalism, and books and projects forced on the schools by various interest groups. All of these things, while they may have some merit, are examples of the good shouldering out the BEST.

I support the classical curriculum because it is the most efficient and effective way to educate students in the things that matter most in all areas of an American life.

You can read more about the Classical Curriculum by clicking here.

On the Border: Immigration, Assimilation and the Survivor Game.

Why all the fuss about immigration?

Some Facts from the non-partisan Center for Immigration Studies:

[1.] During the 1990s, the United States admitted the largest number of immigrants in its history . . . . We now have a . . . foreign-born population of about 27 million, twice the level of 1910.

[2.] Immigrants are also more concentrated, with the top four immigrant states accounting for a 20 percent larger share of the nation's immigrant population than the top four states just 25 years before.

[3.] Also, the immigrant flow is much less varied than before, with more than 50 percent of post-1970 immigrants coming from Spanish-speaking Latin America, a degree of ethnic concentration unprecedented in American history.

[4.] And finally, ongoing mass immigration is hindering the economic assimilation of immigrants, with immigrant wages falling behind those of natives and immigrant poverty steadily growing.

I think of it like a macro-Survivor game. The world is divided into teams. Team membership is fluid, but moving is difficult because of language differences. And there's more. When a team member switches teams, he can take with him the strategies of the old team or he can learn the strategies of the new team. Teams don't have to operate unanimously, of course. But the teams have challenges: farming requirements, architectural projects, scientific and medical breakthroughs, an infrastructure, a market, an economy. The team completing each task with the least wasted effort and the most bountiful result wins. And who is that going to be? The Red, White, & Blue continue as the reigning champs. But they are slowing down every day because of the team's failure to exert leadership over the new members who keep defecting from other teams. Think of it like a Viking long boat. Everyone in America, legal or not, has an oar. But they come in different sizes, and the majority is pulling for the team. Nevertheless, a growing minority is dragging its oars beside the boat, slowing it down, or maybe pulling in other directions. And how can they help it? They learned how to row elsewhere. It will take years to teach them how to row the American way, in sync with those around them, rather than banging on all the other oars while marching to the beat of different maracas.

How can the United States or any team with a united purpose - a corporation, a family, a classrooom, or a community - continue to function when swamped with unruly members who don't understand the game or the way it is played here? Twelve years of public school is arguably not enough to fully prepare kids who are born here--and raised by those born here--for their duties as a citizen. America is a complicated machine that functions on a very high level and with a great deal of intellectual principle assumed. That is, you can't just walk in and begin to contribute. Sure there are lawns to be mowed, roofs to be nailed down. But to really engage in our society, you need education and assimilation--and lots of it.

Though most immigrants will undergo a superficial assimilation however broken our immigration policy is, there is more to Americanization than learning English and getting a job. The development of a visceral, emotional attachment to America and its history, or patriotic assimilation, is increasingly unlikely when the schools and the culture at large are skeptical, even hostile, to patriotism and when technology enables immigrants to maintain strong psychological and physical ties to their countries of origin.

No thoughtful American is against all immigration. But the current flood needs to be reduced to a manageable stream. IT'S ALL ABOUT ASSIMILATION; that's the whole point. We want to bring people in, but no faster than we can train them in all things American. Keep your native food and clothing. And American pop culture will overwhelm you regardless. But in issues of citizenship, art, government, law, commerce, and philosophy, you have much to learn. So much in fact, a sensible policy would give you and yours a pass, but slow the immigration rate so that American neophytes enter the nation at about the same rate that first-generation immigrants from previous decades are dying out. (The latter is my own suggestion--and may bear little relation to proposals by the Center for Immigration Studies or anyone else.)

You can read more from the Center for Immigration Studies here.

'V' for 'Vilify': More Anti-Christian Propaganda

While totalitarians of every stripe persecute and kill the devout around the world, Americans make movies alleging the real problem is those troublesome Christians. I understand: a storyteller needs villains the audience will know to be villainous. But are American moviegoers more likely to associate villainy with Christians than with some other group? It's true that Americans know little about the world's persecutors. And we are so ignorant of the full extent of anti-Christian persecution around the world you'd think it wasn't even happening (as did most Americans until last week). But after 9/11, after hundreds of lesser-incidents and cartoon carnage, are we so worried about offending delicate sensibilities (see cartoon incidents), we could not stomach a film in which evil is linked to something other than the Lamb of God? Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek"; Jesus made humility a virtue; Jesus elevated the status of women, minorities, and children; and it was Jesus who "laid down His life for His friends." Does it make sense to link the followers of Jesus, even considering all their failings, to a totalitarian state, when events in Afghanistan just last week make the connection of totalitarianism and another world religion so much more obvious?

"The message of ‘V for Vendetta’ could not be clearer," said Don Feder, president of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation. "Those involved in this cinematic hate crime are saying Christians want to establish a totalitarian state and impose their morality with a policeman’s truncheon."

No such Christian dictatorship exists anywhere on earth," Feder noted. "On the other hand, there are no shortage of Islamic theocracies and quasi-theocracies where ‘infidels’ are persecuted, homosexuality is outlawed and women stoned to death for adultery. Why isn’t Hollywood making movies about them? Because it fears reprisals? Christianity is the only religion Hollywood can mock and slander with impunity."

You can read the balance of the comments by this wise Jewish gentleman here. I long-ago linked their website in the column at right: Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation.

France Opposes Same-Sex Marriage Because it Leads to Adoption by Same Sex Couples

Sometimes the news is surprising. Consider the following statement on children and families from the French National Assembly:

The best interests of the child must prevail over adult freedoms... even including the lifestyle choices of parents. The legislator is not obligated to adopt the most permissive foreign legislation. . . . Countries that have opened up marriage to same sex couples have all authorized adoption by these couples. . . .

Marriage is . . . a framework with rights and obligations conceived in order to welcome the child and provide for his harmonious development. Thus, marriage is the only structure reserved strictly for heterosexual couples. . . .

The purpose of adoption is not to provide a child to a family but rather provide a family to a child ...

Given the original trauma of his personal history, the adopted child requires the judicial and emotional security that only married [heterosexual] parents can provide. Favoring equality for adults would bring about a greater inequality towards children. . . .

You can read more here.

Michelle Malkin on Religious Persecution in the 'new' Afghanistan

Michelle Malkin makes excellent comments on the pending execution of a man who refuses to deny Christ.

As of yesterday afternoon, left-wing Amnesty International had nothing to say about the case. But neither did President Bush, a man of faith and a Christian brother. . . .

How about offering Rahman asylum in the United States? Perhaps Yale University, proud sponsor of former Taliban official Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, can offer Rahman a scholarship. Where's the Catholic Church, so quick to offer sanctuary to every last illegal alien streaming across the borders? And how about Hollywood, so quick to take up the cause of every last Death Row inmate? . . . .

You can read her article here.

So Afghans Plan to Execute a Convert to Christianity; Is it Any Business of Ours?

Perhaps you have heard that an Afghan man is on trial for having converted from Islam to Christianity some fifteen years ago. His family turned him in. Americans, mostly Christians--but not entirely--are crying foul. This is the 20th century, right? Doesn't a man have the freedom to believe whatever he chooses? To follow his conscience? Well, he does according to several statements of the U.N., most of them signed by the worst Central Asian and Middle-Eastern offenders. See the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and others. See also the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a powerful bi-partisan watchdog. Almost every constitution on earth gives lip service to religious freedom--but many nations then enact necessarily unconstitutional criminal statutes making conversion from Islam to anything else criminal apostasy, often punishable by death.

Makes you thankful for a nation where legislators and judges value at least the appearance of a consistent jurisprudence.


But what can the United States do for the accused Afghani? Should the President do anything? Does he have a role, and if so, by what authority? As they say, what gives Americans the right to interfere? Obviously our First Amendment does not guarantee freedom of religion to a man in Afghanistan. But another U.S. law requires the President to get involved in cases of religious persecution:

The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. This Act, a response to the worldwide persecution of Christians and others following the collapse of Soviet Communism, and initially opposed by "Free-Trade Republicans" (including Phil Gramm, R.-Tx.), the Clinton White House, and Democrats worried about how it would impact their President, eventually passed both houses unanimously and was signed into law by President Clinton. I've told the amazing story elsewhere. My point here is that this American law places a burden on the U.S. Executive Branch. It is now our national policy not to be isolationist in matters of religious freedom:

[R]ecent years have seen an increase in the amount of religious discrimination and persecution in other countries. By 1998 the international situation for the devout of all faiths had deteriorated to such an extent that the United States passed the International Religious Freedom Act in an attempt to alleviate the suffering of the persecuted. Suddenly religious freedom became an integral part of America’s foreign policy.

The Act argues that religious freedom has always been a fundamental part of America’s history. Now religious freedom is also a fundamental part of its foreign affairs, a possible deal breaker in negotiations with other countries. This ambitious new law has altered the landscape of U.S. foreign policy. Such sweeping change merits close scrutiny.

The Act places the primary responsibility on the President for promoting religious freedom abroad. He is required to promote such freedom by negotiating with, withholding aid from, and levying sanctions against the worst offenders.

Nothing in the Act requires the President to address this or any other specific case. However, if the new government of Afghanistan hopes for the continued support of the nation whose young patriots died to release that land from the iron fist of Taliban rule, it should be required to set this man free. I think our President should be able to make that clear.

Do You Have a Right to Keep and Bear Arms? But What if There's a Hurricane?

. . . In other words, what if there's suddenly a situation in which you need your arms? What if Hurricane Katrina has flooded the city, and left in its wake lawless looters and a lack of law enforcement?

Do you still get to keep your guns? Or would we all be better off just handing them over to the agents who float by in a jon boat? (My cousin up the road in Denham Springs spent days guarding his house with a shotgun and a dog. And I was thankful he had both.)

But Ray Nagin and the City of New Orleans decided to treat the citizens like children and rob them of the right and ability to protect themselves and their families.

Yes, not only did the Sin-City-Fathers divert money earmarked for levee improvements, they took the guns away from the law-abiding who were left behind.

(In law school, students--and professors--are forever arguing that the Second Amendment should be repealed: "Why do I believe the Constitution is a living document, changing with the times? See Second Amendment." Somehow, they never understood why this answer did not automatically win the day. Conversely, when riots happen, or disasters like Hurricane Katrina, I find myself thankful once again for the wisdom of the Founding Fathers.)

What do you think? Was the 2nd Amendment designed for just such a time, or is it as outdated as the gunslingers of the Old West?

Sermon on Hurricane Katrina from One Who Has "Been to the Mountain"

Skip my intro . . . listen to Brother Fred Luter, Jr., "What to Do When the Storms Come."

On August 29, New Orleans suffered the worst disaster the Gulf Coast has seen in a century (or better, the worst disaster ever seen by an American city). But unlike the midnight storm that destroyed Galveston, millions escaped Hurricane Katrina, limiting her wrath to mostly property damage. On the other hand, whether New Orleans will suffer the obsolescence that befell Galveston--and be replaced by the inland city of Baton Rouge, as Houston replaced Galveston--remains to be seen. A great deal remains to be seen, unfortunately. I used to go to New Orleans monthly on business, but have yet to return (same for Biloxi). Yet, I digress.

When the levees broke, I knew I was witnessing the greatest tragedy of my lifetime. Houston was suddenly filled with homeless people, many with great jobs and good kids to educate. I met others who made their "living" entirely on federal assistance. I helped some figure out how to get their high schoolers into the best public school in Houston (we went with Bellaire). My wife and I moved into our son's room, and moved him in with our daughter, offering our master bed and bath to families of as many as five. If it was a risk, we were willing. We 'counted the cost' and were ready to store up treasures in Heaven to help those we were certain were not pretending. The first family had their stuff sent over, and we moved it in. Then they backed out. The next two families did the same, the federally funded hotel stays being an understandably better offer.

But our Houston church got involved. Soon a displaced New Orleans church--many of whose members washed up in Houston--began to meet in our church building every Sunday. They still do. (I don't know how they do it. To still be on the road six months later. Still "at sea" as it were.) The head pastor, Fred Luter, preaches at our location every 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month. The second and fourth, he preaches a 7:30 service at a dry New Orleans church, then a 1:00 service in Baton Rouge at Istrouma Baptist.*

Yesterday, Brother Luter, pastor of the largest black church in the Southern Baptist Convention, preached in our pulpit during a combined service. It was awesome. I loved it and am listening to it again as I write. This sermon was an event. To me--a HISTORICAL EVENT, because of his reflections on the hurricane that wiped out his city, and his thoughts six months later. He put Hurricane Katrina in a spiritual context that would be valuable and interesting to anyone. But equally compelling was his delivery. You just don't hear such excellent use of all the tools of an oral tradition: parallelism, alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, refrain, dynamics, music.... This sermon really was an EVENT. You should not miss it.

You can listen to Dr. Luter's words here: "What to Do When the Storms Come."

*I'm partial to Istrouma--my favorite church of which I am not a member, the church the Wales family has attended since the 40s, if not earlier. My grandparents once showed up the Sunday morning of another hurricane. The pastor was the only one there--and he was only there to send everyone home. "I'm sorry, Brother Wales. I don't think we'll be having church today."

Do the Academy Awards Bore You?

How can the Motion Picture Academy be responsible for anything so tedious, trite, and tiresome? Wouldn't you expect them to put together something interesting?

But it's a trade show, after all. Just a trade show by an industry that considers itself the most important, most relevant industry on earth. That's what happens when you read too much of your own press. The whole thing is reflexive: Celebrities become famous: a billion-dollar celebrity-obsessed media writes about them and fawns over them and flatters them, paying attention to every haircut and mole removal. Is she too heavy, too thin? Anorexic? Ohmygawd... Whether they love you or hate you, the thing is to keep them talking about you and your latest love interest. Bennifer. Braniston. Branjolie. (If you don't think some of these affairs are only for the press, think again. Or read Simon Cowell's book on how to make it to the top as a celebrity.) Soon the celebrities think only of their fawning press and the next publicity stunt. And the magazines keep telling them they are American Royalty. And the press thinks it matters too. People, Us, and a thousand gossip rags think they are relevant because they believe in this stuff too.

So I find every awards show to be horribly boring. Maybe without a fictional plot, the emptiness of these people is more obvious. Sort of the emporer's new clothes. But whatever it is, I just cannot listen to those speeches. . . . speeches given by people who live cloistered lives in a place where reality no longer matters.

But maybe a speech like this would liven things up a bit. (Yeah, Dennis Prager's cool.)

Working vs. Blogging

No time for posting. I've been busy. Finally. I just want to express my thanks. We have needed work for so long and I am so thankful. I'm also enjoying being "needed" again on the job. It has been a while.

If working ever seems like a drag, I suggest six months of job hunting in a glutted market....

Thank you, Lord for work. Help me be a good steward.

Mystery photo

This is one of my all-time favorite photo subjects. Can you explain it?

I doubt it will be a mystery to anyone, but you never know.

Can You Name Five First-Amendment Rights?

Neither can anyone else. But if you can get the first four, you're doing better than most. It seems we know the Simpsons better than the First Amendment.

Quiz yourself. Can you name all five?

To the first person to name all five First Amendment rights without having looked them up during the last week, I hereby assign by Quit-Claim Deed my stake in a border-town tort verdict.

(No cheating!)