Raising Readers at Christmas: 18 Books That Build Virtue and Faith

Raising Readers at Christmas: 18 Books That Build Virtue and Faith by Amanda Evinger at National Catholic Register. By sharing well-written stories, artistic masterpieces, heartening fables, poetry brimming with wonder, and spiritually uplifting materials with our children, we are uniting our hearts and souls to theirs in an extraordinary way — one that will impact their temporal and eternal destiny in marvelous ways…Here are some recent releases that can help us achieve this end. Read

Our Origins in Bethlehem by Andrew J. Zwerneman at Cana Academy. Matthew the Poor, also known as Father Matta, reminds us that when Christ was born we were born, eternally. This way of seeing the Nativity is what he calls the “mystical way.” To be sure, the Incarnation was an event in the past; it happened in history, and Christ is the center of history. The story of Christ’s birth is one that holds our hearts and inspires other stories as no other has. We do well to tell it again and again. Yet, “Christmas is not about remembrance or a past event or even Gospel history; but it’s the beginning of a living relationship with Christ, an impressive and momentous relationship—a relationship that is the basis of our existence or being.” Read

Christendom Professor Reveals Christmas Gift of “Anne of Green Gables” by Christendom College. In Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery presents the character of Matthew Cuthbert — a shy, old farmer. How does his fatherly love emulate the love of Christ? Christendom English Language and Literature Professor Dr. Kathleen Sullivan explains in this latest piece for Instaurare Magazine. Read

Breathing Narnian Air: Loving Modernity as a Medievalist featuring Dr. Jason Baxter at HeightsCast. In this week’s wide-ranging discussion, Dr. Jason Baxter talks about fellow Medievalist C. S. Lewis’s ideas of story and history—and how those ideas matter for the education and formation of a thoroughly modern people. What can today’s “classical revival movements” learn from Lewis? Listen

What Parents Need to Know About Artificial Intelligence by Emily Harrison at Institute for Family Studies. Parents should take time to educate children on how to make informed decisions, ask good questions, and maintain autonomy apart from using Narrow AI. The human element of decision-making should not be divorced from Narrow AI. Meaning, children and teenagers need to first learn good decision-making skills, which stems from maturity, before they are given independent access to Narrow AI tools. Read

Congress Should Consider the Florida Method for Keeping Minors Safe Online by Edward Longe at National Review. When teenagers log into their social media accounts every day, they enter a digital world that keeps Congress and parents awake at night. Across America’s kitchen tables and in Capitol Hill offices, a fierce debate has been raging for several years: How do we protect teenagers from the harmful effects of social media without cutting them off from the digital connections that shape their world and without empowering governments at the expense of parents? Read

Student Math Scores Still Recovering from COVID-19 by Bekah McCallum at World. American students are behind their international counterparts in math, according to recent test results. The National Center for Education Statistics administers the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to fourth and eighth grade students every four years. About 650,000 students from 65 education systems participated in 2023. Results are measured on a scale from zero to 1,000. Students in Singapore scored on the higher end, averaging over 600. Regions such as South Africa and Kuwait scored low with averages of less than 400. Across both grade levels measured by the latest TIMSS exam, the United States scored 10 or more points above the international average. Still, U.S. fourth graders scored 18 points lower in math than in 2019. Eighth grade math scores dropped by 27 points. Read

Throwback Thursday

Defending Poetry Against Relativism: 3 Tips by Andrew J. Zwerneman at Cana Academy on September 26, 2023. Anyone who teaches poetry will likely recognize this kind of response from some students: “That is just his opinion.” What the poet says is personal and, thus, merely subjective—so the thinking goes. Poetry is, in fact, personal, even more so than fiction is for the storyteller. The poet experiences something in life, captures it in the compact form of the poem, then presents it to the readers so that we can recreate the experience for ourselves…How can we lead our skeptical students to judge poems more knowledgeably and sympathetically? While we are at it, how can we shore up our intellectually honest students so that they are not cowed by their relativist schoolmates? Here are some tactical answers organized as three tips. Read