Read the Bible, Understand America

Read the Bible, Understand America by Mark Bauerlein at First Things. Educators in Oklahoma and Louisiana and a few other red states have called for biblical content in public classrooms. Right on cue, liberals have criticized them for it. It strikes them as dangerous and coercive. They don’t distinguish between the act of discussing selections from the Old and New Testaments and the act of proselytizing. If you pressed them, they might acknowledge the relevance of the Bible to the fields of English, history, art history, civics, and oratory, but they would nonetheless mistrust the practice of Bible teaching. Read

The Ten Commandments in Post-Christian America by David G Bonagura, Jr. at The Catholic Thing. What sin hath Louisiana committed in mandating the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school? According to the plaintiff in the newly minted suit Roake v. Brumley, Louisiana is harming children by making them think about God. The plaintiff stated, “The Ten Commandments displays required under state law will create an unwelcoming and oppressive school environment for children, like ours, who don’t believe in the state’s official version of scripture. We believe that no child should feel excluded in public school because of their family’s faith tradition.” Read

Don’t Give in to the Post-Literate Culture: Part II by Jeannette DeCelles-Zwerneman at Cana Academy. The essay used to be a staple of high school education, but increasingly teachers are reporting that they are inheriting students who can just barely compose single complete sentences in answer to direct questions. Arranging those sentences into a coherent paragraph that leads the reader from a topic sentence to persuasive textual evidence is no longer something a lot of students are capable of producing, never mind a full essay. Furthermore, teachers are observing alarming levels of cheating among their students, especially as chatbots have become easily accessible and more sophisticated. Read

Meet Secondary Catholic Educator Dr. Melissa Mitchell by Nell O’Leary at Word on Fire. Catholic teacher formation is important because unlike Catholic schools in the past, many teachers in Catholic schools have not discerned nor received Catholic formation as the religious brothers and sisters did historically in American Catholic schools. Therefore, a challenge for many Catholic teachers, even with the best intentions, is the absence of practicing and modeling the Catholic faith in their classrooms. Read

Quincy, Illinois, Catholic Schools Implement Subsidy Program to Encourage Mass Attendance by Gigi Duncan at Catholic News Agency. In an effort to encourage families to “return to the Eucharist and be an active part of the Catholic community,” the Quincy Deanery of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, has implemented a “Family School Agreement” initiative effective July 1. The initiative builds upon a 2015 agreement asking families with children who attend Quincy’s Catholic elementary schools to “commit themselves to the Catholic faith and involve themselves in the practice of that faith” by attending Mass each Sunday and on holy days of obligation. Read

London Catholic School’s Solution to Kids’ Device Addiction by J-P Mauro at Aleteia. Banning smartphones in school and initiating longer school days has found great success at All Saints Catholic College, with behavior improving a great deal…MSN reports that the students are prohibited from bringing smartphones to school. This means that for 12 of a day's 24 hours, All Saints' kids are free of electrical devices and engage with the real world. While it is heartening to see the kids not glued to their screens, Headteacher Andrew O’Neil told MSN that it’s not about taking the phones away, but giving them something to engage with in place of devices. Read

Annual Conference on the Renewal of Catholic Education Attracts Record-Number of Attendees by Hannah Naughton at The Institute for Catholic Liberal Education. The energy and joy of the 462 attendees at the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education’s National Conference last week at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, demonstrated the momentum of the renewal movement in Catholic education. ICLE’s 12th annual conference for PreK-12 Catholic educators, clergy, superintendents, and scholars was its largest ever, and centered on the theme: “Behold the Beauty of the Lord.” This yearly gathering invites participants to deepen their understanding of the nature and purpose of Catholic education and its roots in the liberal arts tradition—a tradition developed centuries ago by the Catholic Church. Read

Christendom Answers Difficult Questions in Church History with Free Online History Class by Christendom College. Christendom College has released a new free online class, “Approaching Difficult Questions in Church History,” aimed at addressing complex and often misunderstood aspects of Church history. The class, taught by history professor Dr. Christopher Lane, consists of several sessions available for anyone to take at any time…This class, available for free to anyone, consists of five lectures. It further deepens the offerings from Principles, providing Catholics everywhere with the tools they need to know and defend the Truth in today’s increasingly secular culture. Read

Throwback Thursday

Memory & Hope: Restoring the Teaching of American History by Gary W. Houchens at The Imaginative Conservative on August 31, 2020. The currently pervading approach to American history presents America in the worst possible light, distorting the full truth of our past and damaging our political health. Our K-12 schools need a restoration of temporal continuity, the key to revitalizing history and civics education that forms young people who both appreciate the gifts of the past and possess the capacity for independent and critical thinking. Read