This Summer, Take a Family Digital Detox

This Summer, Take a Family Digital Detox by Clare Morell at After Babel. Parents across the country are about to face the same summer dilemma: they want their kids to enjoy a real, playful, outdoor childhood, but feel stuck in a world where everyone else is on screens. Even parents who recognize the harms of the phone-based childhood often feel powerless to act, fearing their child will be left out socially or fall behind. This is the collective action trap — where everyone is waiting for someone else to go first. In today’s post, Clare Morell offers a clear way out. Read

A ‘Classical’ High School Seeks to Renew Catholicism in D.C. by Sean Salai at The Washington Times. Many high schools have developed curricula to address modern issues such as artificial intelligence, social media and green technology. But a one-of-a-kind school run by Catholics in Northeast Washington is aiming to secure the future by embracing the past. For senior Magdalena Reminga, St. Jerome Institute’s classical education has made all the difference. Painfully shy when she arrived four years ago, she’s now preparing to attend Hillsdale College and become a speechwriter after having debated the works of Homer, Dante and William Shakespeare at the tiny campus. Read

Dell Rapids Schools Take Steps Toward Authentic Catholic Education by Laura Melius at The Bishop’s Bulletin. St. Mary Catholic Schools in Dell Rapids is one of several schools in the diocese who have embarked on fulfilling a vision of providing a more authentically Catholic educational experience for their teachers and students. The school system is accomplishing this through training and developing curriculum with the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education (ICLE). Read

Teaching Like a Prize Fighter by Carter Johnson at Front Porch Republic. To throw pedagogical punches is not to berate students; it’s to engage them in the ring. Most of them just need a nudge, a little jab that’s meant to be blocked, feeling out the defense: “Zach, what do you think about that?” And then snap. His gloves are up, and he fires back a little hook, tentative at first but then stronger. I’m constantly shocked by the excellent comments that students withhold, either out of shyness or uncertainty. Read

Recommended Art History and Artistic Practice Text Books for Homeschoolers... and Everyone Else Too! by David Clayton at New Liturgical Movement. I want to recommend the Catholic Heritage Currricula texts books to all who are looking for materials for courses in art history, art theory and artistic practice at the middle-school or high-school level. These books present a curriculum that combines art history, art theory, and a theory of culture in a Catholic way. Furthermore, they provide the basis for artistic practice, offering simple exercises for students that reflect the design and compositional features of the great works described in the course. The result is that it deepens the understanding and appreciation of what they are looking at, while also laying the foundations for artistic practice. Read

Great Seminars Make Students Happy by Andrew J. Zwerneman at Cana Academy. In the context of a liberal education, our students’ observational experience widens when they carefully read the best works of literature. Great books widen their world, expand their experience, and deepen their understanding of the condition and purpose we hold in common. As the record of human thought, feeling, and vision, the great works of our cultural heritage are the heart of an education to happiness. What our students read, then, matters greatly for their lives. It is also true that it matters how they study classic works. Read

Kids Aren’t Learning—Here’s What to Do by Mark Bauerlein at First Things. The latest installment of an ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein. Jason Bedrick joins in to discuss “The Phoenix Declaration: An American Vision for Education.” Listen

How Big Tech Hijacked the Classroom — and Our Kids are Paying the Price by Melissa Henson at Blaze Media. The widespread deployment of laptops and digital tools as pedagogical instruments wasn’t driven by educators, parents, or students. It was pushed by Silicon Valley. Big Tech companies like Google and Apple aggressively marketed their products as educational tools, positioning themselves as essential partners in a tech-forward future. By 2020, Google was raking in an estimated $200 million annually from school-issued Chromebooks. Read

The “Take It Down Act” Is a Long Overdue First Strike Against Pornography in Schools by Edwin Benson at The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property. According to a September 2024 study by the Center for Democracy and Technology, roughly forty percent of students know about at least one incident of deepfakes being shared within their schools. Given that schools are notorious “rumor mills,” that number is probably far higher… On May 19, 2025, President Trump signed the “Take It Down Act” into law. According to CBS News, the new law “makes it a federal crime to post real and fake sexually explicit imagery online of people without their consent.” Read

Navigating Libraries and Raising Readers by Haley Stewart at Word on Fire. Haley interviews Elizabeth Nava, a school librarian in Dallas, TX, advocate for Catholic education, and mom of two voracious young readers. In this episode they discuss cultivating the reading life of young people, hacks for getting the most out of our public libraries, what kind of books to offer children, and what trends Elizabeth sees in children’s literature today. Read

Remembering the Supreme Court Case that Saved Catholic Education in America by Madalaine Elhabbal at Catholic News Agency. June 1 marked the 100th anniversary of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the landmark Supreme Court case that preserved Catholic education in America and established the foundation for present-day legal discourse on parental rights and school choice. Read

Throwback Thursday

Childhood Memories of Learning Chant and Praying the Divine Office by Fr. Samuel F. Weber, O.S.B. at Catholic Education Resource Center on August 18, 2010. The greatest gift we can give to our students in a Benedictine School is the gift of prayer and the sacred liturgy. That was our goal at St. Columba. Our Prioress at the time, Mother Ricarda Gallivan, O.S.B., put a special stress on the importance of teaching the children in our schools to pray, especially to pray with the Church. So our plan was that each day we would begin with Terce in each classroom. Before lunch, we would all go together to the Church for Sext. And then before heading home at the end of the school day, in each classroom the school day would end with the chanting of None. Read