Jan 19, 2023
Communicating with Parents by Kyle Blackmer at The Heights Forum. The importance of parents in the life of the school cannot be overstated. As the primary educators of their children, parents bear the responsibility for forming their sons and daughters in all areas of life. The fact that parents welcome us as teachers to partner with them in this all-important endeavor is both humbling and inspiring. With this partnership in mind, we must consider parent communication to be a primary role in our work as teachers. St. Josemaría Escrivá even went so far as to say that parents, not students, should be the primary focus of a school. That is a revolutionary idea. And it makes sense; form the educator and you will form the student. Inform the educator and you will guide them in teaching. Read
Growing, Keeping, and Sharing Faith in a Post-Christian Culture. Interview by Jesse Russell of R. Jared Staudt at Catholic World Report. In my writing and teaching about Catholic culture, I have come to the conclusion that the family needs to be at the center of our rebuilding efforts. Parents overwhelmingly have the largest influence on the faith life of their children and overcoming secularism by reuniting faith and life can occur most successfully in the home. Families need help and support in maintaining faith in light of the overpowering challenges of technology and media, and, in my opinion, the Church is not focusing enough on family ministry. I certainly try to live a robustly Catholic life with my family, with the support of strong Catholic schools, although it is quite an adventure. Read
Catholic College Students Continue Marching for Life by John Burger at Aleteia. The annual march, which will take place this Friday, January 20, is taking on a new life and a new purpose. And, in spite of higher gas prices this year, people will still travel to DC, including hundreds of students from Catholic colleges from near and far. Like North Dakota. As in years past, the University of Mary in Bismarck plans to send five busloads of students to the March for Life – a 30-hour road trip in each direction. Read
Regaining Lost Ground in Education by Brad Littlejohn at WORLD Opinions. The fact is that education is one area where neutrality is impossible: If your entire task and purpose is to teach truth, beauty, and goodness, well then it matters a great deal what you think is true, beautiful, and good. Least of all will educators be neutral who deny that objective truth even exists! Read
Schools Have Become a Predator’s Paradise by The Ruth Institute at The Stream. [Ruth Institute President Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.] explained: “Schools have become a predator’s paradise. Children are instructed in various sex acts in detail, without any consideration of their vulnerability or parental values…. Everything dreamed up by sexual radicals is validated by our schools. In these circumstances, grooming and exploitation are inevitable.” Read
Biden Education Department Targets Texas Superintendent for Removing Explicit Books from School Libraries by Jillian Schneider at The Daily Signal. A Texas superintendent is under investigation for trying to protect students from sexually explicit books in public school libraries. The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation based on the American Civil Liberties Union’s complaint against the Granbury Independent School District and Superintendent Jeremy Glenn, which centers on the removal of controversial books, as well as related comments made by Glenn. Read
The Case for Faith-based College Education and What Other Universities can Learn by Tad Walch at Deseret News. Peter Kilpatrick, president of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., said that students who don’t engage in any of the university’s campus ministries graduate about seven or eight percentage points below average. “Students who engage in five or more of our campus activities graduate or persist at a rate 15 points higher,” he said, “and 92% of our students persist if they get engaged (in ministry).” Read
The Proof that Woke Ideology is Rampant on Campus by Matt Lamb at Washington Examiner. Woke college ideology is no longer confined to the campus diversity office or the sociology department. It is in nearly every academic department and here are 10 job listings that prove it. Read
Throwback Thursday
The Rights of Parents as Primary Educators of Their Children and the Obligation of Parents to Oppose a Curriculum Contrary to the Moral Law by Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke at Voice of the Family Virtual Conference on October 9, 2020. It is Christ alone Who opens the understanding and animates the heart to embrace the truth and to live it in love. Educators, therefore, cooperating with parents, lead children to know Christ and to follow Him in all things, and thus lead them to the peace which is the desire of every human heart. Education, both in the home and in the school, opens the eyes of the child to contemplate the mystery of God’s love for us in the sending of His only-begotten Son in our human flesh and in the sending of His Holy Spirit into our souls, the great fruit of the Redemptive Incarnation. Parents who in the past have depended upon schools to assist them in raising their children to be true citizens of heaven and earth, good members of the Church and good members of civil society, find some schools to be places of indoctrination in atheistic materialism with its concurrent relativism…. Sadly, some Catholic schools, for a variety of reasons, mimic the situation in non-Catholic schools… Read