Mar 20, 2025
Flesh on Dry Bones: Telling a Great Story in History Class featuring Tom Cox at HeightsCast. Mr. Tom Cox’s approach to telling great stories in the classroom starts with a self-limiting 3×5 notecard. The challenge when telling any story from history is that all such stories run together, are infinitely entangled, and lack the defined clarity of exposition, crisis, climax, and denouement. Mr. Cox provides a practical framework and examples for “putting flesh on dry bones” in an effective, compelling way that students will remember. Listen
Latin and the Big Questions by Daniel B. Gallagher at The Catholic Thing. There was no fifteenth-century Renaissance in America, but there was definitely one in the twentieth. Non-public schools – most of them Catholic – offered Latin in urban and rural classrooms across the country. Latin may have been their students’ ticket to the university, but that’s not what motivated the priests and nuns who worked for virtually nothing to hand it on. They were rather convinced that Latin was worth possessing both for its own sake and as a door to the inestimable treasure of humanistic wisdom. Read
Practice Makes Perfect? How to Coach Seminar Students to Better Speech by Andrew J. Ellison at Cana Academy. One of the essential responsibilities of the seminar leader, and one often overlooked or de-prioritized by the novice teacher, is the seemingly-unglamorous work of correcting and clarifying sloppy student speech. I say essential, yet it is all too common for seminar leaders to neglect student speech…Why, then, do seminar leaders themselves fall short in this area of responsibility? And what can they do to rise to excellence themselves? Read
Vittorino da Feltre and other Humanist Educators by Eric Maurer at ClassicalEd Review. Vittorino da Feltre and other Humanist Educators is a gold mine of good practice for educators seeking a union of classical enthusiasm with Christianity. If one thinks that the bar for achievement has been lowered since the 19th century, they should look at the bar for students in the 15th. Humbled to the point of feeling inadequate, I marveled at what Vittorino da Feltre, Guarino Veronese, and others accomplished with their students. Guided by the advice of Plutarch’s essay the Education of Children, and Quintillian’s Institutes, these Renaissance educators understood the Greek adage that a great beginning is half of the whole. Read
A Classroom Without Books Is Not Progress by Robert C. Thornett at EducationNext. It is amazing how easy the Internet has made it to get books. The volumes emperors and scholars once scoured the earth to obtain are today available at the click of a button—and sometimes delivered to your doorstep the same day. Yet in this book-abundant moment, it is not unusual to see stacks of textbooks sitting uncracked throughout a school. Over my two decades as a teacher, I have witnessed numerous sets of 40 or more excellent textbooks go untouched all year. They sit on classroom shelves or molder in student lockers while teachers dispense PowerPoints, worksheets, notes, or lectures. Read
Cell Phones in Schools by Ryan Williams, Scott Yenor, F. Hess, & C. Morell at The American Mind. Silicon Valley elites have pushed school-provided tablets and phones into K-12 schools, replacing textbooks, real human interaction, and traditional education, undermining children's ability to focus—and parents' power to regulate screentime. Guests Scott Yenor, Frederick Hess, and Clare Morell sit down with host Ryan Williams to consider the limited pros and many cons of devices in the classroom, their disruptive effect in school settings and on learning outcomes, and provide insight into how states and school boards may spur positive change. Watch
U.S. Bishops Back Oklahoma Catholic Charter School at Supreme Court by Daniel Payne at Catholic News Agency. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is backing an Oklahoma Catholic school’s bid before the U.S. Supreme Court to become the first religious charter school in the country. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School has been battling since 2023 to receive official status as a charter school in Oklahoma. Read
‘Jesus is Better than a Psychologist’: Arizona Republicans Want Chaplains to be in Public Schools by Caitlin Sievers at The74. Republican politicians who accuse public school teachers of indoctrinating students with a “woke agenda” are pushing to bring religious chaplains into the same schools to provide counseling to students…The proposal would give school districts the option of allowing volunteer religious chaplains to provide counseling and programs to public school students. Read
Homeschool Students Are Happier, More Engaged, and More Likely to Be Married by Ben Johnson at Daily Signal. As U.S. public school scores plunge yet again, a new study shows homeschool students are more likely to report positive mental health outcomes, to be married and have children, to volunteer in their communities, and to believe in God. The report’s findings come as President Donald Trump contemplates returning most of the federal government’s role in education back to the states and eventually abolishing the U.S. Department of Education. Read
Throwback Thursday
How to Keep your Kids and Grandkids Catholic by Jason Evert at The Napa Institute 2024 Summer Conference on Jul 24, 2024. How is a parent to compete with Netflix, social media, gender theory, online porn and all the other influences that allure young people away from the faith? In this seminar, Jason offers communication techniques, resources, statistics and a wealth of information to assist parents in their task as the primary evangelists of their children. Watch |