Dec 1, 2022
Gen Z Loves Big Brother by Brian Robertson at Crisis Magazine. The dumbing down and politicization of American schooling is so pervasive that the bulk of a generation has internalized a passive posture toward those who call the shots, and they have been conditioned to keep their head down and adopt the groupthink if they know what’s good for them. A basic prerequisite for revolting against tyranny is recognizing it—and recognizing the propaganda machine that perpetuates it and supports it. Today, mainstream sources of information and cultural influence are so limited by the corporate-political ruling class, and the range of acceptable opinion so narrow, that many young Americans no longer possess the ability to see the biases, conceits, and corruptions of their own era. Read
Darwin Bishop will ‘Seriously Consider’ Closing Schools if Labor Changes Laws by Adam Wesselinoff at The Catholic Weekly. Bishop Charles Gauci of Darwin [Australia] has said he will “seriously consider” closing the NT’s Catholic schools if the Territory’s Labor government presses ahead with proposed changes to anti-discrimination laws that would strip schools of the right to hire employees based on faith. Read
Anthony Esolen’s ‘Word & Song’: ‘Education Fit for a Human Soul’ by Alyssa Murphy at National Catholic Register. When an ancient Greek kid first experienced Homer’s The Odyssey, or the Iliad, he experienced it as song by a professional singer. And then people themselves could join in. Anybody might be able to recite or chant, from memory, hundreds of lines of The Odyssey or The Iliad; they weren’t even written down until centuries later. Song is the fundamental human way of learning things, by music, and that our schools abandon it shows that we don’t really understand what education fit for a human soul is. Read
Critical Race Theory Programs are Mandatory in 58 of Top 100 Medical Schools: Report by Jeremiah Poff at Washington Examiner. Fifty-eight of the nation's top 100 medical schools require some form of critical race theory-based program, according to new information from a database that monitors the prevalence of such programs in higher education. The latest update to the database said that 58 of U.S. News and World Report's top 100 medical schools require mandatory education in anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion, or some other form of critical race theory-linked program, either through mandatory training or in the curriculum. Read
Emails Reveal School Board Association Coordinated with White House over Domestic Terrorists Letter by Jeremiah Poff at Washington Examiner. The National School Boards Association notified the Biden administration that the group would ask the Department of Justice to devote federal anti-terrorism resources to investigate threats against school board members, internal emails show. The emails... detail the extent to which the NSBA coordinated with the White House and the Department of Education when it released its Sept. 29, 2021, letter that compared parents protesting at school board meetings to domestic terrorists and asked the Biden administration to use the Patriot Act to investigate threats against school board members. Read
The Childhood Transition Narrative is Crumbling by Debra Soh at Washington Examiner. The narrative about childhood transition that transgender activists have been selling is slowly crumbling. Last week, Reuters published an investigation into the exponential increase in teenage girls wanting to transition, acknowledging that referrals to gender clinics have been overrepresented by this population. For many, their gender dysphoria is influenced by their peers and social media. Read
Throwback Thursday
Reclaiming an Education for Joyful Hope by Elisabeth Sullivan at Catholic Exchange on January 5, 2021. A growing number of Catholic educators are now confronting the fact that, when they uncritically adopt secular curricula, standards, and pedagogy, they are inadvertently teaching as though the Incarnation never happened. They see what the secular model can never convey: The world is a different place through the eyes of faith. Learning becomes an adventure to discover meaning, purpose, order, connections, and beauty in Creation. All knowledge is one in Jesus Christ, the Logos in Whom all things cohere. As young people are guided to know themselves and their place in the world, they grasp that “it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear” (Gaudium et Spes). When this vision is restored throughout the curriculum, pedagogy, and school culture, they grow in joyful hope. Read