Oct 24, 2024
The False Promise of Device-Based Education by Amy Tyson at After Babel. In The Anxious Generation, we argued that smartphones and social media are significant contributors to the multi-national youth mental health crisis that began in the early 2010s. Although we are thrilled by the progress that has been made, we have heard from teachers across the country that the phones are just the first step. They are also extremely concerned about the other kinds of technology that began to saturate the school day at the same time: 1-to-1 iPads, Chromebooks, and other forms of educational technology (EdTech). Read
Phones Are Destroying Kids’ Ability To Read Books by Jeremy S. Adams at The Federalist. It turns out that even “elite college students” can’t muster the cerebral capacity and mental acuity to read books. The edgy title of last week’s article in The Atlantic, “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books,” certainly attracted clicks and evoked the intended volume of outrage. But the subtitle of the article, “To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school,” haughtily points the finger at the wrong assailant. Read
Of History & Pentecost: T. S. Eliot's "Little Gidding" by Andrew J. Zwerneman at Cana Academy. T. S. Eliot’s poetic reflection on modern times presented in “Little Gidding” resonates today as an encouragement in the uncertain relation we have with our past. Increasingly, Americans know little history, or only a hopeless and hopelessly reductive form of it. As a society, we have largely forgotten who we are, which is one major reason we find it increasingly difficult to move forward together with one mind and shared sympathies. “Little Gidding” illuminates the path forward by reclaiming the memory requisite to seeing our life together. In other words, Eliot’s poetry opens up for us a common ground. Read
Catholic Trustees Travel to Italy to Buy $100,000 Worth of Artwork for New High School by Michelle Ruby at The Expositor. Four local Catholic school board trustees travelled to Italy earlier this year to purchase $100,000 worth of artwork for a new high school under construction in Brantford…The artwork, which includes life-sized, hand-painted wooden statues of St. Padre Pio and the Virgin Mary, a large crucifix, and sculptures depicting the 14 Stations of the Cross, will be put in the chapel at the new high school, St. Padre Pio Secondary, which will open in September 2026 on Powerline Road. Read
Seattle Parish Transforms Convent into Affordable Housing for Mission-Driven Teachers by María J. Moriarty at Catholic News Agency. St. Alphonsus Parish in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood has converted its former convent into affordable living spaces for young educators, creating a model that blends community, spirituality, and mission-driven teaching amid soaring housing costs. The convent was vacated in 2021 when its residents — sisters from the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity — decided their mission was no longer being served in Seattle and relocated to Texas. The convent now offers private rooms and shared common areas to teachers and ministry professionals, usually within their first five years of service. Read
‘Transformational’ Catholic College-Prep Program Serves Low-Income Families by Kate Quiñones at Catholic News Agency. A network of 40 Jesuit Catholic schools around the U.S. is using a unique model to provide quality Catholic education and professional experience for students from low-income families. The Cristo Rey Network implements a “Corporate Work Study” program that places students at professional jobs once a week during the school year, giving them job experiences while helping fund their education. Read
Virginia Catholic School Among 2 Middle Schools in World Picked for NASA Rover Challenge by Daniel Payne at Catholic News Agency. A Catholic middle school in the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, is one of just two middle schools in the world chosen to compete in a prominent NASA engineering challenge. NASA announced earlier this month the teams of students it had picked to participate in this year’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC). Middle schoolers at St. Mary’s Catholic School in the Richmond Diocese were selected to participate; the other is Jesco von Puttkamer School in Leipzig, Germany. Read
Catholic University in Florida Stages Rally Against State Abortion Amendment by Kate Quiñones at Catholic News Agency. A Catholic university in Florida is set to host a major rally against Florida’s pro-abortion ballot measure on Sunday, with several federal and state legislators as well as actor and producer Eduardo Verástegui scheduled to be in attendance. Ave Maria University is hosting the Oct. 20 rally in opposition to a Florida Amendment 4, which would enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution. Read
Throwback Thursday
Lessons That Great Poems Teach by Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative on April 28, 2021. I recently taught a short six-class course for Homeschool Connections on “Poems Every Catholic Should Know.” The key point I wished to convey in the course, aside from the overarching hope that the students would discover a love for the beauty of poetry in its own right, was that great Christian poetry teaches us many priceless lessons about life… Engagement with the enraptured vision of wonder-filled poets enables students to learn that virtue is the necessary prerequisite for the perception of the fullness of the beauty of reality. Read