— 1 —
A bit of a week, here. Nothing dramatic, just getting into the groove of this weird new life – of just me and one kid. Described a bit here in this post.
You also might want to check out the essay I had published in Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal. I’m going to come right out and say that the final line of the piece is not mine. It was added – I ended with the quote. Which I still prefer. But I’m still grateful for the publication and the wider reach it afforded me, and will be following up with More Thoughts.
While we’re at it – Son #4 on Ingmar Bergman – a retrospective and overview – and then his ranking of Bergman’s best films.
— 2 —
Related to my essay. I thought this was good – from an evangelical perspective, a reflection on a few prominent defections from faith. It’s based on a FB post, so it has that “tossed off” effect (which you see, er, here all the time, of course) – but it’s worth a look:
My conclusion for the church(all of us Christians): We must STOP making worship leaders and thought leaders or influencers or cool people or “relevant” people the most influential people in Christendom. (And yes that includes people like me!) I’ve been saying for 20 years(and seemed probably quite judgmental to some of my peers) that we are in a dangerous place when the church is looking to 20 year old worship singers as our source of truth. We now have a church culture that learns who God is from singing modern praise songs rather than from the teachings of the Word. I’m not being rude to my worship leader friends (many who would agree with me) in saying that singers and musicians are good at communicating emotion and feeling. We create a moment and a vehicle for God to speak. However, singers are not always the best people to write solid bible truth and doctrine. Sometimes we are too young, too ignorant of scripture, too unaware, or too unconcerned about the purity of scripture and the holiness of the God we are singing to. Have you ever considered the disrespect of singing songs to God that are untrue of His character?
I have a few specific thoughts and rebuttals to statements made by recently disavowed church influencers…first of all, I am stunned that the seemingly most important thing for these leaders who have lost their faith is to make such a bold new stance. Basically saying, “I’ve been living and preaching boldly something for 20 years and led generations of people with my teachings and now I no longer believe it..therefore I’m going to boldly and loudly tell people it was all wrong while I boldly and loudly lead people in to my next truth.” I’m perplexed why they aren’t embarrassed? Humbled? Ashamed, fearful, confused? Why be so eager to continue leading people when you clearly don’t know where you are headed?
School is proceeding apace. This week has seen:
- Latin – reviewing a chapter, preparing for a test that he’ll take Friday
- Math – working through chapters 3 and 4 of Counting and Probability. Permutations and Combinations. I will throw in Khan Academy on the same subject tomorrow, to give a slightly different take.
- Hamlet – reading aloud Acts 1 and 2, watching the Great Courses lecture by Professor Marc C. Conner – accessed through the pay-monthly Great Courses Plus. It’s a decent take – not deep, but good enough for us right now. We’ll be seeing the production of the Bedlam Theater of the play that is in residence at Alabama Shakespeare this month – I’m intrigued by the conceit – four actors playing all the roles. Watched snippets of the Yorick speech – the David Tennant, Branagh and Mel Gibson versions. I think David Tennant won.
- Iliad – listening to the Derek Jacobi audiobook reading. Not sure where we’re at. After listening to chunks on the trip, we’re on smaller snippets on shorter car trips to here and there. I’ll probably say, “Just read the next four books without listening” so we can get it all done by the time the Audible free trial ends.
- Spanish – he’s doing on his own with a few resources. I’m not involved at this point.
- Daily religion of Mass readings/saints – also started introducing the Old Testament using this book.
- Biology: Homeschool class taught by Ph.d. from a local college began this week.
- He’s been grabbing the computer and writing something – short story or novel, I don’t know.
- He’s still reading The Lord of the Rings
- Regular piano lesson & jazz lesson. Organ will probably start back up next week.
Weekend: High school football game; service project; serve Mass. Etc.
— 4 —
Homeschoolers are forever talking about “spines.” Not – as in – you’ve got to have a strong spine for this line of work– but more in terms of a central organizing resource. What spine are you using for World History? That sort of thing.
Last night, M and I stopped by a local brewery to check out the Office trivia event they were having. It was rather a letdown. I told him we wouldn’t participate because I by no means thought we’d know enough to compete against people who’ve watched the whole series through ten times – as I know some people have. But, as it turned out – the questions were pretty simple (M knew all the answers, and he hasn’t watched it through ten times…I don’t think), and perhaps we should have entered. But then – the thing was so inefficiently run, during the 45 minutes we were there, all of six questions were asked. So…it’s good, in the end, we didn’t bother.
But then I thought – hey! There’s trivia almost every night somewhere in this town. How about using bar trivia nights as a homeschooling spine?
Well?
Who’s in?
— 5 —
Speaking of homeschooling – this was a link I used to post all the time when homeschooling younger fellows. A very nice monthly collection of quotes and poems related to that particular month and season. I like it – good for reading, sharing, copywork if you still do that.
— 6–
More education rants. I do my share of griping about technology and education, but do you want a more succinct, knowledgeable treatment, one that you can easily pass on to your school administrators? Yeah, here you go:
But the technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development and an unredeemable waste. In the first place, technology exacerbates the greatest problem of all in schools: confusion about their purpose. Education is the cultivation of a person, not the manufacture of a worker. But in many public school districts we have already traded our collective birthright, the promise of human flourishing, for a mess of utilitarian pottage called “job skills.” The more recent, panicked, money-lobbing fetish for STEM is a late realization that even those dim promises will go unmet.
Second, it harms students even in the narrow sense of training workers: the use of technology in schools actually lowers test scores in reading, math, and science, damages long-term memory, and induces addiction. Both advanced hardware and the latest software have proven counterproductive. The only app or device found to meaningfully improve results with any consistency is an overhead projector in the hands of a competent human teacher.
Finally, educational technology is a regressive political weapon, never just a neutral tool: it increases economic inequality, decreases school accountability, takes control away from teachers, and makes poorer students more vulnerable to threats from automation and globalization…
….
Yet, after decades of trying, it is clear that injecting more technology into education turns out to be a massive waste of time and resources, even according to its proponents’ own criteria. The massively subsidized rush to convert schools into Apple stores only diminishes students’ capacity for “creativity” and “innovation.” Technology, even in the narrowest commercial sense, depends on the liberal arts—pursuits that are subject neither to the practical demands of society nor to its untrained desires—to provide the higher ends that technology serves, as well as the new thinking on which it is based. The blatant commercial wastefulness and impracticality of number theory, not to mention literature or playing the violin, offers hints that those pursuits are priceless rather than worthless.
The sciences and mathematics have a historic place in the curriculum, and technology does not, for the simple reason that the latter is not inherently “about” anything. Absent human contributions on specific topics, cut off from the subject matter of academic work, technology is nothing—an electron microscope without any samples, darkened VR goggles, an empty spreadsheet. Specializing in techne as such means trying to teach people to be good at “making” without having any idea of what to make, or why to make it.
How did we get here? The American public education system, a rusted-out 1976 mustard sedan whose “check engine” light is always on, is driven by a psychopath who wants, by turns, to crash it for the insurance, to insist that cars can be submarines, and to spend hilarious sums on unnecessary parts
Zillions of words uttered, gallons of ink spilled, all to try to explain Christianity and distinguish it from other belief systems – or even to declare that it perhaps isn’t so different after all. Shrug.
These very few words from Scottish composer James McMillan answer both the seeker and the doubter, it seems to me. What is the human person? Who are we and what are we about and what are we to make of this life on earth, strange, beautiful and suffering? McMillan and his family found the answer embodied in the brief life of his disabled granddaughter,
…the important things in human existence are not the money you make or the power you accrue, or the influence you bear — it is something which is embodied in a little [pause], in a little broken child, like Sara…
…And that’s the kind of revelation of sorts that comes through a knowledge of what the Catholic Church teaches. And a teaching that is made incarnate in a very damaged wee girl.
For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!
