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9 - 20 - 2007
It seems that whenever
America
’s K-12 academic results are
compared with those of other countries the results are disappointing.
Our education establishment is quick with excuses for the poor results,
but here is a bit of information that may offer some understanding: The National
Education Commission on Time and Learning studied the average amount of total
classroom hours spent on basic subjects by the typical student during their high
school years in various countries. The
country with the most hours spent on basic subjects was
Germany
at 3,528 hours per year, then
France
at 3,280, and third, Japan at 3,170.
But then, way down the list, was the
United States
at 1,460.
I don’t know how this commission determined their findings or defined basic
subjects, but by my calculations Covenant students are at least on par with
the Germans. There are many other
factors in what constitutes a successful school, but the amount of time put into
meaningful study is certainly important. George
Orwell noted that society had sunk to
where the “restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent
men."
Covenant
School
is a restatement
of the obvious. Students
obviously have to put in significant time to succeed; that time needs to be
spent studying the things that matter; and that time needs to be used
efficiently. The excellent results
that our graduates have achieved testify to the effectiveness of Covenant’s
approach to education.
10 - 17 - 2007
"In 100
years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching
Remedial English in college." -- Joseph Sobran. The
value of Latin is immediate. Past studies have shown that younger students made
big gains after exposure to Latin: 1) Remedial English students who had taken
Latin in Washington DC schools ended the year 5 months ahead of others with no
foreign language instruction and 4 months ahead of those taught French and
Spanish. 2) Students in
Philadelphia
taught Latin 15 minutes a day for one year scored ONE FULL YEAR HIGHER on the
Iowa Vocabulary subtest than the control group. 3) Sixth graders in
Indianapolis, who studied Latin for 30 minutes a day, after the first 5 months
had made the following gains over the control group: a) 1 full year in both
reading and language, b) 9 months in math problem solving, c) 7 months in social
studies, d) 5 months in science and e) 4 months in spelling.
This information was largely culled from the website http://www.promotelatin.org/latinmiddle.htm,
a site worth visiting for additional information.
Remember, Latin and Greek are not
dead languages, they have merely ceased to be mortal.
-- J.W. McCall
11 - 8 - 2007
I had a
chance to hear Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
–
Louisville
, speak last
week at an education convention. One point he made was the problem of the delay
in young adults growing up. He noted
that some demographers (who help businesses market their goods) consider the
adolescent portion of society to extend to the age of 30.
This is not good. One of my
hopes for our graduates is that when they leave Covenant and leave home, is that
they will hit the ground running. This
is a time in life where we have almost no encumbrances like children and a
mortgage and all those things that shape so much of our lives after we ‘settle
down’. During this brief period
our minds are never more efficient, we are lean and healthy, we can travel
light, work long and live cheap. What
a great time to be serving God or at least bettering ourselves (and I mean more
than college education). I believe
Covenant (with the help of parents and the church) does very well in helping its
graduates hit the ground running. Our
approach to studying the past in History, helps students see that God is at work
in the present and that we have a role in his work.
In studying great men and great ideas in Literature, we can see excellent
models of lives well lived. In
Bible, we expect more than just a knowledge of right and wrong, but a passion
and purpose for living. We need to pray and prepare our children to hit the
ground running.
11 - 20 - 2007
Our family has much to be thankful for this year.
We are very pleased to be living in
West Virginia
. We
are so appreciative of our daughters’ great teachers and we are thankful for
all the new friends that we have made here.
Sometimes it is hard to be truly thankful in
America
. Those who have never had to wonder
if there would be a meal tonight, have a hard time being truly thankful for the
great food we have. Those who have
lost their health are much more appreciative of what health they have.
So on this day set aside to declare our appreciation for God’s
blessings, let’s enjoy some football, good food, and good friends, but we
should take this opportunity to teach our children about the many things we have
to be thankful for.
12 - 6 - 2007
“Many
people have more mental ability than mental energy, I used to sort of worship
I.Q., but you can't major in I.Q. A high I.Q. and 50 cents can buy you a 50-cent
cup of coffee. There's a lot to the work ethic."
- Dr. Julian Stanley, Founder
of the Talent Identification Program at John’s
Hopkins
.
I.Q. is something you are born with.
It can be well utilized (or not), but it can not be substantially
increased. Work ethic, on the other
hand, is certainly something that can be trained into a child.
All the education, intelligence and ability is useless without a work
ethic. In fact, a work ethic is a
means to acquire an education and ability. The
best means I have seen to train a child in this way is chores.
Chores are often a neglected aspect of raising children.
We figure it would be easier to do it ourselves, but we must remember
it’s not so much about the kids helping out around the house, but rather
instilling that work ethic in them. If
we start out with easy, short, and highly-supervised
tasks, children can progress towards tasks that are much more difficult and
longer, with less direct supervision. In
so doing we give our children a very valuable gift, one that will benefit them
greatly for a life time. I think
most of us cringe at teaching our children to do some task like laundry; all the
hassles of keeping them on task and the distinct possibility that all the whites
will be pinks, but we are giving our children an asset that will be at least
as valuable as an education.
12
- 19 - 2007
Do you
have a hard time finding the joy of Christmas we are supposed to be experiencing
at this time of year? C.S. Lewis,
Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature, may have an explanation for
that. He says that we folks living
in modern times have a hard time understanding the greatness of God, and
subsequently the greatness of our sin. We
are so self-esteemed and egalitarian in the 21st century, that God is
either brought down to our level, or we elevate our importance to the point that
we feel quite confident in questioning God’s authority.
Lewis says that in medieval times when the population was very
stratified, the king was the absolute, the nobility was revered and the peasants
were well…. peasants. Not that
many would want to return to such a class-ist society, not even a medieval
literature professor, but folks then lived in a context that had great respect
for rank. If a King was given
absolute deference, how much more respect would be given to God.
Nowadays we see everyone as pretty much equal and would be appalled at
bowing down before the president, but unfortunately, we have a hard time bowing
down before God too. This creates a
second issue, we don’t think our sin is so bad.
How can stealing the towels at the Sheraton result in an eternal
damnation? That hardly seems fair.
What we moderns don’t see is that the punishment is not about what sin
we committed, but who we sinned against.
When we see God as truly great, we see our sin is great too, and our
punishment as just and hell as fair. What
has this have to do with Christmas? The
good news of Christmas is that where once God was at war with us, and sought to
crush us, he has for some strange reason provided a way that our sentence could
be annulled, our guilt removed, and we have peace with him.
If ever there was cause to celebrate it would be this.
We can probably imagine the joy we would have if we won the lottery, but
we have won something infinitely and eternally greater.
This joy is the joy of Christmas, but it requires that we recognize the
greatness of God and the greatness of our sin.
What
has this to do with education? C.S.
Lewis says that every era has a keen eye for some of life’s issues, and blind
spots for others. The classically
educated person, having read the works of authors, historians, and thinkers
throughout history can see past the blind spots of his own age.
We learn to think, and to perceive our present world, with many different
perspectives instead of with a singular and limited view.
Life has more meaning, Christmas has more meaning, and our faith has more
meaning.
1 - 17 - 2008
"What luck for
rulers that men don't think." - Adolph Hitler
"This is a generation that listens with its eyes and thinks with its
feelings." -
Ravi
Zacharias
Go to any school, including Covenant, and ask the faculty
what their school goals are and very high on the list they will surely say,
‘We want to teach our students how to think.’
Unfortunately, most of the teaching of thinking skills has been reduced to solving vocational type problems
such as calculating how many gallons of paint would be needed to paint a room of
certain dimensions; a simple problem that we would hope every Covenant graduate
could solve with ease. At
Covenant, in the dialectic and rhetoric years, students are also asked to
grapple with the important things: Veritas, Decor, Virtus (truth, beauty and
goodness). We teach students God’s
truths, Formal Logic, and then in all of our other subjects we logically judge
persons actions, events and ideas alongside God’s truth.
It is necessary to wrestle with the great ideas that we read in the great
books. We must examine the actions
of important historical figures and literary characters, not just to sit in
judgment, but rather to learn from their failures and success so that our
students might live their lives well; so that they would be equipped to lead,
not follow.
2 - 7 - 2008
“I must say I find
television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go
into the library and read a good book.” -Groucho Marx.
On a recent field trip, a van load of our secondary students played
Trivial Pursuit and one young lady seemed to know the answer to
everything. Speaking
with her mother about her daughter’s knowledge base, (a knowledge base
that will serve her very well in areas much more important than playing
Trivial Pursuit) her mom said it is because her 9th grader
reads voraciously, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Reading
is much more than an alternative form of entertainment to TV.
Reading
well is the background to a true classical education.
Reading
well has great utility in terms of college success and career advancement.
And reading well, reading for understanding, is essential to
knowing God’s word. I would
encourage our parents to push their children to read and to read well, to
read quantitatively and qualitatively.
The first step is shutting off the TV and video games.
Next, reading together as a family is a valuable experience in many
ways. When students are read
to, it should be at a level that is beyond their own reading level, it
should be interesting, but challenging.
Our children also need to read books that are just above their
ability level - it should push them a little bit.
There is a website at www.lexile.com
where you can enter the name of a book and find its reading level.
Enter books your child has recently read and you can determine
their level. Then using that
website, select books that your child would be interested in that are of a
little higher level. This will keep pushing them ahead in their
ability. If
you wish to be a good reader, read -
Epictetus
2 - 21 - 2008
When the
Taliban ruled
Afghanistan
, they
worked very hard at purging the country of anything that didn’t support their
version of the Muslim religion. In
Kabul
, employees
responsible for the National Archives, a storehouse of important books,
documents, and films, hid these important items from the Taliban.
They did so at a great personal risk to their own lives.
One employee commented that ‘if they destroy these things, they destroy
our culture.’ George Orwell, in
“1984” feared a time when the important books would be burned to keep people
from reading them. Aldus Huxley in
“Brave New World” feared a time when the important books would be ignored
because people would prefer entertainment instead.
What’s the difference between the Taliban burning their great books and
Americans ignoring their great books? There are many reasons why our students
should read the Western Canon, but one is simply so that we don’t forget our
culture, our history, and the ideas that made us a great country.
3 - 20 - 2008
Everyone Gets a Trophy – Thoughts on Self-Esteem
"Self-esteem theorists appear to have it
backwards. Meaningful self-evaluation and positive self-esteem usually are the
results, not the antecedents, of accomplishments. Praise is just one source of
feedback; self-esteem more often comes from an awareness that the requirement of
a sought-after goal has been mastered. Acquiring the knowledge and skills that
enable a child to make progress toward such goals is a necessary basis for
developing healthy, realistic self-esteem." -
Dr. Harold Stevenson, professor of psychology,
University
of
Michigan
in
Ann
Arbor.
"Self-esteem
policies promote the worst in political correctness. Evaluation is no longer
intended to provide feedback on progress but to make the kids feel good, even if
that means deceiving them about their true ability and achievement. Curriculum
must be organized around student interests; whether or not they are actually
learning what they need to, no longer matters. And the class environment must
emphasize cooperation, never competition, so that all believe themselves to be
winners." -
Maureen Stout, Ph.D., "The Feel-Good Curriculum: The Dumbing Down
of
America
's Kids in the Name of Self-Esteem"
4 - 3 - 2008
Expectations and Success.
Lowell
High School
is a locally famous academic powerhouse in the
San Francisco
public school system.
Every
San Francisco
parent wants their child in
Lowell
. This
creates a dilemma because the population of
Lowell
would be almost entirely Chinese if it weren’t
for a racial quota system set up by the city school district.
The Chinese dominate the
University
of
California
as well, but it is not that Chinese are any smarter than any other
demographic group, it is because their culture has high expectations for their
children. Chinese kids know from a
very early age that they are expected to get excellent grades, get into a great
university and pursue an impressive career.
At times, some negative effects are seen, but the positive effects are
overwhelming. We Americans have
adopted a much more hands-off approach to guiding our children.
Interestingly, first generation Chinese children do better than third and
fourth generation Chinese children. The
later generations have become Americanized, less is expected of their children,
and the children rise to those expectations. There’s
a lesson here.
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