A nation’s culture is the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men, which their fellow-citizens have accepted in whole or in part, and which have influenced the nation’s way of life. Since a culture is a complex battleground of different ideas and influences, to speak of a ‘culture’ is to speak only of the dominant ideas, always allowing for the existence of dissenters and exceptions. — AYN RAND
Every year, when I give my first test in a grammar or literature class, some new student asks me whether the test will be multiple choice. Every year, I look him in the eye and say “I can assure you that you will never, in any class, under any circumstances, at...
It might be a hilarious comedy routine to have a group of highly educated judges solemnly expounding on something that everybody knows to be utter nonsense. But it isn’t nearly as funny when this solemn discourse about nonsense takes place on the Supreme Court...
Every year, dozens of parents sit at my desk and describe to me the intense frustration they feel as they watch their children get churned through the public schools. One of the refrains of their complaints: endless homework. And no wonder: The work itself is largely...
Pick Your Gender and We’ll Enforce Your Choice, Says New York City’s Board of Health
The science curriculum for the elementary students at VanDamme Academy is taught primarily through experiments. These students are learning principles that are very close to the perceptual level, so we always demonstrate the principle in carefully designed hands-on...
Recently, I was visited by a mother frustrated with her son’s education and looking for something more. She informed me that mid-way through his kindergarten year, they were still learning their letters–most recently, they had been studying the letter...
The religious tradition of saying grace before meals becomes especially popular around the holidays, when we all are reminded of how fortunate we are to have an abundance of life-sustaining goods and services at our disposal. But there is a grave injustice involved in...
Nothing should be surprising any more about the Duke University rape case. Still, it is a little staggering that, after all these months, District Attorney Mike Nifong has still not interviewed either the accuser or the accused. Rape is a felony with serious...
Another consequence of the rampant violation of hierarchy in science education, available to both teachers and students alike, is that students find learning about science boring. When I ask people about their experience studying science in school, particularly...
A friend of mine recently recommended that I read an Andrew Sullivan article in the Oct 9th issue of Time magazine entitled When Not Seeing is Believing. He found it to be a good article showing that Time was now coming around and taking strong steps towards combating...
This year, I have the pleasure of teaching literature to our school’s Elementary 1 students, children in second and third grades, a class that includes my own seven-year-old daughter Lana. Their uninhibited enthusiasm for learning, their eager quest to see...
Several years ago, a teacher from my school was tutoring Kevin, then a freshman in high school. One day, Kevin came to their session asking for help in preparing for a test on protein synthesis. The tutor went over the information Kevin had been presented, helping him...
One of the great joys of the present school year has been the addition of an art appreciation class, taught by art enthusiast and VanDamme Academy teacher Luc Travers. Mr. Travers’ unique approach to analyzing a work of art has transformed my esthetic life,...
Science education is a frequent topic in the news these days. Earlier this month, Microsoft announced a campaign to improve math and science education in the Seattle area. According to Brad Smith, a senior vice president and general counsel for Microsoft:...
Imagine what would happen if a first-grade teacher, instead of teaching her students addition and subtraction, attempted first to teach them algebra–or, even worse, in the name of intellectual rigor and in an effort to offer a program of exceptional...
Physics is the fundamental natural science. Its birth in the 17th century heralded man’s coming of age as a rational being. The discovery of the basic laws of nature led to the industrial revolution and modern technology, demonstrating the enormous practical...
How Che ruined the Cuban economy.
When the Koran or a Mullah asks followers to subjugate or kill those who do not uphold the ideas of Islam, the line from civilized dialogue to rule by force is crossed. Someone who is required to “accept” Islam at the point of a gun has not made a moral...
With little exaggeration, the whole of contemporary education can be described as a process of encumbering the student’s mind with as little knowledge as possible.
The Muslim world is storming in violent outrage against the Pope’s recent quoting of a 14th Century emperor of the Byzantine Empire. A NY Times editorial says: “The pope quoted the emperor saying, ‘Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and...
John Lewis’s Solon the Thinker contains a careful reading of the poetic fragments of Solon – not as poetry, but as political thought.
As if things weren’t crazy enough already in the Middle East, here’s the officially sanctioned message in sixth-grade Palestinian textbooks for 11- and 12-year-old kids: “The noble soul has two goals: death and the desire for it.” The goal...
Their war on contraception is not a war against the alleged excesses of the “birth control revolution”–it is a declaration of war against the pursuit of happiness.
Hooters, in an age of globalization, has imported a Japanese concept without paying a single penny for import duties.
The newest crisis of what the left describes as “social injustice.”
For many years I have argued that America’s intellectuals–those learned people with the greatest ability to understand our virtues and articulate a moral defense of our way of life–have long abandoned America. Another piece of evidence of this...
The insanities of Islamo-fascism and of environmentalism are connected.
Colleges and universities will start their fall semester soon. You might be interested in what parents’ and taxpayers’ money is going for at far too many “institutions of higher learning.” At Occidental College in Los Angeles, a mandatory...
Responsibility for the tragic deaths of scores of Lebanese women and children in Qana, Lebanon falls primarily on Hezbollah and its backers, Syria and Iran, not on Israel. To initiate a war against Israel and then use children as shields is so evil and disgusting that...
A demonstration of a newspaper’s hostility to the fundamental values on which the United States was built.
The Times shows itself to be the enemy of human success.
I read an interesting quote the other day, on a church front, which went something like this: “Those who actually seek out ‘pleasure’ rarely find it.” This is a very appropriate slogan for an organization with a religious point of view....
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