Each year the National Association of Scholars compiles a list of books from over three hundred colleges and universities that are recommended for summer reading by their incoming freshmen. The Association calls its list “Beach Books,” although it...
John Murray heard a soft knock on his front door. Looking out a window, he saw his neighbor, ten-year-old Amy Lawton, standing on the porch. She was as cute as the proverbial button, and John often joked with Amy’s dad Bob that he should keep her...
The designers of Common Core claim that critical thinking is an important part of the program. As someone who has been involved in the Critical Thinking Movement for well over forty years, I seriously doubt that claim for several reasons. First, the...
Why do many teachers have the attitude that learning is such serious business that any hint of humor undermines it? I discovered a partial answer some years ago in a restaurant outside Wellesley, Massachusetts. It may have been an old library—it...
In a 2013 interview with the NY Times, Laszlo Bock, senior operations VP at Google, reported that the company now bases its hiring on candidates’ thinking ability rather than their academic credentials. The reason? Company research revealed that...
Across the country, American college and university students who express their Christian faith have come under attack and discrimination for expressing their beliefs. Just in the last year, a student was asked to hide or remove a cross necklace on...
Once in a while I come across a story that has so many facets to it that an entire book could probably be written analyzing each facet. Such a story comes from Utah. On January 28 of 2014, the Unitah Elementary School in Salt Lake City got itself...
The role of attitude is often ignored in discussions of educational achievement. One reason is that the usual definition of attitude—a “disposition” or “feeling”—is too vague to be helpful. A better definition is a belief expressed indirectly...
