Joshua Gibbs

How Do You Talk To High School Students?

“It’s my hope that A Parley with Youth will give parents a new perspective on the role that teachers can and should play for students, and that teachers also see this role as an agreeable possibility. Of all my accomplishments as a teacher, the one I’m most proud of is the significant number of former students withContinue reading “How Do You Talk To High School Students?”

Why I Love Watching The Olympics

“While the lines of competition are drawn between nations, watching the Olympic Games tends to produce a remarkable balance between love of one’s own people and love of others. The first sort of love seems to easily segue into the second. When watching, I intuitively pull for the United States, but I find myself easily won overContinue reading “Why I Love Watching The Olympics”

That’s Publishing 2.0: Even The New York Times

Nike’s Marketing Incoherence/’23 vs ’24

Last year’s corporate slogan: This year’s corporate slogan (for the Olympics): Just something about “winning.” Go back and forth between the generous and the selfish at will. It’s all the same. This is just how corporate virtues work, though. LinkedIn word salad. Diversity then excellence, teamwork then individualism, sophistication then agrarianism, Dionysus then Apollo…

When Classical Schools Outsource Thinking And Writing To Robots

“We assume professionals use certain resources and abstain from using others. A carpenter doesn’t hide his use of a hammer, neither does a cook hide his use of a can-opener. However, if a homemaker dresses up a bakery cake such that it appears she made it herself, and if she accepts compliments on the cakeContinue reading “When Classical Schools Outsource Thinking And Writing To Robots”

Bible Class and Bible Study

Most classical Christian schools have never entirely sorted out whether they want Bible classes or theology classes. “Bible class” has become a bit of a catch-all term, much like “Bible study.” I regularly hear students say they go to a “Bible study” where they are reading some lately published memoir about overcoming trauma. It isContinue reading “Bible Class and Bible Study”

Where I’m Calling From: The Prince Store

At the Minneapolis airport.

Stuck at the Mall of America for Days on End

I was supposed to be home three days ago, but I’m smack dab in the middle of the Delta meltdown. On Saturday night, my flight from Minneapolis to Boise was delayed from 10pm to 12:30am, then to 2:00am, then to 3:00am, then it was cancelled. I would estimate that a thousand people slept on theContinue reading “Stuck at the Mall of America for Days on End”

Scary Questions For Schools

What if grade inflation is actually a pretty serious sin? What if grade inflation is the defrauding of the public–like counterfeiting or pimping, which Dante consigned to the eighth circle of hell?

The Film That (In Just Four Seconds) Altered American Dessert Menus For The Next Twenty-Five Years

Amelie, 2002.