CiRCE Links – Page 10 – There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.

St. Benedict In The Admissions Office

“Parent: I am very interested in having my child attend this school. St. Benedict: No, you’re not.” -from St Benedict In The Admissions Office, my latest for CiRCE

Introductions Are Overrated

“More often than not, contextualization is just an easy way out. Rookie teachers spend too much time in Paradise Lost talking about John Milton because it is easier than talking about the book. Milton is the least interesting part of Paradise Lost, though, and that is because his poem is a complete success. So try teaching a bookContinue reading “Introductions Are Overrated”

Cannibals Only Terrify By Night

The King of Infinite Space is the latest episode of Proverbial. It is available now.

Let’s Direct A Critical Eye At Accreditation

“New humanities teachers are often given massive manuals (compiled by previous teachers to satisfy accreditation requirements) and told, ‘This is how to teach this class.’ The existence of such manuals is a comfort to administrators and a terror to everyone else. Why? For the same reason bureaucracy is always a terror to reasonable people.” -from StopContinue reading “Let’s Direct A Critical Eye At Accreditation”

Why We Need Jane Austen More Than Ever

“When reading and discussing Pride & Prejudice with my students, I explained they would all meet Charlotte Lucas someday. ‘When you’re in your early thirties, you will someday be invited into the home of a young married couple, perhaps some friends, whose children are wildly disobedient, profoundly unhappy, and yet the couple will dispense adviceContinue reading “Why We Need Jane Austen More Than Ever”

A Bracing Little Speech For The First Day Of School

“Not every teenager is good at being a teenager, just like not every adult is good at being an adult, not every newlywed is good at being a newlywed, and so forth. There are many stages of life, and you can be good or bad at any of them. Doing well as a teenager meansContinue reading “A Bracing Little Speech For The First Day Of School”

You Are Obligated To Respect Others, Not To Make Them Feel Respected

“A humble man trains himself to feel respect when he is shown conventional signs of respect, while an arrogant man is unwilling to train his feelings and instead demands others train their actions around his feelings. The idea that anyone is morally obligated to make others feel respected is just godless relativism dressed up inContinue reading “You Are Obligated To Respect Others, Not To Make Them Feel Respected”

Merely Asking Tough Questions Won’t Do Much Good

“Weak teachers want asking tough questions to be enough because it deflects their own moral responsibility to speak the truth and places it back on students. Tough questions can unsettle a student from complacency and make him pliable, but tough questions are incapable of forming a student. What forms a student is tough answers.” -from Asking Tough QuestionsContinue reading “Merely Asking Tough Questions Won’t Do Much Good”

On Getting COVID And Losing My Sense Of Taste And Smell

“After testing positive for COVID last week, I entirely lost my sense of smell and my sense of taste. The symptoms which prompted me to get tested were too mild to even mention, but when I tasted my coffee the following morning and found it as odorless and tasteless as tap water, my first thought was,Continue reading “On Getting COVID And Losing My Sense Of Taste And Smell”

Talking With My 12-Year-Old Daughter About The Rich

“Camilla: Is it good to be cosmopolitan? Gibbs: Being cosmopolitan will not save your soul, but it is good that some people are cosmopolitan. In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke says it is good for the church to have a few wealthy, well-travelled bishops. Cosmopolitan bishops are easier for rich people to respect,Continue reading “Talking With My 12-Year-Old Daughter About The Rich”