Skip asking potential teachers about their “personal philosophy of education.” That won’t tell you anything about them. Ask them to write a description of a school which calls itself classical, thinks of itself as classical, but isn’t. How have they fooled themselves? What allows the illusion to persist? When is the illusion likely to be shattered? If someone can answer those questions, they know what they’re doing. You can quit asking about a “personal philosophy of education.”
Resolutions For Classical Schools
This year, resolve to not pray that God would “help us all to have a good time tonight.”
This year, resolve to not call your students “you guys.” Your name isn’t Madison and you are not a Chili’s waitress.
This year, resolve to use the word “prayerfully” in ways that do not involve asking people to consider giving donations.
This year, tell your students to occasionally throw in a “If you’re actually reading this, circle this sentence in red” into the middle of their papers just to keep you on your toes.
And for the same reason, resolve to throw an occasional “If you’re actually reading this” sort of claim into the lesson plans you’re required to submit.
My Favorite Song By…
Miles Davis: “It Never Entered My Mind”
The Beatles: “The Long and Winding Road”
Oasis: “Slide Away”
The Rolling Stones: “Emotional Rescue”
Nirvana: “Something In The Way”
U2: “Ultra Violet (Light My Way)”
The Clash: “Straight To Hell”
Tom Petty: “Walls (Circus)”
R.E.M.: “At My Most Beautiful”
The Cure: “All Cats Are Grey”
Simon & Garfunkel: “The Only Living Boy In New York”
New Order: “Temptation”
Radiohead: “Lucky”
Interpol: “Direction”
Led Zeppelin: “When The Levee Breaks”
Air: “You Make It Easy”
Coldplay: “We Never Change”
Prince: “7”
Bill Evans: “Suicide Is Painless (Theme from M*A*S*H)”
Bruce Springsteen: “The Rising”
Bob Dylan: “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”
David Bowie: “Life on Mars?”
Pearl Jam: “Wishlist”
The Beach Boys: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”
The Smashing Pumpkins: “Blank Page”
Portishead: “Deep Water”
Pink Floyd: “Wish You Were Here”
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: “Into My Arms”
Tom Waits: “Alice”
My Bloody Valentine: “Sometimes”
Brian Eno: “This”
Blur: “Ambulance”
Depeche Mode: “Condemnation”
Marvin Gaye: “Save The Children”
Modern Obsessions
Tom: For the next part of our meeting, I think we should break up into small groups.
Harry: There’s only four of us.
Tom: Still.
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 Questions Is Not Enough, my latest for CiRCE
A Matter Of Taste Vol. II
A sequel to A Matter of Taste. Perfectly suited to entertaining, cooking, decorating, unwinding, and eveninging, but with an autumnal mood.
The Consolation Of Bad Reviews
When one of my books gets a two star review on Goodreads, I generally check the user’s other ratings and it’s usually a consolation to find they have given five star reviews for Glennon Doyle, Jen Hatmaker, and Karen Armstrong books.
Ted Lasso’s Secret? He’s An Evangelical
Ted Lasso only makes sense as an evangelical, though the writers of the show refuse to admit it. It’s not just the blend of optimism and humility which make him an evangelical (not just generically Christian, but Midwestern evangelical in particular), but the fact he is obviously patterned after the most famous Christian television character of all time:
Same haircut, same mustache, same Oxford and sweater combo. Both characters are constantly smiling, constantly positive, constantly mocked by everyone else. They both have the same goofy sense of humor. “Sorry is not just the most exciting board game ever devised, it’s a word I need to hear from you!” and, “That sounds salty, but you seem sweet. I’m going to call you kettle corn,” are both Ned’s lines, but they could just as easily come from Ted. And their names even rhyme, for crying out loud.
Why not out Ted, then? Why not let him pray with the team before a game?
Simple answer: Christians have spent the last fifty years reading their own lives into the lives of fictional secularists who populate current films and television shows, but secularists have a really hard time getting over the Christian faith of a fictional character. Why? Lack of practice has withered their ability. It takes a healthy imagination to see yourself in your enemies.
Worse Than Profanity
We would be better off without the word “toxic.”
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, ‘Please, God, not that,’ although I suspect my guardian angel’s first thought was, ‘Oh, he’s needed something like this for quite awhile.’ As usual, my guardian angel was right.”
-from On Getting COVID And Losing My Sense Of Taste And Smell, my latest for CiRCE
There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. 