US taxpayers spend nearly $700 billion each year on K-12 public schooling, and that eye-popping sum shows no sign of slowing. In fact, as more non-academic programs are adopted in schools across the country, the price tag for mass schooling continues to swell even as achievement lags.
Tag: children
Face Up To Being Screwed Over (Do It For Your Kids)
It can make the prospect of being screwed over far less terrifying to know that some great good can come of it. Face up to being screwed over, and do it for the children – even if you don’t have any yet.
On Back Talk
Among many other contra-conventional parenting practices I engage in is the allowance of so-called “back talk”. I have no interest in using my “authority” as a parent and threateningly large size and loud voice to silence any of my children who fill the need to respond to what they judge as an unsatisfactory final word.
No, That’s Not What Louis CK Was Doing
People are having a fit about Louis CK making fun of “Parkland survivors”. Is that what he really did? No. He was doing what I have done; he was making fun of the handful of nasty little anti-liberty bigots who used their attendance at Parkland as a springboard to promote their mental illness and demand we all adopt the same.
The Simple Guide to Creating Habits for a Great Year
It’s a new year, and many of us are looking to make positive changes in our lives. The best way to do that is not by making resolutions, but by creating habits that will stick for the long term. If you want to run a marathon, form the habit of running. If you want to write a novel, form the writing habit. If you want to be more mindful, form the habit of meditation.
On Co-Sleeping
We are co-sleepers and room-sharers in my family. We started our family bedroom in early 2013, before my youngest was born, and several years before we started renting our house out on Airbnb (2016) and doing some light traveling. This arrangement is how humans slept for the entire history of our species (and before, of course) up until 200 years ago.
On Social Justice Warriors
Can you spot the similarity in these two groups? 1) conservative parents who wail against swearing and sexuality in public broadcasting, and 2) social justice warriors (and their liberal feminist compatriots) who wail against conservative speakers on college campuses.
That Feeling of Desperation
It is hard to write out the extent of loneliness you feel as a little child who has to deeply beg outside your parents door to sleep with them while the door is locked and they have convinced themselves that ignoring you is the best option.
The Strangest Loyalty Oath You Probably Never Heard Of
Two companies or contractors, one from Israel and one not, bid on a job. When the Israeli company doesn’t get the job, it complains that prejudice against Israel, rather than “ordinary business purposes,” motivated the decision. Contractors who do business with governments requiring such loyalty oaths are likely to bend over backward to avoid such complaints.
What Educators Can Learn from “I, Pencil”
For self-directed learners, their creative energies are uninhibited. They are not controlled by a mastermind or a group of omniscient rulers who believe they know what is best for others. Self-directed learners retain their creative spirit, that zest for learning which is so apparent in young children but is often eroded through years of forced education.