I just can’t resist sharing Gary North’s take on the current debate over how to stop school shootings: close all public schools.
Here’s another article in the same vein. (Warning: some offensive language in the comments.)
It looks like parents’ and teachers’ overemphasis on the socialization of children of recent years has finally borne some pretty ugly fruit. Yet another study has shown that there’s been a precipitous drop in teens’ happiness and mental health since 2012, and it’s being linked to the use of smartphones, and specifically social media.
This is no surprise. Yes, kids need time with their friends, whether in person or virtual, but they also need time without friends so that they can mentally regroup and enjoy downtime, even quiet time. This may be more crucial for introverts than extroverts, but all kids need time to be alone and to think. The smartphone has taken that away, and we’re just now seeing the cost. One has to wonder where it will all lead.
Give a kid some space and some tools and some wood, and he’ll actually do something clever with it. This proves not all teens are glued to their smartphones:
Traditionally, the state of California (with its enormous school system) is where most textbooks were promoted and sold first. California has used this power to affect what kind of information went into textbooks, and what did not.
Over the past 30 years, all sorts of sexually fixated groups have worked hard to make sure their special interests were reflected in modern textbooks, and some of them have had great success, to the point that today’s school children are being taught all about historical figures’ supposed sexual preferences, with little if any concern for whatever qualifies them to be historical figures in the first place.
According to Gilbert T. Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council,
What in the world is a television personality like Ellen DeGeneres doing in a first-grade social-studies textbook? If you ask, many educators will look at you funny. If you exclaim that these are little children, that lesbian is a complicated word for six-year-olds, or that age-inappropriate might be an understatement here, heads will shake. If you say that sexualizing historical figures like Emily Dickinson or Florence Nightingale marginalizes their achievements, they will think you are the problem to overcome…..Not just in California but nationwide, curriculum supervisors at all levels, by law or partiality, won’t consider volumes unless they align to multicultural premises. Old-style textbooks have been taken out of print. As a result, teachers and parents are finding it close to impossible to avoid lessons saturated in identity politics.
This issue affects homeschoolers, who need textbooks. Start snapping up old textbooks (the older, the better) while you can. I suspect they will hold their value as long as modern textbooks continue to be steeped in LGBTXYZism.
Like Kandace Springs, Alma Deutscher is homeschooled and musically gifted. But Alma is much younger than Kandace, and has already premiered her first opera. The BBC created this documentary about Alma, a must-watch for parents and classical music fans alike: