Education: December 2007 Archives
New York Times: At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star
"Professor [Walter] Lewin's videotaped physics lectures, free online on the OpenCourseWare of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have won him devotees across the country and beyond who stuff his e-mail in-box with praise.... In his lectures at ocw.mit.edu, Professor Lewin beats a student with cat fur to demonstrate electrostatics. Wearing shorts, sandals with socks and a pith helmet -- nerd safari garb -- he fires a cannon loaded with a golf ball at a stuffed monkey wearing a bulletproof vest to demonstrate the trajectories of objects in free fall."
Tulsa school board chairman Matt Livingood plots a frivolous court challenge against a bill that was written specifically to answer his concerns about the existing charter school legislation. Anything to avoid giving parents real choice in education.
World Magazine: Gene Edward Veith: Salt Recipe, Part II
"When Christians are better educated than the non-Christians, Christians will become the major culture-shapers.
"The state of contemporary Western culture today resembles a patient dying of AIDS. In that dreadful disease, the body's immune system stops protecting the body and instead turns against it. Similarly, our current artistic and intellectual establishments--which have always before defined, built up, and transmitted our cultural heritage--have turned against it. Artists are attacking the very concept of beauty. Intellectuals are dismissing the intellect. Ethicists are denying morality. Those who used to pursue truth are now saying there is no such thing....
"The best-educated are invariably the leaders, the creators, and the shapers of culture. Those who write the books, make the art, populate academia, and run the businesses are the cultural leaders. Today, our best-educated folk are mired in a nihilistic worldview, and they are dragging the rest of the culture down with them. But what if Christians took on this role?"
(For more in this vein, listen to my speech at St. Augustine Academy's fall banquet on the value of a classical Christian education.)
Newsmax.com: Susan Estrich: Rejection Is Part of Life
Some wise words for early decision week, as high school seniors wait on pins and needles to see if they've been selected in the first wave of admission for the nation's top colleges. (MIT announces early admits on Saturday. I've interviewed four local seniors who are hoping for good news.)
OpinionJournal: Separation Anxiety: Are historically black colleges good for blacks?
Why America's 103 historically black colleges and universities continue to thrive and fulfill an important mission, 50 years after Brown vs. Board of Education.
