Reading Time: 2 minutes It’s one thing to not stand up during the daily Pledge of Allegiance recital in high school. It takes balls to do that in most places. But to get 50 of your classmates to do it with you… that’s just freaking phenomenal: “Boulder High has a highly diverse population, not all of whom believe in […]
Education
Exploring the world of education from a secular, nonreligious perspective.
Posted inEducation
i’d like to buy another consonant
Reading Time: 2 minutes Went with Delaney to the “Dads ‘n’ Donuts” event at her school the other day. A fine selection. We finished eating and socializing in the gym a bit early, so we sauntered back to her kindergarten classroom. A couple of dads were already there, being toured by the hand around the classroom by their progeny. […]
Posted inEducation, General
Atheists' Home Vandalized
Reading Time: < 1 minute Perhaps in response to Rob Sherman‘s atheist activism or his daughter’s recent (successful) campaign to get God Bless America off of the Homecoming Dance song list at her high school, the family evoked a response from the suburban Chicago community. Their home was vandalized Friday night: … with eggs tossed at the house and cars, […]
Posted inEducation, General
She's Not Requesting Attention… but It'll Follow Her Anyway
Reading Time: 2 minutes A week ago, Chicago atheist Rob Sherman was in the news. The story wasn’t about him, but about someone who shared his name. Now, (the atheist) Sherman’s daughter is in the local news. Not because of any actual news story but because the local media is drawn to Sherman and his family’s every move. His […]
Posted inEducation
Keep an Eye on This Student
Reading Time: < 1 minute Ms. SuperScience at Beautiful Biology gave her AP Biology students a questionnaire to fill out during the first week of school. She asked the kids a number of questions so she can learn about who they are and what makes them tick. Fairly normal procedure. Now, look at one student’s response to the prompt, “Tell […]
Posted inEducation, Parenting & Family
i’d like to buy a consonant
Reading Time: 2 minutes It’s not that I’m spoiling for a fight. Like I said, I’m not about to start shooting my mouth off about church-state boundaries here in the dawning months of our entry to the Deep South unless my kids come home from school with John 3:16 tattooed to their foreheads. In permanent ink. A little temporary […]
Posted inEducation
this ain’t your grandpappy’s Atlanta
Reading Time: 3 minutes I spent the first Sunday morning in our new Atlanta home heaving worldly possessions from our PODS (Portable On Demand Storage, highly recommended) container to the garage in 95-degree heat. At 10 o’clock I caught the eye of a neighbor mowing his lawn. He nodded and smiled. I nodded and smiled. Not in church, eh? […]
Posted inEducation, Parenting & Family
choosing your battles
Reading Time: 4 minutes I’m all Southern now. For proof, see last post, in which God and football are mentioned in the same breath. Somebody emailed me to ask why exactly I’m not girding for battle over the inclusion of God as one of the four team values for my son’s public football league. Let’s suppose for a moment […]
Posted inEducation, General
Dad Fights Against Moment of Silence
Reading Time: 2 minutes A long article about a Texas father fighting to remove the moment of silence appeared Monday night in the Dallas Morning News. [David Wallace Croft’s] largest fight to date is set to play out in federal district court in Dallas today. He and his wife, Shannon, are suing Gov. Rick Perry and the Carrollton-Farmers Branch […]
Posted inEducation, General
Teaching the Bible in Texas Schools
Reading Time: 2 minutes Our favorite religion reporter at The Wall Street Journal, Suzanne Sataline, writes about how teaching the Bible in public school is (*big gasp*) causing a debate in Texas. The text used in Odessa high schools, developed by the nonprofit National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, represents as fact that the Bible was a […]