Do you ever wonder how so many things have gone awry in American education? Or how to fight for what is best?Knowing your enemy will save you a few useless battles and conserve your strength for the real war. We are David against Goliath and we cannot win using the weapons of our opponents. They have more money and more media all the time. What we have is Truth, which, in its purity, is at once our strength, our goal and our weapon.These books will help you orient yourself to what is going on.Educating for the New World Order by Anita Hoge is the essential text for understanding who is doing what, and how they are doing it to direct American Education in ways that are full of darkness. From Halcyon House, a division of Educational Research Associates, Portland, Oregon. 1991 This is not merely rhetoric; it is the documentation that you need. The misguidance of American education has a source.
The Restoration of Christian Culture by John Senior is a thoughtful and witty essay on what needs to be done to restore culture, including the necessity of prayer.
None of the Above: Behind the Myth of Scholastic Aptitude by David Owen Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1985
Biting research on the essentially hokey character of ETS, the Princeton Educational Testing Service (which has nothing to do with Princeton University except to share the town mailbox). I scored 4 out of 5 on the reading test reproduced in the middle of the book. The joke was that the reading selection was not given; only the multiple choice. Of course I knew -- politically -- what had to be in the selection. I should have gotten 5 out of 5 if I had finished the book.Cultural Literacy by E.D. Hirsch is a well-spoken plea for a common culture. It is marred, however, by Hirsch's own blinders. He isn't a Christian and he doesn't get it. This flaw makes itself deeply felt when he cooperates with public school teachers to write curriculum guides. Culture isn't something that people agree upon in a board room according to principles laid down in the courts. Culture is something that grows because people are growing; it suffocates when they suffocate; and it dies when they give up the spiritual battle.
Still, a thought-provoking book; get it from the library sometime. Find out what the curriculum goals are "out there" and, forever after, be asking yourself; what do I really want my kids to know?What Every First [Second, Third etc.] Grader Should Know. E.D. Hirsch. Same author; same interests; same flaws. For a cheap and readily available curriculum guide, this is a good start; libraries have it, and he is fairly serious about math and science, much more so than the schools.
How to Develop Your Own Classical Catholic Curriculum by Laura Berquist
The only competition for Hirsch! Comprehensive and well thought out, based on large family experience and lots of counseling with other families. Well done; perhaps a little weak on science.
