A California teacher made it onto the woke watch list with this TikTok post. Don’t feel the need to watch it; she identifies as ‘cringey’ and the title of this article sums up the rest. In short she suggests that we should focus on ‘honoring the spoken word’ and get rid of the ‘language of power’, which according to her include thesis statements, citing sources, and using … [Read more...] about Death to Academic Language – Long live ‘hey, what’s up?’

Channelling Holden Caulfield, my daughter designed this logo about five years ago, frustrated with friends who kept staring at their screens during conversations. She had a t-shirt and a tote bag to go along with it. It garnered some agreeable nods, but phones still kept winning over an actual face. TikTok had not even entered the stage yet. ‘Don’t be a phoney’ actually does … [Read more...] about TikTok Brain Cure with Three Ingredients

Our children's brains are currently being sacrificed on the altar of TikTok in exchange for snippy videos on 'How to peel a banana' (over 250 million views) or 'Lip syncing in front of a bathroom mirror'(over 600 million views). These seemingly benign, mildly amusing, mostly navel-gazing shorts have been dubbed 'digital fentanyl' and have prompted even mainstream media to take … [Read more...] about TikTok – Time is running out for saving our children’s brains

Christmas time is when most families follow some type of tradition. However, 'traditions' are increasingly viewed with skepticism by the mainstream media. The nuclear family is often portrayed simply as a 'campaign of indoctrination by big business and religious conservatives' and any sociology textbook will describe the traditional family as merely an 'idealized concept'. Yet … [Read more...] about Family Traditions: Why baking cookies, snowy walks, and read-alouds matter

"One book that you must most definitely read is 'The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer" was the recommendation I received over a decade ago on a playground as we started on our homeschooling journey. Susan Wise Bauer is regarded by many as the queen bee of homeschooling and 'The Well-Trained Mind' serves as a de facto bible for classically-minded home educators. Susan Wise … [Read more...] about Rethinking School – Susan Wise Bauer – Part I