As we end the second trimester of the 2019-2020 school year and enter the final third of the year, it is delightful to observe how much our students have grown and learned. We hope you will join us this Friday, March 6th, for our First Friday Coffee as we come together to discuss how we can continue to encourage and support good habits that will help our students finish the year strong.
We have also entered the season of Lent and our journey towards Easter. We invite you to join us each week for our Wednesday morning Chapel services, or on Wednesday evenings for Lenten services at ILC.
Our latest "What we're reading..." feature includes a new selection of articles that we hope will inspire and engage you in our ongoing conversation about how we shape our culture together at home and at school. Thank you for engaging with us in these ongoing conversations and for sharing items you have read that may be inspiring to others in our ILS community! Please feel free to share a link in the comments to email us any time!
New Brain Scans Show Screen Time Makes Kids Dumber - Auguste Meyrat, The Federalist
“Scientists recently published images of brain scans on young children that demonstrate the effects of reading versus using screens. In the scans of children who spent more time with books than screens (less than an hour of screen time a day), there was a concentration of white matter focused in the center of the brain. For the scans of children who spent more time with screens (more than an hour a day), this white matter was scattered.
This is significant because white matter makes up the brain’s neural connections, serving as pathways for brain activity. The more concentrated the white matter, the faster thoughts and commands travel. When white matter is diffused, this activity is slowed down. As a result, brains with concentrated white matter do more work and do it faster (like a computer with a faster processor) while brains with diffused white matter operate at a lower capacity.
As one would expect, concentrated white matter invariably results in better cognitive performance in the kids who stay off screens: they focus better, learn faster, and show greater mental flexibility and creativity. While this doesn’t necessarily mean hitting milestones (like walking, talking, etc.) earlier, it does mean that the general groundwork is set for more complex tasks that young children encounter in the first years of school.
They will socialize more easily, follow directions more closely, and acquire basic academic skills like reading, computation, and memorization faster and with greater depth. By contrast, their screen-addled peers will struggle with all these tasks, act out and misbehave, and often require early intervention and medication.”
Hunting Wisdom in a Culture of Cliche - Lindsey Brigham Knott, Circe
“It is a mark of education to abhor the cliché. The educated person, the cultured person, feels repulsed by the outworn attempts at expression that pervade kitschy art, radio hits, social exchanges, and campaign-trail patriotism. These all bear witness to George Orwell’s claim in “Politics and the English Language” that “Modern writing at its worst . . . consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.” (Take, for instance, my husband’s parody of workplace emails: I just wanted to reach out to follow up and touch base to be sure we’re on the same page before moving forward.) But this humbug is more than humorous: it is sinister, and the educated person fears it because of its overwhelming effectiveness in killing thought. Orwell again: “[Language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.””
How to Raise a ‘Strong Daughter in a Toxic Culture’ - Holly Scheer, The Federalist
“Dr. Meg Meeker is a mother, a grandmother, a pediatrician with 30 years of experience, and an author of parenting books, the latest just out: “Raising a Strong Daughter in a Toxic Culture.” She has helped families for decades navigate the tricky issues surrounding the teenage years, and condensed this wisdom into a readable volume that doesn’t just outline problems but offers steps families can take to help their daughters come through their teens with their morals and values intact, their relationships strong, and their futures bright.
In a conversation, Meeker laid out her strategies for parenting through these years, including some uniquely modern challenges, like those of social media.
Get Practical About Managing Screen Time
Many parents are concerned about the amount of time their teens are spending on their cellphones, both because it pulls them away from interacting with real life, minimizing the family’s time together, and because of the negative effects electronics can have on kids. Meeker believes one of the best ways parents can address their teens’ electronics use is by addressing their own cell usage:
”What I really try to do is rather than have parents focus on helping the girls dial down on the amount of social media and screen time is to say the whole family needs to do it. And I say whatever you need to do because they’re kids, and parents spent hours on their phones every day. … Carve out some time, maybe an hour every evening, or two hours — an hour in the morning, an hour in the evening, where everyone in the family puts their screen down.”
This deliberate disconnect from phones, social media, computers, and TVs helps facilitate Meeker’s next point. Girls will talk to parents and tell them what is going on in their lives — if their parents are listening to them.
“One of the best ways you can do that is to get rid of distractions that you have and let your daughters know you’re available for them,” Meeker said. “And if you ask a question, you’re really there to listen to the answer. Because I found that girls will talk if they know you’re really listening and willing to listen and not interrupt them.”
If you’re listening to your daughter, it’s easier to know what is going on. And if you know what she is struggling with, what she is excited about, what she is afraid of, you know what to address as a parent. Meeker believes teens need firm discipline and that this discipline should stem from clear boundaries during their youth:
”One of the ways they feel safe with that parent is if they know the rules, they know the boundaries, they know what they can do and what they can’t do. And really, the reason we set boundaries and limits for young kids is we want to show them what it looks like to live with control and … boundaries. And then as they get older, we need to teach them how to erect those boundaries for themselves. And ultimately — what a good mother does — it says, you know, this is how you live with good self-control because you can’t succeed at anything in life without self-control.””
God’s Generous Gift of Music - Mrs. Marie Greenway, CPH Music Blog
“Food. Water. Shelter. Oxygen. Not much is required for a human being to exist. Appropriate nutrients and an appropriate atmosphere. That is essentially what we need to survive.
We human beings, though, are created for life, not mere survival. God has created us for communion with Him. As such, God gives us far more than we need to survive, far more than simply oxygen, food, water, and shelter. He gives to us lavishly and generously, leading us to live a good life of joy and hope. Like so much else that is unnecessary to existence, music and song are gratuitous gifts from God, generously bestowed upon us not to help us survive but to help us live.”
A Math Catechism - Josh Wilkerson, God and Math
“For those unfamiliar with the practice of reciting a catechism, think of reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, or a secular catechism like reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. It is essentially a practice of oral recitation, the repetition of which aids to commit what is recited to memory.
Over the past year I’ve been thinking about what a math catechism might look like.
Teaching at a Christian school requires a deep and meaningful integration of faith with learning. Mathematics is the most foundational concept to integrate with Christian faith (at least in my mind). Math reveals the order that God used in creation and has imbued us with to create as well. Math gives us insight into what it means for something to be true or beautiful. These connections don’t easily lend themselves to particular math lessons. No math teacher should ever saying like “…and that’s how we derive the quadratic formula. You know, this reminds of that verse in Luke….” Math doesn’t integrate with faith in bite-size pieces. Rather it is the whole of mathematics that connects to our faith.
This brought me to the catechism. What if rather than just hoping my students see the deep connections between math and faith, they actually recite those connections every day? Even if the recitation isn’t meaningful in the beginning, the words are being committed to memory. As a child, I learned the Pledge of Allegiance even if I didn’t fully understand it’s implications until I was an adult. Wouldn’t it be amazing if my students could quickly give an answer to “how is a Christian to understand mathematics?” because that questions triggers a specific response that is lodged in their memory?”
How to Build a Family Library of Awesome Picture Books - Anna Mussmann, The Federalist
“Instead of simply and indiscriminately telling kids to “read,” parents can do something much better. We can offer our children truly beautiful books by building family libraries. If we didn’t keep comfortable furniture in our homes, we would spend less time sitting there together. Similarly, when we make it easy to grab excellent books throughout the day, we communicate that reading is an expected and normal part of life.
Our collections need not be huge. We should be investing in books that are worth reading many times. It only makes sense to encourage re-reading by ensuring that our children aren’t overwhelmed by the distraction of excessive quantity. What matters is that the books we choose are morally, artistically, emotionally, and factually good.
The poetry should scan. The art should be top-notch. The language should be rich and well-chosen, filled with vocabulary that will expand our kids’ love for English. Non-fiction should bring its topic alive with a good narrative instead of training kids to expect factoids. These books are shaping our children’s attention span, which means they shouldn’t all be quick and easy reads. In fact, some should probably be illustrated in black and white.
Acquiring books need not be hugely expensive. Second-hand stores and library sales are often rich treasure troves. Check out this wonderful site to look for sales in your area. Grandparents often want gift ideas, too, and may love buying classics they remember reading to you.
Selecting and curating my family’s personal library is one of my favorite pastimes. Actually, it’s a bit of an obsession; and my husband is never surprised when I ask to pop into Goodwill on our rare date nights so that I can check the book section. Once we are there, it takes me a while to shop, but fortunately he is a patient man.”
Saints singing their faith - Richard C. Resch, The Lutheran Witness
““Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16).
Could it be any clearer? I think not! For here our God tells us that there is a simple, beautiful and joyous way for His dear Son to dwell richly in us. As the saints sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs together, they will be filled with Christ — and they are taught the faith.
A lifetime of singing psalms and hymns filled with scriptural truths is one of the main ways that saints of all ages have, throughout history, learned the church’s doctrines. When asked what they believe about any doctrine, from angels to the Trinity, the saints will often answer with words straight from a hymn text learned through a lifetime of singing. The hymn had been their teacher all along, and they probably did not even realize it.
Soon after his first hymn hit the streets, Martin Luther witnessed something that surprised him. He saw that if he set words to music in the form of a hymn, he was able, quickly and effectively, to spread the content of that hymn to all ages. That’s exactly what happened as his first hymn spread like wildfire throughout Germany and beyond. The hymn told the powerful story of faith that led to the death of the first two Lutheran martyrs.”
Classical education is countercultural. It’s time to bring it back. - Matthew D. Walz, America Magazine
“During each of the past two summers, I have conducted a daylong seminar with administrators and teachers of a Catholic parish school who are adopting a classical curriculum and culture. And last summer I helped run a weeklong seminar with teachers from various schools in a Catholic diocese whose bishop is aiming to infuse his schools with a more classical character. Courage and joy permeated these seminars—courage to “think outside the box,” to cut against the grain of the ruling conventions regarding elementary and high school education; and joy that arises spontaneously when teachers realize they are building themselves up in a manner that enables them to nourish their beloved students with wholesome food for mind and heart. As for myself? Simply put, I’ve been humbled and inspired by their courage and joy.
A recurring question I have asked myself, especially right after a lively discussion during one of these seminars, is: Why not classical education? It is a question that I, as a Catholic, address in my imagination primarily to bishops and those in the church who determine curricula and influence the culture of Catholic schools—although I consider it a question that anyone dissatisfied with the current state of elementary and high school education might ask.
There is a growing conviction among many educators that implementing a classical educational model, little by little and step by step, is the way to go. It has found a home in a host of private, religiously affiliated schools across the country, and it has spread more expansively by means of public charter schools, especially in states like Arizona and Texas whose state legislatures are friendly to such endeavors. What perplexes me, though, is not why Catholic diocesan schools are at the back of the line in the classical education movement, but why they aren’t at its very head.
Indeed, given the depressing statistics about the decline of Catholic education in our country, this is a puzzle. After all, the church’s own educational heritage is at stake.”