From the yearly archives: 2009
It is important to note that the economic crisis we are in right now is not the result of technical or material conditions. It is an economic problem, a problem regarding the coordination of individuals’ plans and the available resources.
Sustainability requires a balance of conservation with use. Governments everywhere subsidize consumption and tax saving [...]
This is a great article by Michael Strong. In it, Michael talks about how Socratic practice helps develop student’s rational abilities and helps make rational, tolerant discourse a cultural norm.
Michael actually has a column on this website.
“No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child.” ~Maria Montessori
I recently returned from my first North American Montessori Teachers Association Meeting, held in Seattle, WA. What I learned there absolutely reaffirmed that education is the best way, certainly the best voluntary way, to support liberty. [...]
“If the idea of the universe is presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying.” ~Maria Montessori
“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for [...]
Maria Montessori writes the following in “To Educate the Human Potential”:
“How can the mind of a growing individual continue to be interested if all our teaching be around one particular subject of limited scope, and is confined to the transmission of such small details of knowledge as he is able to memorize? How can [...]
Good habits formed at youth make all the difference. ~Aristotle
The ‘absorbent mind’ welcomes everything, puts hope in everything…adopts any religion, and the prejudices and the habits of its countrymen, incarnating all in itself. That is the child! ~Maria Montessori
Nature says copy your parents…whatever your interests are, the child gets tremendously interested in them [...]
I found out recently that the Christian Science Monitor published an excerpt from John Maynard Keynes’ “General Theory” next to an expert from Frederic Bastiat’s “What is seen and what is not seen” about economic stimulus. What a cool idea! Here’s the link.
It’s a pity they didn’t publish just a little more of [...]
I have been reading Ayn Rand’s essay “Philosophy: Who Needs It” again recently. This is an excellent and accessible essay that almost everyone would enjoy. In it, Rand sets out to explain why everyone needs philosophy.
One of the main points of the essay is that every one of us is already possessed of a [...]
Around a year ago, I decided to sit in on one of my girlfriend’s courses. To me, it was a nice thing to do and gave me an opportunity to sit down and work on my homework. Like most college courses, this course had around 100 students enrolled.
After the class started, it became apparent [...]
I have a number of very intelligent and eager students who meet with me after school for various intellectual clubs. (There is Philosophy on Mondays, Logos, a math and logic club, on Wednesdays, and Debate on Thursdays. I also facilitate the Socrates Café in Houston on a Sunday once a month and Benjamin Cohen-Kurzrock, one [...]
Blogroll
- Acton MBA
- Cato Institute
- Foundation for Economic Education
- Future of Freedom Foundation
- Great Books Foundation
- Institute for Humane Studies
- Institute of Economic Affairs, London
- Mises Institute
- National Paideia Center
- Reason Magazine
- Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute
- Shimer College
- St. Johns College
- The Atheneum School
- Touchstones Discussion Project
- Universidad Francisco Marroquin
