"Just as a poor coach blames his team, so a failed education establishment has taken to blaming the students. It is worth remembering that these students were coerced into coming to these schools through compulsory attendance laws, made to sit in a desk for twelve years, and then … [Read more...]

"And the result of that is the destruction of education, which is what we in fact see all around us. Without discipline, there are no disciples, and without disciples or students, there can be no education . . . The excuses may be believed for a while, but time is a great … [Read more...]

"Punishment is interested simply in justice; discipline is interested in the twin aspects of preparation and correction. When students are made to work hard, this is preparation for life. When a student is corrected for fooling around and wasting time, this is correction that … [Read more...]

"Whenever we run into this uncomfortable thing called work in our studies, we think that something has gone wrong. If it is borning, it must be bad. And whenever we think that something has gone wrong, we ipso pronto hustle out children off to a specialist, who discovers that … [Read more...]

"Moreover, a refusal to discipline teaches students to treat the education being offered with contempt. The students will certainly despise any education that the educators themselves hold in contempt. And if parents and teachers refuse to discipline, they are holding in contempt … [Read more...]

"I was once speaking with a mother who was wanting to excuse her son's behavior because of certain circumstances which she believed were rigged against him. I did not agree with her, but her assumption led to an interesting question. She believed that her son was living in a … [Read more...]

"This difference in student ability is one of the reasons why our government school debacle is not a whole lot worse than it already is. Even though most schools do not teach phonics anymore, some students are bright enough to teach themselves phonics -- but of course these are … [Read more...]

"Whenever we use the language of praise and blame, in this lumpy and uneven world that praise and blame is invariably distributed in uneven amounts. And for an egalitarian, such unevenness is always 'unjust,' or 'unfair.' Because it is unfair and because modern educators are … [Read more...]

"And as this generation of children has grown up in an environment of institutionalized excuses, it is supremely ill-equipped for maturity. Not surprisingly, many adults are now insisting on bringing their baggage -- in the form of notes from their doctor -- along with them. We … [Read more...]

"If it is our schools which are 'teaching disabled,' the symptoms of this lack would still be visible primarily in the students and not necessarily in the schools or teachers. When a doctor is incompetent, it is the patient who dies" (The Paideia of God, p. 17). … [Read more...]