Chapman Kids Blog

"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." –John 16:33

Teaching ethics in public school while ignoring the parents

By

On Tuesday, July 26, 2016

In culture, Education

The Atlantic is one of those magazine I never read. To find one good article, I need to wade through 100 of them whose quality, content and or morality frankly disgust me. That being said, I receive links for great articles in The Atlantic from two or three different people on a semi-regular basis. If you follow this link, you will see I think highly enough of the good articles that I write about them on this blog. Whenever I start thinking they are on the right track an article like this one titled Student’s Broken Moral Compass show up and I resolve never to read them again on my own, but wait until someone with a stronger stomach than mine wades through the dreck to find the diamonds.

The thing that put me into a state of high dudgeon about this article was the proprietary aire of the piece–like it is actually OK for failed government schools and the education union thugs to assign the teaching of ethics of other people’s children to themselves. Or that an author for a hard left moderate1 rag like The Atlantic can write about it like it is a foregone conclusion that that needs to be done. There is definitely a problem with all this, but it should be obvious that it begins with parents and a culture willing to assign the young and innocent to mediocrity and frequent failure, both morally and academically, at the hands of these progressive drones.

I know, I know, I have not yet made the caveat that there are great teachers in the system like this one. I make that caveat now (for my own safety).

1. Kelly tells me “it is moderate with a left bent tempered by many right-leaning writers,” but I do not think I am willing to say many or moderate. I might go along with “a few writers who are right-leaning on a few issues.” The article described in this post was definitely hard left with a totalitarian bent.

Concept 2 rowing machine: Lorena moves a step closer to 12km in one hour

By

On Monday, July 25, 2016

In Exercise, Health

Getting closer to 11K, 12K is the goalLorena continues to improve on her goal to be able to row 12,000 meters in one hour. It is a hard thing, but she sticks to it. In our two last homes we have lived within a block of an Anytime Fitness. That coupled with the fact that the kids are gone has allowed her to make amazing progress. We will keep you posted.

Narcissism and TED talks

By

On Monday, July 25, 2016

In culture, Money

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. —1 Timothy 6:10

I watched a TED talk last night that reinforced my resolve to never watch a TED talk unless someone I trust recommends it highly. I have no idea what inspired me watch the thing–the title was a dead giveaway, “How to Become a Millionaire in 3 Years.” I would argue that the narcissism advocated in this video accounts for much of what is wrong with our society. The presenter makes three points, the first of which is that the reading of books is important to success.

Then he goes on to say, “All the books in the world can help us to solve all the problems in the world.”

Just wow. Next he says we only need to read the books that help us solve our own problems. The example he gives is that if we want to know about money we should read books about money. And it gets worse. The next he makes is that you should befriend those people who can help you reach your goals. The idea that the point of friendship and the selection of people with whom I want to associate should be centered on whether or not they can help me reach my goals–in this case, the emphasis was on financial goals–is repugnant.

The final point was that it is important to have goals is to write them down. That is not such a bad thing if the goals are not so narcissistic. But the way this it was expressed gave me that same creepy feeling I get when I am around someone who has bought into the whole “name it and claim it” theology thing.

My immediate thought after watching this was that this was not how the most successful people led their lives. People like Jesus, Paul and even the likes of Michaelangelo, Bach, Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Tesla and Einstein were successful because of their singular vision of something bigger than themselves. People whose whole goal in life is aggrandizement of themselves and the accumulation of goods and power are almost never remembered with fondness and admiration. No one remembers the sports stars and actors for more than a generation or two. Those who work on something bigger than themselves for the glory of God, to do the right thing and to help others without regard to money, fame or power are the ones who are truly successful, not the narcissistic visualizers.

These are just my opinions on the topic, but I have decided to make the best of the fifteen minutes the video cost me and visualize myself avoiding self-help TED videos, books and people. Maybe I should read a book about it, too.

It is a small world. Drew Ryun and I have two things in common.

By

On Sunday, July 24, 2016

In General

Drew Ryun wrote an article that speaks for me with respect to Ted Cruz and his participation at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Ryun actually knows Cruz and confirms my understanding of Cruz’s character. That is the first and most important thing we have in common. I will let the article speak for itself. The other funny coincidence is that his dad, arguably the greatest middle distance runner of all time, and I say that advisedly, ran many races against my father’s first cousin. I really did not know that cousin at all–I think I was in first grade when he ran in his first Olympics, but he won the very race where Jim Ryun became the first high schooler to run a sub-four minute mile. Having been born and raised in Cottage Grove, Oregon with an amazing tradition of track and field excellence, I was a huge track and field fan in general and middle distance running in particular so I followed all this closely. Who knew that Jim Ryun would go on to be a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and truly one of the good guys when it came to his politics. I surely sounds like he raised his son right, too.

“Shelter in place” during a terrorist attack?

By

On Friday, July 22, 2016

In culture, Politics

A website I frequent wrote about what one should do during a terrorist attack if authorities demand you “shelter in place.” That is the advise given on Twitter by the U.S. Consulate in Munich with respect to today’s terror attack at a mall there with the attackers still at large.

This is what The Bayou Renaissance Man had to say about that idea on a blog post about the recent Nice terror attack in France. He listed things you really should and should not do when there is such attack. His advise on whether you should “shelter in place” is item number 3 in a list of 7. I think he is exactly right. Why die if you can avoid it? Read the whole thing.

3. A “lockdown” is tantamount to herding people into coffins! Pay no attention to “orders” to “shelter in place,” nor to “remain calm and stay where you are.” That is where your body will be found! Get out any way you can and as quickly as you can, and don’t worry about who likes the idea!

Michael Egnor: Ad Hominem Magnet

By

On Thursday, July 21, 2016

In culture, Science

Michel EgnorMichael Egnor has been on my radar for several years now. I love the way he writes and most of what he says (latest example here). He is highly qualified to talk about the brain–he is, literally, a brain surgeon and a professor at a well-respected university (bio here). He frequently writes on the mind-brain problem, doubts the macro-evolutionary fairytale of neo-Darwinsim and disdains the idea that evolutionary theory as it is currently taught in any way informs the practice of medicine. The point of this email is not to write about the style and content of Egnor’s writing (here is a search on one of the places he writes in case you want to sample it yourself), but to note that people who disagree with him rarely engage with what he has to say. Rather, they attack his person. I have never seen anything quite like it. The ratio of ad hominem to substantive responses is greater for Egnor than virtually anyone else I follow regularly. So, next time you see his writing, if you make your way down to the comments or find a blog post or article responding to something he has written,  notice that about the nicest thing said about him is that he is a “creationist” (there is a lot worse), but almost nothing is said about the ideas he expresses carefully and cogently.

Disillusionment and disorientation

By

On Tuesday, July 19, 2016

In culture, Education, Politics

There is a good article in the Federalist that captures the thoughts of many of us relative to the the upcoming election, politics in the USA and around the world and our inability to have much control over any of it. The article gets some things right:

As my 88-year-old neighbor, a lifelong Republican, put it: “Well, I’m not voting for Hitler.” She paused. “But I could never, ever bring myself to vote for Clinton.” She threw her hands up: “What to do!”

This is a big problem. Many politically minded people are feeling unrepresented, exhausted, and out of options. Unfortunately, this disillusionment likely will continue beyond November.

This is exactly how I feel about the current situation. The article also says some things about the centralization of national government and the decentralization of virtually everything else in the country that resonates with me. All this feels like something new is happening. That or something old and bad, but on a much bigger scale and it leaves me feeling disoriented–not knowing what I should do about it. The article gives the good advice to get involved locally over those things you are able to influence. At the same time it gets some stuff monumentally wrong:

The breakdown of Washington can be seen in the failure to adequately address: Worker displacement from globalization and technological change; providing a sound primary education and affordable secondary education; an entitlement system that can adapt to changing demographics; a safety net that helps the poor rise up the ladder of economic independence; a regulatory architecture that thwarts cronyism. And so on and on.

In that, I think the problem is that many, probably most government bureaucrats believe it is within the purview of national government to address these things when they are actually the source of the problem, particularly when they meddle in the affairs of family by taking away educational choice and try to take away the mandate of state governments to manage the bulk of the rest of these problems. Nevertheless, I liked the sentiment of the article and plan to continue to follow the advice to stay away from the main stream media and try to do more in my own personal community (local, church, family and friends).

Continuing the doomsday theme from yesterday: The big picture in Turkey

By

On Monday, July 18, 2016

In Christianity

I wrote a post yesterday about the very bad direction the world is headed and a post showed up on a similar theme titled Muslim Scholars Declare Post-Coup Erdogan Supreme Leader for the Entire Muslim World. The Right Scoop has written about what is happening in Turkey for awhile now and it just seems to continue to percolate. The above linked article is written by an Arab man who has watched all of this for quite some time. The idea that what is happening in Turkey might have global, Biblical implications is pooh-poohed by many, but that it is something to be pooh-poohed is, in and of itself, something that makes all these goings on at this time and in that place very interesting. Even if you are not a little bit of a conspiracy theorist like myself (Why would you not be? How boring is that?), this is a very interesting article. It is worthwhile to read the other stuff written about Turkey at The Right Scoop, too.

How bad will it get? Religious persecution and global war

By

On Sunday, July 17, 2016

In Christianity, Politics

My view of the current state of the world is not much different from that of Erick Erickson of The Resurgent and (formerly) RedState fame. He put up a post on The Resurgent that consisted entirely of a series of tweets he made titled War is Coming. And We Will Cause It. The 13th tweet in the series says out loud (figuratively speaking) what a lot of us fear. The other tweets say a lot about what is happening that gave him cause to make that prediction.

Last week, I found an article on a completely different venue (Life Site News–a great site that I check with regularity). It was more about intranational decay than the international variety discussed by Erickson in his series of tweets, but horrifying just the same. The article was a repost from another site titled How bad will it get? Bracing for religious persecution in the West. It talks about what is very likely headed down the pike toward us along with some things to expect and, probably more importantly, some expectations you might have that could disappoint you if you hold them too tightly. I think she is spot on with everything she says.

The backdrop for all this is continuing terror attacks (Nice, Baton Rouge and Dallas as well as many others) a failed coup in Turkey that could have just been another Islamist leader consolidating control and the on-going comedy of the absurd that is the 2016 presidential election. As a result of looking into all this I found out what the word maranatha means. That, really, is the answer.

Update: Just found this in a new commentary on the Baton Rouge killings (emphasis mine):

Black Lives Matter might care to think about that. If this blows up into racial conflict, the numbers are all against them. They can’t possibly win – they can only take as many as possible with them when they go down. From that sort of conflict, there will be no winners at all. I know this. I learned it the hard way in another country. Unfortunately, few (if any) BLM activists have any experience of just how bad things can (and probably will) get. I fear they’re about to find out.

Demon possession

By

On Sunday, July 17, 2016

In Christianity

Demon possession is a real thing ( e.g. Mark 5:1-20). Recently, a board certified psychiatrist  named RIchard Gallagher from New York wrote an article on current manifestations of this evil. The article is titled As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness. Also, I help spot demonic possession. It describes how he differentiates between demonic possession and mental illness. It also talks a little bit about the different factions within the medical community, some who are sympathetic toward his thinking and some who are skeptical and even openly derisive . I found another article that describes the case of a woman he called “Julia” to hide her identity. I do not know what else to say about these articles other than that they were a very interesting read. I have never seen anything like this up close, but have heard first person accounts of such things in Mexico from people I trust, take these topics seriously and are not given to exaggeration.

Bought a $33 Kindle Fire

By

On Saturday, July 16, 2016

In General

KindleFireI appreciate Amazon for its convenience, but really have a love-hate relationship with the company. Like Apple, they are notorious for treating their employees badly, but unlike Apple, they have some products I value, chief of which is the ability to buy products inexpensively and have them arrive at my doorstep two days later. I also find them to be a very convenient place to purchase books for my phone. The problem with my phone is that as I get older, it becomes harder to read. Therefore, when they put their Kindle Fire on sale for $33.33–for Prime Day (the price has since gone back up to $49.99), I bought one. I think the product is actually an OK product. For $33.33, it borders on great, because I really want to read my books on a bigger screen with bigger font. Lorena can do her social media thing (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest) a lot better, too. Of course, we have to be within reach of Wifi to access the online stuff and they have a lot of the obnoxious Amazon apps in your face all the time. For me it is not so bad because I usually stay a book or two ahead on my purchases, so even if I am on an airplane and finish a book, I have one or two in reserve. For Lorena, though, it means she will still have to use her phone when she is out of the house. We bought two of these things, one for us and one for Kelly. I am having a hard time deciding whether or not to give the second one to Kelly

Bottom line: If you have a specific reason to buy one of these things

Friends in La Cienega

By

On Thursday, July 14, 2016

In culture, Family

LaCienegaJaliscoStreetSceneStreet scenes like the one to the left are what I remember from the times I visited La Cienega, Jalisco. I moved to Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico for the fall term of 1982 to study Spanish at the University of Guadalajara. I made good friends there with whom I traveled to the small town of La Cienega over three hours from Guadalajara. Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah went with me one of those times to attend a church event. It is a wonderful, very, very quiet little place with very, very fertile soil. There are some friends of friends with whom we have connected on social media who plan to move there. It is a young family with three elementary age kids. What a wonderful experience they will have. They have a blog we plan to follow and, hopefully, if we can somehow make it work, I would like to take Lorena and Grandma Conchita for a visit there. I have added a link to their blog, named Bloom and Grow on our blog roll. One of the first pictures we saw on the blog showed a couple of Lorena’s cousins. It is a small world.

More guns mean less gun homicides

By

On Wednesday, July 13, 2016

In Politics

In the aftermath of some very sad violence, I found the following graphs from an article at the American Enterprise Institute title Chart of the day: More guns, less gun violence: between 1993 and 2013. The graphs are very explanatory and the article puts it in context.
guns_per_person_vs_gun_homicide_rate num_guns_vs_gun_homicide_rate

Juno

By

On Wednesday, July 13, 2016

In Science

JunoJupiter
I have been having some very interesting email conversations with an old friend from Grants Pass, Oregon. Almost as an aside to those conversations, in an email he sent me on July 3rd, he mentioned he was excited about seeing the insertion of the Juno Space Probe into orbit around Jupiter on July 4th. The picture above is from the NASA website and features Jupiter on the left along with three of her moons. There is an amazing time-lapse video that shows four of the moons in orbit around Jupiter.

I have to admit I have gotten somewhat addicted to the whole thing now that it is on my radar. I can hardly wait until the “in orbit” videos start flowing back to earth. Amazing stuff.

Dallas: Police Ambushed and Killed At Black Lives Matter Protest Event

By

On Friday, July 8, 2016

In culture, Politics

Kelly sent me the following instant message last night when I was starting to shut down the computer to go to bed:

wow
are you seeing what’s happening in dallas right now??

I looked briefly and saw there was a shooting going on of some kind, but it seems like  there is always a shooting going on in the rougher parts of the Dallas area. I was tired, so I went to bed instead of investigate further. I woke up this morning to headlines that said, Snipers Kill 5 Dallas Officers, Wound 6 During Protests. When I started to write about it this morning, I noticed yesterday’s post on Spiritual Decline In America and the West. Today does not feel much different than yesterday even though I am only a few miles from an obscene indicator of our moral decline. What can be done to fix something that requires a fundamental change in heart and world view? All we can do is fix ourselves.

Spiritual Decline In America and the West

By

On Thursday, July 7, 2016

In Christianity, culture

An article in The Resurgent titled Defending Your Values In A Sea of The Absurd describes how my life feels these days. It describes what it is like to swim in the cesspool of popular culture at work or school:

Thus in only the past three weeks, around the water cooler, in the breakroom, or in the school cafeteria, you have been forced to actually debate the following:

  • Whether grown men should use the restroom with little girls.
  • If a child’s life is life is more valuable than a gorilla’s.
  • And whether or not your Scriptural views on marriage caused an Islamic extremist you never heard of prior to last week to abide by the teachings of his local mosque and slaughter people.

And those are only the top three from very recent history. Interacting with people of the extreme left has been a constant journey through the looking glass for generations.

The statement is certainly true for me. The sad and surprising thing is that I have been caught in these kinds of discussions at church, too. I have to admit I have been discouraged about that to a certain extent, but it dawned on me that while these kinds of attitudes are ubiquitous in the West (the “world” West, not just the American West), there are many places with much less economic and educational opportunity where political and religious liberty are restricted that those attitudes do not hold. I think of China and Africa in particular. It is easy to despair and think the end is near. Maybe that is true, but maybe other parts of the world are ascending in the spiritual sense as America and the rest of the West decline. I hope that is true just as I hope that America turns things around.

Update: Right after I posted this article, I read the following from here, h.t. Bayou Renaissance Man). Seems precisely right.

The Hillary apologists are right about one thing, you know: It really is time to move on – not from Hillary scandals, which are evergreen, but from holding out any hope for any part of the political class. We need to stop waiting for somebody on high to make us more free, and work on building our own individual freedom in a deliberately unfree world.

Math Help: What to do when Thinkwell and Teaching Textbooks explanations are not enough

By

On Wednesday, July 6, 2016

In General

Short Answer: PatrickJMT. We felt like it served our kids needs significantly better than Khan Academy Math although we like Khan academy and used it semi-frequently.

Why should you listen to us on this subject?  Of course, mileage will vary, but since using these programs, the kids described here graduated Magna Cum Laude in Statistics (Kelly) and Summa Cum Laude with Honors in Applied Mathematics (Christian) from a large state university. At the writing of this note (June 30, 2016), they are both midway through PhD programs at national research universities here in the United States. You can read more about that here.

Other posts about our math experience:

Longer Answer

We found the instruction given in any one math program was not enough for our kids to fully “get” the concepts even though we used what we believe are the very best curricula: Singapore Math for grades 1-6, Teaching Textbooks for Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2 and Geometry and Thinkwell for Pre-Calculus and Calculus.  Someone asked us what we did in the higher levels of math when the kids got stuck. The question was asked particularly about the Thinkwell program, because they seem to provide less remedial, “make sure it is explained in more than one way” kind of instruction. The following question was asked four years ago, but I somehow (shamefully) missed it. You can read the the original question in context here. So, four years late, here is the part I missed and our answer.

Also, how did you handle any problems with the upper level Thinkwell classes your kids took? If they couldn’t figure a problem out, was there anywhere to go for help? My understanding is that, unlike TT, there is not an explanation for every problem.

Our kids, Kelly and Christian, have very different learning styles. Sometimes the things that were easy for Kelly were difficult for Christian and vice-versa. When they were in elementary school years that was not really a problem. We could handle arithmetic and the Singapore Math program was repetitive, yet interesting for the kids so they learned everything they needed from just following the program. As they moved into higher levels of math, they more frequently got stuck and needed some additional insight beyond what was available in the packaged programs. They got stuck in different places. At first, we pointed them to the Khan Academy videos. They were good, but some friends Christian met on the IRC Math Channel said he ought to try the videos at PatrickJMT. There was no comparison between PatrickJMT and Khan Academy. PatrickJMT was just better. I can not say that will be true for everyone, but it was certainly true for our kids.

Kelly and Christian continued to PatrickJMT after they entered their undergraduate degrees for help in more advance Calculus, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, etc. We recommend it highly.

Coffee shop trivia night in Seattle

By

On Wednesday, July 6, 2016

In Family

07_04_2016_Seattle_KJC_CDCFor posterity–Christian visits Kelly for the Fourth of July weekend after Kelly finishes her PhD comprehensive exams. They participate with friends in “trivia night” at the local coffee shop where Kelly often studies.

Scandinavian Unexceptionalism

By

On Wednesday, July 6, 2016

In culture, Money, Politics

ScandinavianUnexceptionalismMaybe the Scandinavian countries are not so hot after all. There are a couple of articles that came onto my radar six or seven months ago that made credible something that I have wondered about for a long time. I am just getting around to writing them up. For years, we have heard about the wonders of living in Scandinavia and that the quality of life there is better than in the United States by just about every measure. It turns out that is just not true. Articles have trickled out saying there is trouble in paradise (see here and here), but the idea that the emperor has no clothes at all is a subject that has only started to receive traction in the last year or so.

An article titled Debunking the Myth of Socialist “Success” in Scandinavia reviews a book on the subject. It is a great article and definitely worth a read. Amazingly, the book it reviews, Scandinavian Unexceptionalism: Culture, Markets and the Failure of Third-Way Socialism, is available online for free at the time of the writing of this article. I had followed this subject some because of my interest in Sweden’s horrible record with respect to persecution of homeschoolers and their failed attempt to catch up with Finland in public education. In addition to all the schooling problems, it turns out that socialism continues to fail everywhere it is tried, too, Scandinavia included.

Unlike Oregon Ducks, Texas ducks are OK

By

On Tuesday, July 5, 2016

In General

DucksOnTheWayToWhataburgerSaw this amazing site on my walk to What-A-Burger this morning. Right in the middle of the city beside the freeway. It made my day.

Page 58 of 209

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén