The unchallenged cultural assumption in modern America is that "you must go to college" or be forever lost as a second class citizen trapped in life long poverty. Let's put a pencil to this assumption and see if your typical college student is really better off...  You may be suprised to learn that an entry level worker could own a $125,000 home at age 22 free and clear with no mortgage while the typical student would need to borrow over $100,000 to buy the same home.  The young entrepreneur has 4 years work experience, owns his home outright, and is already saving for retirement while the new graduate ponders 30 years of mortgage payments [More...]

I haven't read Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality yet, but just saw this review article at ISI. The review is compelling - here are a few excerpts:

Our educational romantics assume that everyone is equally teachable, that every child would succeed at equal, developmentally correct speed, if only there were more money, better teachers, a more demanding curriculum, and the like. But Murray objects, and persuasively so, pithily citing the requisite scientific studies to prove it.

Note the solution is, not-surprisingly, a balance of academics, love, and wisdom in a family setting. Exactly the homeschooling paradigm, which Murray even mentions directly.

So how are these changes to occur?... Neither the educational bureaucrats in charge of K-12 education nor the major stakeholders in higher education can be counted on. In both areas, he seems to rely on a return to an educational realism rooted in love—a love of mothers and fathers for their children on the one hand and a love of virtue and wisdom by larger souls on the other— to, little by little, take responsibility for education out of the hyper-democratically beaten path. For example, he counts on the expanding homeschooling movement to evolve into a universe of alternative schools.

So keep it up Mom and Dad - you're doing great work!

See more comments on Real Education at Amazon.com.

Anyone considering leaving a corporate job and starting a family business encounters the daunting issue of health insurance costs.  Replacing the full coverage typically offered to corporate employees can easily cost over $1200 every month!  Such high costs deter many potential entrepreneurs from even considering leaving their job and its fringe benefits.  Here's our solution for prudently providing for healthcare expenses that could wreck family finances for generations, but at a fraction of full-coverage cost...

Final Part - Review of Culture Making by Andy Crouch

(Continued from Review - Part 3)
Crouch's final insight I'll comment on is about finding your calling - where you can have impact on the culture. He recounts Jesus parable of the 30, 60, 100 fold increase. This happens when divine grace is experienced. When you work and move in your calling, God's grace should be evident so you should see remarkable effectiveness. Look for signs of this multiplicative effect among your tasks and interests - your call is likely nearby.

Crouch states your calling is at the intersection of grace and the cross...[More]

A most amazing autobiographical message from one of my favorite people. Church leaders, young people considering their calling, parents, etc. will all benefit. C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, G.K. Chesterton, Jonathan Edwards, Geometry, Poetry, Logic, Hermeneutics, Rationality, Romance, Dyslexia - all there. A huge, glorious story...

Part 3 - Review of Culture Making by Andy Crouch

(Continued from Review - Part 2)
Another of Crouch's insights is the principle of "3-12-120". He argues that power is the ability to introduce a cultural good and that this inevitably starts with a small passionate team, you and a couple others.
Whether it's an entrepreneur with a wife and friend, CEO+CFO+COO, or the President, Chief of Staff, and a couple cabinet members, everything starts on the smallest level. From there a few others are needed to round out an idea or perform key roles - the 12. Then a wider community...[More]

Part 2 - Review of Culture Making by Andy Crouch

(Continued from Review - Part 1) The next section is a biblical survey of these aspects of creating and cultivating. Ending with the scene of the heavenly city in the book of Revelation, Crouch speculates that the city is furnished with human cultural goods - things humans have made. This is an insight I had never considered. The translucent gold "clear as glass" is not natural gold, but the work of a craftsman. The stones adorning the city are not raw minerals, but crafted jewels. The "kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it", which refers to human goods made through the ages. Crouch relates this to Isaiah 60 "the ships of Tarshish bring your children" and "the nations shall bring You their wealth". Crouch wonders if the ships of Tarshish might share the harbor with America's Cup champion yachts. Crouch's personal list of "the glory of the nations" includes music of Bach and Miles Davis, green-tea creme brulee, fish tacos, Homer's Odyssey, the iPod and Mini Cooper automobile.

Perhaps Crouch is right in that some human goods will persevere for eternity. Our works will be tested by fire and those done for God's glory will last, while others will be consumed. It's interesting to consider what may stand the fire as a way to determine what goods are truly helpful and glorious now. The iPod enables me to hear glorious music or biblical texts. But it also cuts me off from sounds in nature and isolates me from my neighbor - who will start a conversation with someone with plugged ears? The Mini Cooper may be a fine car, but do cars themselves glorify God? They enable us to go a long way in a short time - but is that something God wants us to do? Should we be more willing to stay home and stay in our local neighborhood so we know our neighbors? If we stayed on our block more, we'd be forced to know our neighbor, depend on each other, and may even learn to love one another. Isn't this the biblical command?

So I don't doubt that some human goods will persist in the New Jerusalem, but my sense is it will be a fairly small pile. When the angels are crying "Holy, Holy, Holy", will anyone really step away from that to plug their ears with Miles Davis on the iPod? I hope not. But will we and the angels join together in Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus"? I hope so.

to be continued in part 3...

See it at Amazon: Culture Making

Part 1 - Review of Culture Making by Andy Crouch

After hearing an interview with Andy Crouch on Mars Hill Audio, I found the book in our local library. The book is a helpful description of what culture is and how one makes an impact. Many of the ideas in the book come up from time to time on the Mars Hill Audio Journal, so the book did not have the groundbreaking impact on me that it may have on a general audience.

Crouch defines culture as not just pop culture nor the current prevailing mood, but as primarily something we make. It is a collection of human works. Much in the book is helpful but rather than provide a complete synopsis, I'll focus on the several ideas that were new to me....

Many folks are interested in having a site on the internet - from a simple blog to a full featured private website. Many parents realize the career possibilities for their children and would like them to learn advanced internet skills and eventually build and manage a website, possibly for a family business. There are many options, in fact so many as to be overwhelming. Here's what I suggest. Follow this plan and work at your own pace, depending on your current skills and your goals. You can start for free and later have that full...

Three more bits of evidence supporting my contention that the typical modern college experience is harmful for Christians.

There is overwhelming political bias on campuses. Affirmative action is shamelessly practiced, the ROTC and military recruiters are banned, "heteronormativity" is rebuked, atheism and skepticism are the norm, Marxism and socialism are held in high regard, and males are outnumbered by females 58 to 42 percent.

For 40 years straight middle-class bourgeois households have been shipping their conservative, patriotic, church-going kids off to college and spending a fortune to turn them, four years later, into socialists, atheists, sexual libertines, drug users, and despisers of the United States and Western culture. All of this has been subsidized by the Federal government and enforced by the courts.

Reference: Michael Filozof, an adjunct professor at Niagara County Communiity College

More of today's students come to campus with dreadful study habits. Too few of them read for pleasure. Too many drink and smoke excessively. They are terribly ill-prepared for four years of hard work, and most dangerously, they do not think that college should be arduous. Instead they perceive college as an overnight recreation center in which they exercise, eat, and in between playing extracurricular sports, they carry books around. If a professor is lucky, the books are being skimmed hours before class.

How do I know that my concerns are not unique to my employer, or my classroom? My students are brutally honest – they tell me with candor and without shame that their peers think of college as a four year cruise without a destination.

Reference: "I'm Leaving"

And finally, Wendell Berry's magnificent essay "The Loss of the University". I could not find it online. It's in his essay collection - Home Economics . Mr. Berry reminds us that the word "educate" literally means "to lead forth". Into what does the modern college lead students? Students are indeed being lead. Evidence is mounting that the destination is not to a higher understanding of wisdom, but to a lower way of life.