Spend time with adults? Is he crazy?

I think adults who write about children have bad memories.  63 years ago I didn’t have any of these qualities when I entered college.  And based on what I read on Facebook and other blogs, many of my contemporaries have not learned along the way.  Basic math?  Still struggling with that.

“What do [entering college students] need?  Academically, they need to be able to read analytically and write clear literate prose. They need to be able to recognize an argument and formulate one of their own.  They need to be able to analyze and apply ideas from one source to a problem in another, think logically, and do basic mathematics.  These are all valuable, but two other things are actually more important.

The first is that a student must “have the lights on.”  They have to care.  If education is seen as something they “get through” to get a largely meaningless credential – their “entry slip” to enter the corporate rat race rather than as a place to develop needed skills and wisdom – then they cannot and will not get an education.

The second thing a prospective student needs is maturity.  Another way of putting this would be to say, they need to grow up: become dependable adults who take responsibility for themselves and for the common good of the community of which they are members.

How does that happen?  One answer is they need to develop the virtues: wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage.  How can they develop these virtues they so desperately need?

Answer:  Adolescents need to spend time with adults if they are ever going to learn to be adult.  They need the experience of working with and for other people. They need to work within a group in which their well-being depends upon others doing their jobs well and in which the well-being of others depends upon them doing their jobs well.  They need to mature by training in a craft in which excellence is demanded and expected.”

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2020/01/11/college-when/

Randal Smith is the Scanlan Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

I’ve found the problem; we’re no longer virtuous

Ben Franklin wrote: "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

• We cannot call ourselves virtuous if we're killing babies and sterilizing children with hormones and chemicals in the quest of a fantasy about sex.
• We cannot call ourselves virtuous if we destroy dreams of our citizens because they won't submit to socialist big-think and jabberwocky.
• We cannot call ourselves virtuous if we allow political reeducation camps to reside inside our colleges and universities.
• We cannot call ourselves virtuous while allowing all manner of data manipulation and cyber-spying to squash original thought.
• We cannot call ourselves virtuous while allowing regulations by unelected bureaucrats to take the place of our legislators examining the issues and voting our wishes.
• We cannot call ourselves virtuous if we do not encourage legal immigration to refresh and renew our national spirit and
• discourage illegal immigration which steals wealth from our workers attempting to get ahead.
• We cannot call ourselves virtuous if we do not seek truth, beauty and goodness in our art, public buildings, libraries, museums, entertainment, literature and finally, in our homes.

Signage battle in paradise

This summer rainbow colored signs have appeared in the tiny yards of some Lakeside cottages--I call them "virtue signaling" and they speak to "women's rights" (aka abortion), "science is real," (climate change), gender, race, illegal immigration without ever using those words. Since our owner's agreement says no signs, people have been asked to remove them (we don't even own our land--we lease it). Now I'm seeing signs about First Amendment free speech rights. Sorry. This is a private association, and First Amendment applies to the government not being able to shut you up, not an association you willingly joined. The Association also forbids smoking, alcohol, mean dogs, and parking on certain streets. That's what makes it such a nice place to live and safe for little children.

 

The Virtue Continuum