Let’s get into the book/education news from the past week, shall we?

Read more

In a previous article for RB4K, I discussed the concept of literary windows and mirrors. This idea, first introduced by Emily Style who co-founded the National SEED Project with “white privilege” developer Peggy McIntosh, has spread throughout public education. The ideology that this seemingly harmless concept is built upon has dangerous implications.

Not Only in Public Education

It’s not in public schools alone, however, where this practice has become common. Social Justice has crept into the very place where parents thought their children were safe from the Critical Race pedagogy of so-called antiracist educators. In recent years, the homeschooling world has accepted the windows and mirrors concept as well. For example, Charlotte Mason expert Leah Boden writes positively about Emily Style in her book Modern Miss Mason:

“In the late 1980’s, Emily Style, writing for the National SEED Project, introduced the world of education to the concept of ‘curriculum as window and mirror.’ Using this idea, author and speaker Amber O’Neal Johnston has spoken powerfully regarding the lack of diversity in our lists of living books. She writes about how books can be used to help children learn to love themselves and others; she also describes our need to provide ‘mirrors and windows’ for all our children. Books can be like mirrors that reflect who the child is, and books can be like windows that give an insight into other cultures and ways of life.” (p.95-6 kindle)

Perhaps no one has been more influential in introducing homeschoolers to the analogy of books as windows and mirrors than Amber O’Neal Johnston. Her rapid ascent on social media and the release of her first book A Place to Belong have centered around her desire to give her own children mirror books so that they could, “bask in their reflections for a while.”

In a presentation O’Neal Johnston gave for the popular literature-based Christian curriculum Sonlight, she explains that a literary mirror “is a book that reflects a child’s own culture or personhood and helps build their identity.” She later goes on to say, “there is a significant need for literary windows to help fill the gaps that can so easily widen between white children and children of color and boys specifically need to be offered windows that highlight the fullness of the lives of girls and women.” Throughout her talk, O’Neal Johnston references both Emily Style and Rudine Sims Bishop and much of what she asserts assumes the same belief of systemic racism and sexism that “anti-racist” educators promote about the Western canon of literature.

Decolonizing the Library in Homeschool Communities

While many in academia and public schools are more brazen in admitting their intent to “decolonize the canon” those in the classical homeschool realm tend to conceal their intentions with nebulous language. And yet, the ideology behind the goal is the same. There is an underlying belief that two groups exist: the oppressors and the oppressed. According to this view, white men have asserted power for too long including by dominating the literary canon, and it is now time to change this by replacing their books with those of BIPOC authors.

O’Neal Johnston expresses this assumption when she writes in her book, “While I don’t want to burn the classics, I do want to de-elevate some of them and set a few others aside to make room at the table for other voices and perspectives.” (p.102) In a 2018 blog post she expresses a similar sentiment in regards to the selection of books among literary classics: “The utter lack of choice within the book market (and especially among living books) of brown characters is upsetting, but the reasons are structural, nuanced, and can’t be fixed overnight.”

Leah Boden offers the same solution to this perceived problem. In her book she writes, “My suggestion isn’t to do away with every book written before the twenty-first century; but there may indeed be some you will want to rightfully leave alone” (p.95 kindle).

What both of these women express regarding the literary canon and the solution posed is hardly different than that of public school teacher Terry Kawi, as quoted in part one, who suggests that book selections ought to be made utilizing a “critical lens” which requires recognizing the dominant culture and elevating the voices of people deemed to be marginalized or oppressed. Kawi writes, “It is time to reconsider what texts we view as canon, what voices we regard as worthy, and what themes, storylines, and storytelling mediums are considered academic or rigorous. It is time to select the stories that really matter: ones that center and empower our BIPOC students.”

In this view, the standard by which we determine what literature we provide for our children is not what is best in quality, but who wrote the book and whether or not the book maintains the anti-racist perspective of so-called marginalized people.

Mirrors and Windows to Develop Global Citizens

Kawi goes on to later explain one goal of replacing the literary canon with window and mirror books. She writes, “Instead, what if we were to use windows to learn history, authentic perspectives, and perhaps, shared experiences? What if these windows could help us be better global citizens and teach us ways to navigate, honor culture, and make prosocial choices?”

Modernism and the United Nations, not Classical Education, would have us believe that the goal of an education is to develop what Kawi refers to as “global citizens.” The UN has stated that “promoting global citizenship in sustainable development will allow individuals to embrace their social responsibility to act for the benefit of all societies, not just their own.” According to the UN website, “the international community has agreed to ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including global citizenship.”

Twentieth century philosopher and progressive educational reformer John Dewey proved to shape much of modern education with a similar perspective that, “schools should take an active part in directing social change, and share in the construction of a new social order.”

Given this, it might be surprising to see self-proclaimed Christian Charlotte Mason (Classical) educators who embrace and promote this same goal. Yet, Amber O’Neal Johnston explains why one ought to use literary mirrors and windows in their homeschool: “We want to create a home atmosphere where children value differences and embrace diversity, and we hope to launch informed, compassionate, and engaged global citizens into the world. Knowledge of others is the only way to impart a global mindset.” (p. 86)

When compared with the statements made by several of the educators mentioned previously as to their purpose and goal in implementing the window and mirror concept, it becomes glaringly obvious that all of these women are on the same page, following and advancing the same narrative.

In fact, O’Neal Johnston quotes Style in her presentation for Sonlight when she wrote, “It is limiting and inaccurate to only educate our children provincially when they must live their lives in a global context, facing vast differences and awesome similarities. They must learn early and often about the valid framing of both windows and mirrors for a balanced, ecological sense of their place(s) in the world.”

Kaitlin Jackson concludes her academic article: “We cannot raise and cultivate global citizens without intentional efforts to normalize, celebrate, validate, and include the experiences, narratives, and voices of all citizens on that globe.”

The term, “global citizen” is fraught with the same ideology which promotes the normalization and celebration of all identities as equal, except for white, upper-middle class, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender, Christian males. What all of this ultimately boils down to is an economic and cultural Marxism, taught in both public and home schools in order to bring about a utopia of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And in this system of thought, Christianity is the enemy.

This destructive, progressive trajectory would have us do away with the traditional Judeo-Christian culture and value system that has existed for two millenia. It’s the same ideology that fueled BLM in its desire to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure” and free itself “from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.”

The Problem with Literary Windows and Mirrors

Aside from the alarming implications of developing “global citizens” through education, there are at least two major problems with the literary mirrors and windows concept. 

First, the idea that children need books that act as mirrors promotes an over-focus on self, the supposed need for self-affirmation, and the validation of a personal identity. This, however, is not the purpose of an education, and specifically, it is not the purpose of literature. An education does not exist to better understand oneself, to self-actualize, or even for the utilitarian purpose of social action. These are all modern misunderstandings of education. As Angelina Stanford recently pointed out, “Modernity thinks that the point of education is to see ourselves or to understand ourselves.” Modernity is incorrect.

This viewpoint regarding education turns the individual into the center, the gauge, the focal point, the plumbline, and ultimately the judge of everything, including truth. But education and specifically literature is not primarily a mirror with which to see a reflection of our own experiences or identity. We are not to read a story looking for ourselves or read ourselves into a story. To quote a popular Matt Chandler sermon, “You’re not David. Your trouble in life is not Goliath.” But as human beings, we are so self-focused and self-centered that we do think everything is about us, including the stories we read. This educational concept only serves to further fuel that self-absorption and ego. An education that centers self, makes self the center.

Second, the idea that children need literary windows to peer into the lives of others promotes the acceptance and celebration of all identities and the culture from which those identities originate, even sinful gender and sexual identities and cultures. Viewing other’s lives this way is often coupled with a dangerous empathy that accepts everyone’s perspective and identity as equally valid. This is cultural relativism, not objective reality. This view also turns those who are not part of the “societal default” into victims of society at large and of individuals whose identity falls into the categories delineated as the hegemony.

In contrast, a true education is one that doesn’t produce global citizens, but one that cultivates a rightly-ordered affection between the child and the True, Good, and Beautiful things of God, informed by knowledge and wisdom which lead to humility and a life of obedience and faithfulness to the Lord. This is an education that seeks to look outside of self in the literature consumed. But rather than focusing on other’s identities it seeks to look upward to God, to the transcendent realm, to something greater than and higher than individual people. This is what we all truly have in common, that we live in God’s ordered world, surrounded by the transcendent ideals of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

This is About Ideas

Ultimately this is a discussion and debate over ideas and truth. As CS Lewis has so aptly said, “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.” The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)

People are promoting ideas that are enemies of God and the truth and it is our responsibility to challenge those ideas, for the sake of the people who have been captured by them. As Voddie Baucham has said, “We have to identify these ideologies and we have to mark them and we have to oppose them and destroy them. Don’t coddle them, don’t modify them, don’t baptize them, destroy them. And take every thought captive.”

I have quoted multiple homeschool educators and I want to make it clear that I agree with Tom Ascot when he writes in By What Standard, “I am not accusing any of the people I have named of being Cultural Marxists or of consciously promoting Critical Theory. What I am saying is that the influence of that worldview is apparent in what they are advocating and how they are contending for what they believe to be justice.” (p. 15)

Over the past several months, a group of homeschool mothers have been developing a statement of biblical philosophy that counters the ideology promoted by those who teach that books ought to be windows and mirrors and that the goal of education is to cultivate global citizens. It is our sincerest desire that all would read and consider what we have compiled as a challenge to bad philosophy. You can read the statement here.

The above photo was circulating “BookTwitter” this week with the following question:

“If you were able to sit in this library for an entire day, what book would you be reading?”

My answer(s) would be:

Read more

The season of Thanksgiving is upon us and while many people choose to skip right over the holiday and start decking the halls, we think there’s a wonderful opportunity to slow down before all of the Christmas insanity and focus on an attitude of gratefulness.

Read more

Maryland’s Montgomery County School District recently posted this Sydney J. Harris quote to its Instagram page:

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

Aside from the fact that the quote was truncated to completely remove the authorial intent, the concept of mirrors and windows in education is quite common and prevalent in our current system. The history of such an idea, the ideology underlying it, those involved in its dissemination, and how far-reaching it has become should give all a cause for concern.

Harris meant one thing by his use of mirrors and windows as analogies in education, but in subsequent decades, others like Emily Style, Rudine Sims Bishop, and Laura Jimenez would propose something else entirely in the use of literary mirrors and windows as analogies, and this use is far more likely the purpose of MCSD posting Harris’ quote to social media, which would explain the truncation.

The Origin

In 1988, Emily Style first introduced this concept in her paper, Curriculum as Window and Mirror. 

According to this approach, readers, in this instance young students, should be exposed to books and particularly literature that act as mirrors in which they can see themselves and to books that act as windows through which they can look to see others. On the surface, such a suggestion seems innocuous or even beautiful. But on further consideration, the assumptions of systemic racism and sexism, along with white and male privilege that underlie such a proposal become apparent. In her essay, Style writes in part,

“White males find, in the house of curriculum, many mirrors to look in, and few windows which frame others’ lives. Women and men of color, on the other hand, find almost no mirrors of themselves in the house of curriculum; for them it is often all windows.”

Emily Style not only proposed this concept, but in the year prior she co-founded an organization called the National SEED Project, or SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) for short, with colleague Peggy McIntosh. McIntosh is widely known for her essay White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, in which the theory of “white privilege” was first introduced, coined, and defined. Together, these women created a project (SEED) that would spread their beliefs and ideology throughout the education system by facilitating “conversations that drive social change within institutions” to ultimately “transform the system.” The logo of SEED is a dandelion seed head with seeds being taken up by the wind, symbolizing the quick and far-reaching spread of their ideology.

According to its website, SEED originated and continues to operate at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) at Wellesley College, whose mission “is to advance gender equality, social justice, and human wellbeing through high quality research, theory, and action programs.”

Executive director of WCW, Layli Maparyan recently wrote, “The National SEED Project, with its New Leaders Week trainings, has transformed the thinking and practice of nearly 2,600 attendees, who in turn have influenced 30,000+ teachers, changing the classroom experience of over three million students, in the United States and around the world.”

Maparyan writes that Style’s work, including her essay on books as windows and mirrors, should be praised and recognized for “transforming society through the institution of education.”

Style’s desire to see her curriculum proposal, along with the ideology underlying it, disseminate widely through education has come to fruition.

The Spread

Since 1988, Curriculum as Window and Mirror has been expounded upon by many educators. In 1990, Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop published MIrrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors. Her focus was primarily upon how reading books can be a means of “self-affirmation” or give insight into others’ lives regarding racial identity, but as Professors Jonda McNair and Patricia Edwards later assert, “it should be noted that the analogy can be thought about in ways that move beyond race.” They include other “identity markers” such as socioeconomic status, disability, and sexuality. Others have added gender identity, religion, approaches to spiritual practices, family structures, or living situations.

One of the major focal points in the use of the mirrors and windows analogy is that of “identities and life experiences.” There is a desire among many educators to see to it that children in their classrooms “learn to recognize, appreciate, and celebrate identities that are different from their own across multiple matrices” including the several identity markers previously mentioned. Or as Laura Jimenez writes in her article Mirrors and Windows with Texts and Readers: Intersectional Social Justice at Work in the Classroom, “the reader can visit a new way of being in the world.” She stresses that, “identity must be a central part of the curriculum and not simply an add-on.”

Jimenez then goes on to share an example of how she has achieved this in her own instruction. She writes, “To prepare, I had the teacher candidates read a chapter from Reading the Rainbow: LGBTQ-Inclusive Literacy Instruction in the Elementary Classroom. I asked second graders to write about their homes and families, and I used my own rather poor drawing featuring my kids, my partner, and our dogs as a model for their own descriptive illustration. I used the word lesbian to describe myself and my partner, and some of the kids didn't know what that meant. I explained, ‘Like gay, but we are women.’ What ensued was a lively activity and discussion around LGBTQIA members of children’s families, their definitions of family, and of course, pets.”

In her article, When DIversity Isn’t the Point: Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors in the Classroom, Kaitlin Jackson discusses what she calls “the normalization of diversity in all identity markers” through the use of books as windows. One example she discusses is, “a hilarious read aloud about a wild collection of singing chickens whose caregivers happen to be two men” which “normalizes gay parenthood by showing children that is valid and good.” Jackson argues that teachers must give students examples of characters who do not fit that societal ‘default.’” She describes the “societal default” as, “white, upper-middle class, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender, male, Christian.” Some may be familiar with this characterization as hegemony. 

Ultimately what all of these educators desire to accomplish isn’t simply that children would see themselves and others in the literature they consume, but that by “dismantling the hold these systems have… by thinking and writing about ways to disrupt those oppressive systems” (Jimenez), students would then “take action” and  “put anti-racism to work” (Jackson).

Kawi explains in her essay for PBS, The Importance of Windows and Mirrors in Stories, that educators ought to “use a critical race lens” when selecting books. She goes on to explain exactly what she means by this: “To have a critical race lens means to understand oneself deeply in relation to dominant culture and its racist and oppressive system and policies. It involves seeing how our experiences may differ from others based on these systems and policies”.

It is clear that the seemingly innocuous use of books as mirrors and windows in education has not only an alarming inception and history, but its current use is pregnant with Critical Theory, Social Justice, and Intersectionality ideology. This belief that children must be exposed to literature that allows them to “try on an identity that isn’t their own” (Jackson) doesn’t end with race. Because the underlying belief is that our libraries are too white and oppressive to those not of the “societal default”, this quickly moves into normalizing and endorsing even sinful lifestyles and behaviors, namely that of LGBTQ.

Within the last couple of years, many parents have recognized the Critical Theory pedagogy taking place in their child’s classroom and have spoken out against it in school board meetings, worked to elect conservative local politicians and school board members who would do away with this sort of curriculum, or have even pulled their child out the traditional classroom in order to homeschool. But surprisingly, this use of literary windows and mirrors with its underlying Social Justice ideology has spread beyond the public school system. Part two will discuss how it has made its way into homeschool curriculum and book lists.

When I was little, my mother spent hours reading aloud. I taught myself to read along when I was three and haven’t stopped reading since! I credit this love of reading to my mother, and especially to the homeschool education she has given me. My education offered a wealth of great literature and prompted me to write books of my own, setting me a foundation through classics of every time and place.

In fact, my earliest writing was directly based on the rich and varied books I read, but with many faults. I wrote historical fiction with a shameless disregard for historical fact. I wrote fantasy stories, disdaining any semblance of law and order in my elaborate magic. But, thanks to wide and continual reading, I came to realize the principles of good story writing—first almost by instinct, now more consciously. By this wide practice I also discovered what genres of writing I was especially interested in.

These same influences also helped to sharpen my writing style. At first I imitated my favorite books by copying not only characters and plots, but also descriptive phrases and sentence structure. As I did so, I had to adapt the writing to my own needs, and so I learned to use words more thoughtfully. I was able to discover, from the great writers of the ages, how to place emphasis in a sentence, the use of paragraphs, and other basic lessons. I learned the tools of writing from all the masters of the craft.

I also grew in my ability to fill out stories. At first, I wrote almost exclusively dialogue—the “fun” part, in my view. But homeschooling made me a more balanced writer. Our homeschool philosophy utilizes the principle of narration, or “telling back” the material studied. As I grew older more and more of my narrations were written. Through the practice of narration, I learned to write about science, history, and geography from writers in these fields, copying at times their styles. I also learned (or began to learn!) to curb another of my faults—a rambling wordiness. Since most narrations are done according to the timetable, I had to learn not to waste words, even how to summarize well.

But my homeschool education has given me even more than the foundation, and then the tools, with which to write. It has given me the material as well. Our homeschool philosophy is built partly on the idea of feeding the mind with ideas, as the body is fed with food. So many great writers talk about inspiration. An inspiration is an idea, often a sudden idea, and it’s like an electric shock. Many moments of inspiration have struck me during my schoolwork. I read something, I look up, and I say, “I’ve got a story!” Even more important, however, is what happens next: the story is built, idea by idea, until it is a plot. Sometimes the idea is a situation or scene; sometimes it is a theme; sometimes it is a character motivation; every once in a while, it is an amazing solution—and that’s one of the best feelings in the world. The ideas I encounter in my schoolwork help give my writing breadth and depth.

Thus, my education has given me the foundation of good books, the practical tools of writing, and the ideas that have shaped me as a writer and a person. I begin to pay tribute to these all-important influences by the use of quotes at the head of each chapter of my novels; I always love this practice whenever I see it in books I read! I’ve used quotes from Shakespeare, the Bible, Milton, Thompson, Cowper, and many more. Most of these quotes I’ve encountered in my school reading.

I finished my first short story when I was twelve, and my first novel soon afterwards. The sense of achievement began to intoxicate me, and I have been finishing stories ever since.

From the very first I was determined to publish, and when an older friend of mine began to self-publish her books I knew it was possible. I self-published my first book, a novel called Four Red Banners, a couple years ago, and its sequel, The Coralean Islands, just recently. Several more in the series are in progress. The enthusiasm for Four Red Banners was amazing, and the many inquiries I received about sequels encouraged me to keep working. I am so grateful to friends, family, and especially my mother for their support as I continue my writing journey!

“Pooh took his largest pot of honey and escaped with it to a broad branch of his tree and then he climbed down again and escaped with another pot… and when the whole Escape was finished, there was Pooh sitting on his branch and beside him were ten pots of honey.” ~A.A.Milne

- - - - - - - - - - - -

The world has me feeling a bit like Pooh. Escaping sounds pretty good right now, doesn’t it? My husband was gone this entire week on business and he returned late last evening. I felt the heaviness of him being across the country just melt away when I saw him, suitcase in hand, on the porch. I had been escaping in my mind all week, willing away the moments until he returned. It’s so pleasant to have a kindred partner in this dark world, but that makes it harder when they are away. Pooh had his honey and tree branch, I had my Airpods and a queue of podcast episodes while folding laundry. And now he is home and I feel a bit more like myself but I won’t lie….escaping still sounds quite nice. Maybe into the woods where the leaves are thick on the ground and there are plenty of fallen trees to just have a seat on. Where it’s quiet and you can’t hear the constant buzzing of the world and all its maddening groans.

Read more

I collect two things. Books and old ephemera. It’s been going on for many years and there’s no indication that my collections will slow in their growth. It’s alright though….the books are being read and the ephemera is usually found underneath tables at estate sales – costing pennies, if anything.

I used to think these collections were separate in nature, but they never were. Both reflect my attraction (and now the attraction of my girls) to something forgotten but once loved. Most of the books we collect had robust previous lives, and all of the letters, postcards, and photos that line my closets used to be the treasures of complete strangers.

Read more

(on a walk around our property, I quickly snapped this photo.)

I was just thinking this morning about how I feel like I’ve lived an entire year in just the last 13 days. Does it feel that way to you? So many things are happening on the world’s stage - a veritable revolving door of new headlines, things to absorb, and new concerns to address. Lately, I’ve been pondering the idea of “control.” The older I get, the more comfortable I am with the understanding that I have very little of it, but in times of upheaval (such as the present moment in our world), it can feel pretty daunting, not knowing what will come next. That being said, I find solace in a great number of blessings and two in particular are: my Christian faith and literature. Books are balm for the soul - a needed retreat in times of trouble. I hope you’re reading something life-giving right now. We all need what books so graciously offer.

Now, let’s get into the book/education news from the past week, shall we?

Read more

***

I’m not Jewish. I don’t have any idea what the Jewish community is feeling right now, nor do I have the correct wording to express my deep sadness about what happened over the past six days. I’m merely an American citizen, watching from across an ocean, as horrors are flashed across my smartphone and television. I’m sickened at the atrocities, heartbroken for the parents who lost their children, and flattened at the scope of the terror.

I’m also angry. Very angry.

I make it a point to raise my children to not become snowflakes. Rather I encourage them to be tough. Take criticism. Learn to listen to alternate viewpoints. Stop feeling sorry for themselves. In teaching them these lessons, I’ve often scoffed at the uber-syrupy language of the left, trotted out to soften the blow of real life for the rising next generation. Phrases like, “silence is violence” is on my blacklist because it’s usually used with absolutely no nuance or real meaning. It’s just parroted by social justice warriors whenever they demand you do something. Anything!

But in the face of the week’s literal bloodshed and murder, I’m finding, for the first time in my life, that silence really is violence.

Since Saturday I have watched in utter disbelief at the incredible audacity of student groups, college administrators, media pundits, and politicians all but lend their support for what is happening to the Jews in Israel. Of course, they cloak it in soft platitudes and “both sides” equivocation, but the speed at which they released their statements of “we stand with Palestinians” after Jewish women are raped and paraded around cities at the hands of Hamas, is really something to behold. I have had to restrain my fury.

The only thing that might make me a little more angry than uninformed college students who are chanting, “From the river to the sea!” would be the people who are saying nothing at all. For the first day or so, I absolutely understood why certain people might not be making statements. I don’t know their lives or circumstances and we all deal with tragedy in our own way. Not everyone needs to jump on social media to proclaim their outrage about every single issue or event. I get that.

But it’s been about a week and I’m beginning to lose patience for people who routinely make it their job to have an opinion about every single situation, not having a thing to say about what is happening in the Middle East. When you monetize the heck out of providing commentary about everything happening in DC, in culture, and in our world but you can only muster one Instagram story saying, “I’m not an expert on geopolitics, but I’m sad for both Israel and Palestine right now.” Listen, I report the news on Instagram every day. I follow thousands of accounts that, like mine, share commentary and opinions about what is happening around the globe. Their silence is specific and targeted and it is its own brand of violence.

And why’s that?

We are watching a new and unsettlingly large wave of Jew-hatred surge in our country and abroad. When over a thousand Jews are killed in a day and don’t have unilateral condemnation worldwide, you know something is wrong, but that’s where we are. Honestly, imagine this happening with any other people group, anywhere else in the world. To bring it a bit closer to home, imagine this happening in Connecticut. 1000 residents of the state are murdered in a 24-hour period and you have rallies all over the globe with protestors waving the flags of the region to which the terrorist organization belonged? Those same people on loudspeakers screaming, “Revolution!" I mean, think about it. We watched the single largest killing of the Jewish people since the Holocaust and some people are engaging in whataboutism, trying to rationalize the reasoning behind people putting paraglider images on Pro-Palestine marches.

And others are just silent.

In actuality, the silence is louder than the ignorant shouting because it allows the apathy for what is happening to seep further into the DNA of our country and of the global landscape. When we don’t loudly step out and say, “THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE” or try to sidestep a conversation because someone says we aren’t considering this and that, we lose a little bit of our humanity.

The sentiment stated above is made evident by those who persist in silence. For the individuals who do not have what it takes to come and speak their minds, for whatever reason, I can’t help thinking you’re a coward at best and an anti-Semite at worst. With no opinion, you are practically asking for that title. Is that what you want to be known for? Is that what you want to be labeled?

Jewish people have, of course, always known there’s a sector of the global population that wants them dead. They live knowing they are hated. Most of the people reading this have no clue what that feels like. I know I don’t.

What I do know is that last weekend we watched children, women, and entire families be hunted, maimed, and filmed and now we are watching the unraveling of humanity again with the deafening silence coming from so many.

(art by Naoko Stoop)

As I write this, it’s October 5th and the weather is as cool as a cucumber. Here in Virginia, everyone is a buzz because the humidity has disappeared and the cooler temps have arrived. It’s the moment we have been waiting for since last March. Praise be!

In the first years of homeschooling, I was told that every good homeschooler *must* teach poetry to their children. Of course, I obeyed. And while I don’t necessarily have my children memorize a new poem each month like those super amazing home educators, I still do from time to time, and some of those selections really stick with us. Each October I remember one of the first poems our girls memorized. It’s so sweet and simple. Perhaps you’ll want to use it in your own home….

Read more

Banned. In the words of the Princess Bride, “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

Recently, Randi Weingarten “celebrated” Banned Books week with a photo,

It’s worth talking about the book in her right hand, by Roald Dahl. As it happens, our family just read James and the Giant Peach last month. We bought a second box set because news had broken that Dahl’s work was being changed to make it more “sensitive.” The Guardian reported back in February,

Roald Dahl’s children’s books are being rewritten to remove language deemed offensive by the publisher Puffin.

Puffin has hired sensitivity readers to rewrite chunks of the author’s text to make sure the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, resulting in extensive changes across Dahl’s work.

Edits have been made to descriptions of characters’ physical appearances. The word “fat” has been cut from every new edition of relevant books, while the word “ugly” has also been culled, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is now described as “enormous”. In The Twits, Mrs Twit is no longer “ugly and beastly” but just “beastly”.

Hundreds of changes were made to the original text – and some passages not written by Dahl have been added. But the Roald Dahl Story Company said “it’s not unusual to review the language” during a new print run and any changes were “small and carefully considered”.

In The Witches, a paragraph explaining that witches are bald beneath their wigs ends with the new line: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.”

Weingarten is pretending that Dahl is one of the authors being targeted by right-wing authoritarians, gaslighting us into believing that progressives are the defenders of free speech and literature. She may want to alert her ideological team that Dahl is being included in “Banned Books” week because of actions they themselves are taking. Dahl is one of the only authors who has any room to complain. Well, he’d complain if he wasn’t dead, anyway.

Kids’ horror author R.L Stine is alive, and is calling out what he views as censorship as edits have been made to his Goosebumps series. The New York Post reported in March,

The 79-year-old horror author spoke up after The Times of London claimed that he had “censored over a dozen of his books” to avoid mentions of race or calling characters fat or crazy.

“This story is false. I have never changed a word in a Goosebumps book,” Stine stated firmly to a report accusing him of “re-editing the books to appease The Woke.”

Instead, the changes were made behind his back, Stine said in response to an angry reader who accused him of being “shameful” for supporting censorship.

While Dahl and Stine have seen their work hacked apart by these censors, the only truly banned books belong to Dr. Seuss. Try to find these six titles:

The titles are:

• “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street”

• “If I Ran the Zoo”

• “McElligot’s Pool”

• “On Beyond Zebra!”

• “Scrambled Eggs Super!”

• “The Cat’s Quizzer”

It’s practically impossible.

In 2021, the business that supposedly preserves the author’s legacy stopped printing them because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”

I would challenge you to flip through these books to find what’s actually questionable, but they are now impossible to find. They haven’t just stopped printing them; they are unavailable on used book resale sites, in used and new bookstores, in libraries, and in schools. This business, run by individuals with no biological relationship to Seuss, has thrown Seuss’s memory and his work into the woodchipper because of a few exaggerated illustrations that offend a handful of people in the modern era.

While progressives have appointed themselves the champions of banned books, they are the censors, all while going to the mattresses to defend literal pornography.

“October was a beautiful month at Green Gables, when the birches in the hollow turned as golden as sunshine & maples behind the orchard were royal crimson, while the fields sunned themselves in aftermaths.”

A gentle reminder: if you haven’t introduced your children to Anne, Diana, Gilbert, Matthew, and Marilla….please do so. You won’t regret it.

(painting by John B. MacCallum)

I’ve been thinking a lot about what my occupation as a homeschool mother can afford for my children. I’m not delusional - I stay fully aware that one of my kids could choose a path for their life that my husband and I wish they would not. Homeschooling isn’t a magic ticket to perfection. We all know that.

With that being said, I take some solace in knowing that the constant character training, exposure to continual conversation with adults, the regular tradition of church involvement, and the feast of quality literature do provide a very strong foundation, which hopefully cultivates a sturdy and wise spirit inside the souls of my girls. I am grateful for that…. especially when I see what is becoming common in the lives of our young people, both inside and outside of the educational spaces in our country. Rampant violence in schools, depression in teenagers at an all-time high, plummeting educational scores, general apathy, and a loosening of basic expectations for dress, speech, and respect for others (we’ve touched on so many of these issues in previous posts.) It’s startling, really.

I suppose I’m mentioning it again because I believe we have a real opportunity to give our children an “out” from the dangerous trends we are seeing. No, not everyone has the ability to homeschool, but everyone has the ability to look into it. To talk with friends and family and see if it might be a possibility. To think unconventionally about options and consider sacrifices. In my 10 years of homeschooling, I’ve met families from all socio-economic backgrounds. I’ve met single parents who make it work. I’ve met full-time workers who manage to do it. It can be done and yet our culture tries to bat away the idea as only reserved for the privileged. It’s not. If what we are seeing play out in schools isn’t enough to at least consider another way, what would it have to take? If you have ever had that small voice inside you say, Maybe, we could do it?!” pursue that. Start here.

You won’t regret it, not for a day.

Now, let’s get into the book/education news from the past week, shall we?

Trans student beats a girl at Portland school

In a widely circulated video online, a male who identifies as trans and dresses like a girl, viciously beats a young girl, and students stand around taping and watching. It took place recently in an Oregon MIDDLE school (Tigard-Tualatin school district) and my question is, where are the teachers? How long has this been happening? What are the repercussions? And the VERY basic one: Why are we letting boys dress and act like girls?

I won’t be posting the video here because it literally makes me feel sick, but if you are so inclined, you can easily find it. You’ll also find many others just like it because this isn’t isolated or rare.

The ALA bites the dust in yet another state

The South Carolina State Library has announced that they are ending their membership with the American Library Association, following on the heels of other states doing the same. I mean, when you elect a Marxist president to your association who not only doesn’t back down but makes it clear she wants to profoundly impact the institutions that your children walk in every day…. there are consequences.

Here’s to hoping more states continue this trend.

Freedom in Education

A new organization has popped up that I think will be valuable and important and I wanted to share it with you. “Freedom In Education” exists to promote freedom in learning and help parents as we raise the next generation. Their goal is to come alongside us as we strive to bring up virtuous children. Future adults who will have a solid sense of our country’s founding principles, be civically engaged, and work to maintain our self-governing foundation. Part of this will be exposing corruption and evil inside classrooms all over the U.S. and providing alternatives, all while supporting you, the parent, in the educational choices for your family. Check them out and learn more about this endeavor. It’s surely needed.

An essay worth reading

It’s long but worth every moment you spend with it. An essay that brings together the topics of C.S. Lewis, parenting worries, education, and morality. Kaitlyn DeYoung pushes us to think more deeply about our use of technology and how it impacts us. Read it in one sitting or break it into bite-sized chunks. You will be better for it.

That’s it for this week, friends.

Stay in the fight,

Rachel

What do I hear?! “We don’t cherish (or even take the time to appreciate) the thoughtful architecture that past decades have afforded us!” The story of the Old Cincinnati Public Library is a perfect example. What has been heralded as “the most exquisite library that has graced the United States,” was torn down and, no joke, turned into a parking lot.

Gorgeously intricate design was bulldozed and paved over with grey concrete slabs and I’m just here wondering how all the people in the city didn’t revolt. If I had been living, that might have been my “chain myself to the card catalog” moment.

Behold that majestic piece of property:

Read more

This beautiful space *was* the old Public Library of Cincinnati. Yes, you read that correctly - a public library in Ohio. It was demolished in 1955 and replaced by an office building and a parking lot.

I’ll be back next week to share the details of this beautifully tragic story with you!

This week FLEW by for myself and Bethany. Our apologies for not being around these parts much this week - Bethany is visiting Colonial Williamsburg with her 6 (!) kiddos and I was working on a project for my other social media platform (which you can find here.) All that to say, it’s been a whirlwind week between homeschooling, church, cooking, cleaning, and general life stuff. All good, but packed.

Let’s get into the book/education news from the past week, shall we?

Read more

(my porch view on this fine morning)

I turned 43 on Tuesday and it was 85 degrees with slight humidity. Not exactly my birthday wish, but on Wednesday? I woke up to the most perfectly Fall-like breeze, with a side of floating leaves and it’s like I was a new person. Here in Northern Virginia, we don’t have it nearly as bad as our friends in Mississippi or Louisiana, but humidity is still a reality for a few months and so once it disappears, it’s worth celebrating. It truly feels like Autumn and I couldn’t be happier.

Let’s get into the book/education news from the past week, shall we?

Read more

In a day and age where people are hellbent on making everything fluid between the genders (all 93 of them), we are going to get subversive over her and give you a mini-booklist specifically geared toward boys. Does this mean that girls can’t read these books? Of course not! There are girls who will absolutely find these selections interesting or exciting, but on the whole, the storylines are suited toward a more rough-and-tumble crowd.

It feels weird that making a delineation like that would be considered controversial, but it’s 2023 and everything you say will offend at least 50% of the population.

Gender stereotypes exist for a reason and that isn’t to say that there aren’t exceptions, but on the whole, boys gravitate toward a certain type of writing and girls to another. That is GOOD and ALRIGHT and JUST FINE.

When compiling this list, I took into account that many (most) of you would already have on your list the tried and true classics as books that you really must introduce to your boys. I mean, they’re classics for a reason. Every boy should be introduced to The Jungle Book, Kidnapped, and Tom Sawyer. With that in mind, I chose more contemporary books that will offer the same adventure and excitement!

Read more

Sometimes this weekly round-up can feel a little negative but if we are honest, there’s a lot of negative floating around out there. Each day I field dozens of headlines that expose major cracks in our education system, public libraries, and the publishing world.

That being said, sometimes there’s a lull in concerning news and this week has proven that true. Instead of just skipping the post, I thought we would make the entire thing I happy-clappy ode to books and reading and perhaps brighten your day a little bit. I rounded up some book-ish delights to share with you and I hope you enjoy.

Read more

After learning the election results that named Drabinski ALA's next president, she identified herself in a Tweet as a "Marxist lesbian" who believes in collective power--and has a mom who is very proud of her.

We are living in times where homophobia is rampant in libraries, with library workers at risk of physical violence and online harassment on a regular basis. State library associations that aren't standing up to homophobic anti-book and -library groups are not doing their jobs as library advocates*. 

Librarians and other library workers need to stand against bigotry. Marxism is an economic philosophy not a political platform. Turning this into a partisan issue resulting in a minority-led dissolution of a longstanding nourishing partnership–a move which will harm the future of libraries and library professional associations in the State of Montana–is deeply misguided and uninformed.

In short, Marxism is just an economic philosophy and any opposition to Drabinski is homophobia and bigotry.

Subscribe now

Fast forward to last weekend, and Drabinski shredded any possible defense of her continued role as ALA President at a socialism conference in Chicago. got the audio and reported,

American Library Association President Emily Drabinski was initially scheduled to be a speaker at the Socialism 2023, but after a media firestorm over her Marxist leanings that led to several state library associations parting ways with the national organization, her session was quietly canceled.

But Emily still went to the Socialism Conference and still attended sessions.

I know because I ran into her.

Emily told the crowd, after introducing herself as Emily “a librarian,” that public education and libraries need to be on the agenda of socialist organizing.

The State Freedom Caucus Network (SFCN) has been leading the charge to have states like Montana and Texas to withdraw from the ALA and withhold funding. Greg Price, the Communications Director for SFCN tweeted, “The @ALALibrary gets thousands of dollars from state governments every year. They are the oldest and largest library association in the world and have major power over what books appear in school libraries all across America. They are to libraries what Google is to the internet and this is the person in charge of it.”

I don’t see how the ALA continues to stand behind Drabinski, but of course, they will. Now the pressure is on other state library associations to do what Montana did and state unequivocally that they cannot stand shoulder-to-shoulder and financially support a Marxist-led organization using libraries to organize and indoctrinate.

As a mom of young children, I rely on various resources to help me make informed decisions about the content my family consumes. I am raising my kids with a traditional worldview, so I have to be vigilant. It feels like every other day I hear of a new book or show sneaking alternative sexualities and gender identities into children’s content. No thanks!

Enter Common Sense Media. This website claims to provide reviews and age-appropriate ratings for movies, TV shows, books, etc. The reviews cover content such as violence, language, sexual content. Totally my jam.

I used to recommend this website to everyone. I would use it almost weekly. I especially appreciated the parent reviews section, in which parents get to give their own takes.

But over time, I started to notice a shift.

The “official reviews” from Common Sense Media became shorter and vaguer. Content warnings that I considered important were mysteriously absent, especially in the “sexual content” realm. I noticed the left-leaning bias at play. For example, here is how Common Sense characterizes the infamous lesbian kiss in Disney’s Lightyear:

“Positive diverse representation includes a Black lesbian supporting character who discusses her partner (and later wife) in a way that makes it clear that everyone supports her identity and relationship. This is a milestone for Disney-Pixar, which has only hinted at this type of representation in previous films.”

Red flags all around. But somehow, it got worse.

When Barbie came out, I was disappointed with the messaging in it. I knew parents who took their young girls to Barbie, only to feel ambushed with cynical feminist ideologies. Since I so often turned to Common Sense Media in the past, I wrote a review on the site to help other parents make their own informed decision about the movie.

It said:

Parents should be aware that this isn't the fun, lighthearted movie it is advertised as. The first 30 minutes are fun, and then it becomes all about sexism and the patriarchy. Also of note is that Barbie's sidekick is trans. Another scene shows little girls bashing barbie dolls' heads on a rock while shouting that they aren't mothers. It was... odd.

To my surprise, my review almost immediately disappeared into the digital abyss. I was baffled. I figured it must have been because I mentioned a character was trans. Maybe that was against some guideline. So, I wrote another review. This one said:

Very political. I am not sure I am allowed to mention one particular hot-button political issue this touches on, as my last review got deleted for mentioning it. It has to do with sexuality and gender identity. There are several mentions of patriarchy and a scene where little girls are bashing their barbie's heads and saying "we are not mothers"

This review quickly became the top-rated review on the site. Even though Common Sense Media’s “official review” raved about the movie, the parent reviews were overwhelmingly negative. The Common Sense audience was NOT HAVING Barbie’s crap. Common Sense Media might be biased, but at least the parents were getting their perspectives represented.

Until they weren’t.

A week later, I checked to see if my review had managed to stay up.

It was gone.

And so were nearly all of the negative reviews.

Before this mass censorship, of the top 10 Barbie reviews, about 8/10 were negative.

As of the moment I am writing, of the top 10 reviews, only 3/10 are negative.

I felt a sense of betrayal and anger. Why was my review hidden without warning or explanation? How could this site, which “aimed for transparency,” hide the opinions of so many parents?

I wasn’t going to let this blow over. I’ve been working on embracing my inner “Karen” when something is unjust. So, I emailed the company asking what happened to my review, along with all the others. They responded:

Our current system allows all visitors to the site to flag any reviews they see. The flagged reviews are then held offline for review.  However, we're unable to find any reviews under your username…”

They then asked me to confirm my username.

I replied with my username as well as a screenshot of the review in question.

A week later, I got this response:

Hi,

We have not heard back from you regarding your username and will be closing out this case due to inactivity. If you still need assistance, please email us again.

I sent two follow up emails, re-sending my username and the screenshot of my reviews, which, over a month later, are still not visible.

They never replied. And weeks later, I know they never will.

Because they were caught in their scheme. They collect these “flagged” reviews and hold them offline permanently if they don’t fit their agenda, even when the reviews have broken ZERO standards. Sure, they’ll keep a few negative reviews, to make it appear as if they aren’t censoring people.

But in reality, they are curating their parent reviews to make it appear as if the “negative comments” are in the minority rather than the majority.

How many reviews have been hidden?

How many reviewers never bothered to check back or notice?

How many people have been persuaded to let their kids see a movie that they otherwise wouldn’t have?

I have a message directly for you, Common Sense Media:

As parents, we deserve access to diverse perspectives and honest reviews that reflect a range of opinions. It’s not about left or right. It’s about ensuring our kids are exposed to content that is appropriate for their age and maturity. You may pretend to be on our side, but we see you for what you are. Frauds. I, along with many others, will never use your site again.

Luckily, there are much better parent preview alternatives out there. My absolute favorite is PLUGGED IN reviews (pluggedin.com) from the organization Focus on the Family. I haven’t found another review site with their level of detail and sincerity.

Other sites include Kids-in-mind.com and parentpreviews.com – although I haven’t used them as often.

In the end, what’s most important is helping our little ones grow in a principled and wholesome environment. As parents, we’ll always find a way to make that happen, regardless of the speedbumps sites like Common Sense Media put in our way.

Subscribe now