The Patriot

This will be the last post for this blog. My writing here has slowed to a trickle and I’ve decided to wrap it up.

I continue to write my personal blog. There I often write about math or software development, but I also write about education, creativity, and other less technical topics.

If you’re looking for a blog devoted to classical education, you may want to read Quiddity, the blog of the CiRCE Institute.

James Marcus Bach is a high school dropout who wrote an interesting book on education, Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar. Here is an interview with the author. Bach is passionate about education, but sees schools as optional at best and harmful at worst. He is a well-educated man with no educational credentials.

Bach attributes his success in part to his lack of credentials. Because he had no degree, he assumed he had a lot to learn. Most of his degreed colleagues felt they were done with their education.

(Incidentally, James Bach may be related to Johann Sebastian Bach. James Bach’s father is the author Richard Bach. According to Wikipedia, Richard Bach claims to be a descendant of the great musician.)

From “The Contemplative Pastor” by Eugene Peterson

It was a favorite theme of CS Lewis that only lazy people work hard. By lazily abdicating the essential work of deciding and directing, establishing values and setting goals, other people do it for us; then we find ourselves frantically, at the last minute, trying to satisfy a half dozen different demands on our time, none of which is essential to our vocation, to stave off the disaster of disappointing someone.

But if I vainly crowd my day with conspicuous activity or let others fill my day with imperious demands, I don’t have time to do my proper work, the work to which I have been called. How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?