spartacus2017

When you say "due to the culture," what in particular? In the three years I have lived here, I have noticed that for such a large populated area, very few people actually want to get together and discuss anything intellectual, and it's been driving me nuts trying to figure out why.

Anybody interested in meeting regularly with like-minded folks in the St. Pete, Florida area? I would open it up to Tampa Bay entirely, but it becomes hard to get people to drive from one side of the Bay to the other. Thinking twice a month? Location TBD, maybe a Panera Bread somewhere central to Pinellas County?

Check out Saxon Math for Homeschoolers, and the Susan Wise Bauer series of books (available here http://www.susanwisebauer.com/books/)

I don't know that these are liberty-minded per se, but I found these after slogging through tons of homeschool resources while specifically avoiding Christian-mindset curricula. Nothing against Christianity, but when my kid's science textbook answers every science question with "Because God made it that way! Isn't God grand?" then that's not acceptable. Math: Saxon Math Homeschool kits History: Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer English: The Well-Trained Mind series by Susan Wise Bauer Be very careful of the Learn Our History series of DVDs that focus on US History. I am a US attorney who has studied deeply our political system, and more often than not these DVDs get it wrong in the worst Statist kind of way. Hope this helps somewhat.

You cannot reason a person out of a position which they did not REASON themselves into in the first place...

I recently discovered that over the past 25 years, many US states have lowered the standards required for a given letter grade. 25 years ago, most high schools were on the following scale: A = 100% to 94% B = 93% to 87% C = 86% to 79% D = 79%-71% F = 70% and below Now, in researching current standards for my kids as they approach high school, the scale turns out to be this: A = 100% to 90% B = 89% to 80% C = 79% to 70% D = 69% to 60% F = 59% or below An additional catch is that whereas 25 years ago, an assignment, quiz, or test that was not turned in on time (or at all) would receive a grade of zero points, today every assignment, quiz, or test must receive a minimum score of 50% -- even if not turned in! Quite shocking. From speaking with my mid-GenX peers with kids in high school, this latter weaker scale has become by far the most prevalent, especially because private college prep schools have to engage in the "race to the bottom" lest their graduates seem like poorer students compared to government school students under the more lenient scale. But hey, now the schools can point to the recalculated grades which formerly were a C+ and now are Bs and say "look, we've improved education scores!!" Of course, this is before we get into grade inflation in which the typical 4.0 for an A has become a 5.0 or 6.0 depending on the "difficulty" of the course. My high school had a VERY few 5.0 classes in which a B was calculated as 4 GPA points in the GPA calculation and an A was 5 points, but my understanding is that there has been an explosion in 5-point and 6-point classes in teh past two decades. This would, however, go a long way toward explaining why the Millennials tend to expect champagne and balloons dropping from the ceiling just for inhaling and exhaling. If I had a dollar for every 45yo parent who said, "I don't get it, my HS kid is honor roll, straight As, does great in school, but has no motivation and thinks she should be handed everything on a silver platter...."