Author: Traditional Logic, Classical Rhetoric. Editor: Classical Teacher magazine. Provost: Memoria College. Podcast: Classical, Et Cetera. Memoria Press
Kentucky, USA
Joined January 2009
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MartinCothran retweeted
The blurring of the distinctions between male and female and man and machine are both simply the latest consequences of an anti-teleological philosophy of nature that has deceptively cloaked itself in the mantle of science since early modernity. More here: claremontreviewofbooks.com/g…
MartinCothran retweeted
Want to teach a 5-year-old perseverance?
Skip the worksheet. Read Katy and the Big Snow.
A little red tractor plows out an entire city, one street at a time. Children understand it immediately.
MartinCothran retweeted
Here is my account of what happened to Scientific American before the latest meltdown, when the wokeness first began to rot this once great institution.
michaelshermer.substack.com/…
MartinCothran retweeted
As I've said many times, to think that AI is genuinely intelligent is like thinking that this is real magic. What these guys do merely simulates the effects of magical or preternatural causes, and what AI does merely simulates the effects of intelligence. And it's able even to simulate intelligence only because things that really are intelligent -- namely people -- have designed it to do so, just as the mechanisms used by Penn and Teller simulate magic only because they were designed to do so.
In both cases, the power to bring about the effects in question ultimately derives from people, not from the gadgets people have made. So, to look with awe upon AI as if it were some higher intelligence more suited to rule us than we are would be every bit as stupid as looking with awe upon the gadgets designed by Penn and Teller as if they had genuine preternatural powers. It is the rankest superstition, and that so many otherwise intelligent people fall for it today shows how extremely degenerate our intellectual culture has become.
MartinCothran retweeted
The study provided some answers. But didn’t change education.
“It’s just astonishing to me that we’re still fighting the same battles."
Read about the history of Project Follow Through.
apmreports.org/story/2026/10…
MartinCothran retweeted
I’m excited to head back to Thomas Aquinas College tomorrow, this time to their New England campus.
The course of study at Thomas Aquinas College (TAC), where there are no majors, is remarkably similar to the course of study at Harvard in the 18th and 19th century.
In the past, when I have posted that in 2026 Thomas Aquinas College is objectively more academically rigorous than modern Harvard, the Internet went insane. My posts about Thomas Aquinas College over the past five years total more than 12 million views.
A Catholic Great Books College with no majors may seem like an experiment, but this is exactly backwards, the modern university is the experiment. And let’s be honest, it’s not going well.
Thomas Aquinas College is the tried and true model. Deep reading, intense discussion, the passing down of a civilization inheritance, all while immersed in the beauty of the faith…If someone on the Internet has a better vision for what higher education should be I want to hear about it!
MartinCothran retweeted
Okay, not only withhold knowledge but withhold instruction on teaching them how to think.
MartinCothran retweeted
Im not shre people realize how terrible math instruction is right now
No drills. No memorization of math facts. No direct instruction, modeling, or practice
Lots of “curiosity” and “exploration” to build “math confidence”
Essentially, kids are left to just figure it out
MartinCothran retweeted
At the end of the day, education has become comfortable playing a quasi-therapeutic role it is poorly suited to do effectively. As this role becomes more central and informs classroom practice, it diminishes a school’s academic purpose and outcomes.
MartinCothran retweeted
If you remove the patty, can you still call it a burger?
If you remove logic, grammar, rhetoric, penmanship, classical languages, religion, philosophy, and civics, can you still call it education?
But this is exactly what mainstream education has done.
MartinCothran retweeted
Expecting middle/high school students to read Homer and Shakespeare isn’t really that outrageous unless the most challenging thing those students read in elementary school was Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Students who regularly encounter complex, rich literature beginning in kindergarten will be much more prepared later in their education for the challenge of reading the greatest texts ever written.
It matters what students are reading in high school, but what they read in elementary school (and earlier) matters just as much.
MartinCothran retweeted
What do you do as a teacher in an era when students don't read outside of class & often struggle to read even in-class??
You can do as the @ncte suggests & "de-center" the text, abandoning reading books altogether & replacing them with short form videos & other dross.
Or you can do as Jaime Johnson does & "re-center" the text, reading a worthy book together as a class. When you do that you can curate the act of reading itself so it becomes a meaningful, rich, empathetic habit for students.
teachlikeachampion.org/blog/…
MartinCothran retweeted
"Education is 100% replacable by AI if education is understood as downloading information. In fact, it can probably do that job much better.
But if education is fundamentally about formation, the cultivation of the right affections, a deep love of God, family, and country, and a relentless pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty, AI doesn't stand a chance. Only inspirational teachers can do that."
— Jeremy Tate @JeremyTate41
MartinCothran retweeted
It's interesting how long it takes to mass-market cultural developments, so that what supreme geniuses were saying in 1600 became the social reality novelists were documenting 300 years later.
MartinCothran retweeted
Happy 100th birthday to Winnie-the-Pooh, the bear who perfectly represents what childhood should be; a season full of innocence and wonder.
MartinCothran retweeted
The Empire suppressed the self-immolation of widows and female infanticide in India and female genital mutilation in Africa. It moderated the disruptive impact of the inevitable arrival of Western modernity upon very unmodern societies in North America and especially Australia. It created regional peace by imposing an overarching imperial authority on multiple, warring peoples—unifying, for example, much of the Indian subcontinent. It promoted a worldwide free market, protected by the Royal Navy, that gave native producers and entrepreneurs in India and West Africa new economic opportunities. It made foreign investment attractive by reducing risk through establishing political stability and the rule of law. Consequently, Australia’s gross domestic product per capita became the highest in the world by 1890, and by 1914 India was the world’s fourth largest textile-producer. The Empire built canals in India, bringing five times as much land under irrigation as the Mughals had in the 18th century. By 1900 it had figured out how to prevent food shortage escalating into famine there and went on to fight disease in tropical Africa. It provided a civil service and judiciary that was generally and extraordinarily incorrupt. It introduced liberal ideas and liberal institutions of a free press and representative government to places that had never known them. New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant the vote to men and women on equal terms, in 1893, and by 1935 electoral democracy had been established in Indian provinces. From May 1940, when France fell, to June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, The British Empire offered Nazi Germany the only military resistance—with the sole exception of Greece. Inspired by the ideal of the Commonwealth, it helped to plan and realise the League of Nations after the First World War and the United Nations after 1945. And it brought up three of the most prosperous and liberal states in the world—Canada, Australia and New Zealand—and gave birth to one more, the United States. Significantly, there is evidence that all of these former members of the British Empire are among the least racist countries on earth.
Read our latest here: nigelbiggar.co.uk/p/empire-a…
MartinCothran retweeted
Ted Williams might be the greatest hitter who ever lived, and he gave the military almost five years of his prime. Twice.
In 1941 he went into the last day of the season hitting .3995, which would have rounded up to .400. His manager offered to sit him so he could keep it. Williams refused, played both games of a doubleheader, went 6 for 8, and finished at .406. Nobody has hit .400 since.
After Pearl Harbor he got a deferment because he was his mother's main support. The press hammered him for it. So in 1942 he enlisted in the Navy's flight program, then went out and won the Triple Crown that same season before reporting.
He missed 1943, 1944 and 1945 entirely. He earned his wings, was commissioned in the Marine Corps, and spent the war training other pilots. He was in Hawaii waiting on combat orders when Japan surrendered.
He came back, won another Triple Crown in 1947, and figured he was done with the military.
He wasn't. In 1952, at 33 years old, the Marines recalled him for Korea.
He flew 39 combat missions in an F9F Panther jet. Some of them were flown as John Glenn's wingman. Glenn later said Williams was one of the best pilots he ever flew with.
In February 1953, on a strike near Pyongyang, his jet was hit by ground fire. His radio went out, his hydraulics went out, and the plane caught fire. Another pilot led him back to base. He couldn't get his landing gear down, so he brought it in on its belly at well over 200 mph, skidded down the runway, and jumped out as it burned.
He was back flying missions the next day.
An ear infection and illness finally ended his tour that summer. He got home in July, walked back into Fenway, and hit .407 with 13 home runs over the rest of the season.
He retired in 1960 with a .344 average and 521 home runs. He homered in his very last at bat.
Give him those five years back and he probably passes 600 easily. He never really complained about it.
In 1952, Ted Williams was the best hitter in baseball. He'd already lost three seasons flying for the Marines in World War II.
Then the Marines recalled him to fly in Korea.
He was 33 years old and at the peak of his career. He went anyway.
Williams flew F9F Panther jets on ground attack missions, diving at enemy troops and supply lines through heavy anti-aircraft fire.
On February 16, 1953, his jet was hit during a strike. It started leaking fuel and caught fire. His radio and hydraulics went out. He couldn't lower his landing gear.
He stayed with the burning plane, nursed it back to an American air base, and slammed it down on its belly at high speed. He jumped out moments before it went up in flames.
The next day, he flew again.
His squadron also had another future legend in it: a Marine pilot named John Glenn. Glenn later said Williams flew as his wingman on about half of his missions.
Williams flew 39 combat missions in Korea before going back to the Red Sox.
One of them became the first American to orbit the earth. The other became the last man to hit .400. And they flew together in Korea.
MartinCothran retweeted
Kenneth Clark’s "Civilisation" (1969) remains one of television’s greatest achievements: a luminous, 13-part journey through Western art, architecture, and ideas from the fall of Rome to the 20th century. Clark’s cultivated yet deeply personal narration pairs with stunning location filming of cathedrals, paintings, and landscapes to show how culture has shaped history. More than a survey of masterpieces, it argues that civilization is a fragile, hard-won achievement worth understanding and defending. Watching it sharpens the eye, expands historical imagination, and offers a rare model of intelligent, humane cultural commentary. Few documentaries have matched its grace clarity.
MartinCothran retweeted
Millions of kids pass through a school system that teaches them they can ignore deadlines, defy authority, neglect their responsibilities, and fail repeatedly without consequence.
Then we send them into society and expect employers, institutions, and the criminal justice system to supply the discipline we lacked the will to impose.