Consider This...Podcast

Consider This...Podcast is produced by the Wilberforce School, a classical Christian school, and it plays like one long conversation between that school and its families. The subjects are ordinary and pressing: discipline, reading, bedtimes, screens, and what a school is actually for. Faith runs through all of it instead of sitting in its own segment. In Parenting in an Age of Distraction, the approach to a child's misbehavior has three steps. First comes a question about what was happening in the child's heart, perhaps hunger or irritability. Then comes a look at what God's word says, and then a plan for doing better next time. The lower school supports this with a monthly habit, such as honesty or respect, each tied to a Bible verse that children memorize before they can read it. The same episode closes with homely tips, including apologizing to one's family when a reset is needed and a suggestion to try the Mick Jagger song. Science gets a direct hearing. Rigorous Science in the Classical World pushes back on the idea, common in faith communities, that science and faith are opposed. Its faculty describe scientific findings as true for now and open to revision, and they cite a meta-analysis that knocked down the claim that red wine is good for you. They set that humility against their certainty about the Bible, and the school reports that most of its graduates so far have pursued STEM degrees and careers. Liturgy gets its own episode. The episode with Preston Atwood, an author and head of school, starts from James Smith's idea in You Are What You Love that people learn what they love through practice. A prayer of Thomas Aquinas, said before a seventh grade history class, asks for thoroughness and charm, and the students giggle at the idea of praying for charm. Ingredients for a Successful School Day, hosted by Jenna Axelson with Sarah Tink introduced as the resident expert, stays practical: sleep, food, screen time, and reading aloud to children even after they can read on their own. A guest there admits to starting a book too early and hearing afterward that the children were simply too young for it. The bluntest voice belongs to Dr. Sachs, whose evening talk to parents on culture and parenting is included as a recording. He tells parents who inspect phones by hand that they are years behind, because the apps children install are built to stay hidden, some disguised as calculators. He ends by pointing to strong bonds between generations in Orthodox Christian communities in Greece and Russia and contrasts them with what he calls a post-Christian United States. The feed also carries at least one episode from another program. Princeton Graduate Unhinged by a Five-Year Old is a Base Camp Live conversation in which host Davies Owens talks with an old friend, Hal Whitman, about telling new parents that a school is aiming at human flourishing instead of college prep, and argues that students end up better prepared for college anyway. What ties the feed together is a school explaining its reasons out loud to the parents who share the work.