What questions should you be considering when evaluating colleges today? What are some of the myths and realities surrounding degrees and careers and where those lead? What kinds of skills should they learn that will really stick with them and push them toward leadership positions? College president Ben Merkle helps answer these questions for you and your family on this episode of BaseCamp Live.

Have you ever wondered why we do school as K-12? Why not 2-14? And college is 13th grade? Who made up all these rules and are they even right for your kids? Stay tuned for a thought provoking conversation on the topic…

Imagine being in graduate school and discovering a large portion of what you learned in high school and college was factually and historically wrong… and that you had been denied critical knowledge that would literally change how you see the world and want to raise your children. That is the story of my guest today, George Grant. What he found redirected his vision of what he wanted for his children, and is helpful for anyone raising up the next generation.

The word “beauty” has gotten a bad rap these days. Modern folks generally toss it aside as an irrelevant and impractical thing, relegated to something soft and impractical, best for little girls having tea parties. Even the phrase “Truth, Goodness and Beauty” rank orders beauty as a distant third. Steve Turley defends beauty as essential to how we and our children rightly see God and the world around them. He insists we must recover these transcendent values in order to prevent the dehumanizing tendency in modern education and renew the cultivation of virtue in our students.

Living and learning in the midst of the New York City is both exhilarating and profoundly challenging as the culture hits with full force. College President Greg Thornbury’s vision for his school and for students today is essential for anyone raising the next generation, no matter where you live.

It isn’t easy to raise a girl today with so many competing voices in our culture, not to mention in our Christian circles. If you are involved in raising a girl today, you don’t want to miss this interview with Bekah Merkle.

We’ve all wondered at some point…why do students have to wear uniforms? Does having to conform somehow damage their individuality, or does it actually enhance it? Yes, requiring uniforms does make life easier on school mornings, but is there more to it than that? What if the simple act of wearing a uniform leads to greater personality development, better leadership skills, and the joy of being a part of something bigger than themselves? Explore these ideas with us as Davies interviews Rod Gilbert, Headmaster for Regents School of Austin.

Calculus, computer programming, robotics, STEM classes are all assumed to be the “right choice” for being ready for the jobs of tomorrow. But Latin? That isn’t even a science! And wouldn’t Spanish or Mandarin Chinese be better for a language? Tim Griffith will surprise you with some of the reasons why Latin is essential for any student or adult today to be real world ready.

Tough as nails Colonel George Bristol has spent 38 years in intense combat missions as a United States Marine in Force Reconnaissance and Special Ops in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, the Balkans, and most recently in Benghazi. He has had a career of training up young soldiers to lead courageously into unmentionable dark corners of the world. A year ago he retired and set aside invitations with some of the top civilian and military organizations to join a small effort to raise kids to be respectful, responsible, resilient… what he learned and is doing now can impact your kids as well.

Propaganda is dangerous stuff. Terrorists and dictators use it but so do marketers, and even schools and universities. It is effective because it most often is subtle. Like fish in water, everyone from media and politicians to educational institutions are immersed in a culture with certain assumptions. Ben Brandon teaches in a K-12 classical Christian school as well as at a state university getting a bird’s eye view of what students today are hearing and thinking. His effort to counter the cultural propaganda of the day is compelling and practical for those raising the next generation.