SAT Reading and Math Scores Show Decline 4378

Oh no, I did not simply mean book learning. I meant ALL learning. I grew up in Brooklyn, where I met a LOT of people who had little in the way of book learning, but they had a ton of what was referred to as "street smarts". Of course, while many started out poor, none of them stayed that way for very long. I will be teh LAST person on earth to tout the heroics of book learning. I graduated high school at the end of a boot at age 16 with a 1.7 GPA. Everything I have learned from that point on came from a desire to know. The most important thing a parent can teach a child is not the 3 Rs, it is to instill in them the desire to be better today than you were yesterday, to WANT to know, to WANT to improve your lot in life.

Ever onward, ever upward

I was born on a Kibutz dear. I lived there until I was 8, and then my parents emmigrated to the US (we were able to get a visa because my mother was a Holocaust survivor). I spent every summer on a farm in Pennsylvania, I know what farm like is life. I also know that it isn't where you grew up, but who raised you. I don't care if you grew up in an igloo, SOMEONE instilled in you the desire to know. My children, when realizing that they are lacking in information on a subject, will run to their computer, and immediately research it. They do this not to be better than someone else, not because I make them, but because my wife (mostly) and I (when I am around) have instilled in them the desire to know.

Mickey