SAT Reading and Math Scores Show Decline 4379

Agreed.

Oh boy, do we ever agree on this. The current welfare system in the US is designed as a new form of slavery. Once you're in, it's almost impossible to get out. It is a way of keeping the poor mbuttes under thumb.

That is the school's job. Parents can teach ethics (like a good work ethic), morals (subjective as THAT may be), a desire to know, to better oneself, to be a good person. Parents instill the hunger for knowledge, not schools. Schools teach addition, subtraction, and reading skills. One of the reasons my 11 year old is not in college is that while he has the knowledge to be there, and the dimploma, he lacks the social skills. He is brilliant, but he is still an 11 year old boy in every other way. He plays with his Yu-Gi-Oh cards, plays Pokimon on his game boy, splashes around in puddles and catches tadpoles. My wife and I have both seen our share of geniuses who are total social misfits. Now, Jacob's brother Adam is 15 and starting college this year, but he's a horse of a different color. Adam was NEVER a little boy, he's more of an adult than half the people I work with :)

Here I must disagree. All my children have it, and given the number of children I have, this would be a statistical impossibility were it genetic. When one of my children hears about something they don't know, and ask, I tell them "Go look it up". When one of them displays a knowledge of something that should be beyond them, they are praised highly. Other little ones see this and quickly work out that knowledge is a thing to be prized. Children can be molded. Not completely of course, but to an extent. This is what being a parent is, at least for my wife and I. Simply putting clothes on their back, food in their mouths and a roof over their head doesn't cut it. Giving direction, steering them down the right path, instilling certain values, that's what it's about for us.

It's a communal farm life. It was neat in a way, but not my style of living. I am too technically bound for farm life.

I am sure I missed some of it, but I got enough of the flavor. I am a technician, I was from the early ages. I was the reason my parents decided to move the family to the USA. I was always building things, taking apart motors, digging into anything that was technically advanced.

And that's what makes it all so interesting, no?

Whereas I got it from my mother. She never spoon fed me information, she made me find it on my own, but always made the knowing of it something special. I quickly learned that throwing a football a mile wouldn't win points with her, but being able to hold an intelligent discussion on history, scienece, medicine, etc would.

Then I have had 10 unique individuals :))))

Mickey