Well, try this out. Refusal to admit kids to college is itself a "culling process". It is usually based on a decision the candidate will not be successful. And all the factors stated go into that decision, too. All sorts of things stand in the way of accumulating a record suggesting likely success in college. Despite that, quality surfaces. Just because Einsten didn't do well in all his courses (they bored him probably involving no creativity), he was thrust forward to a type of success by his peculiar abilities.

I don't quarrel with the idea that school should be more interesting. However, my public schooling happend 50 years ago and I think I can safey say it was pretty boring back then, too. People like me went ahead and succeeded anyway. I think maybe its time to stop defending failure based on the charge that educators fail to make it "interesting enough". I think it is far more likely parents send a child to school without patience or persistence. They've copped out on their responsibility to make the child do some things that don't entertain the child. I mean, the idea that anyone's life is going to be full of interesting stuff is a hilarious myth. 99 percent of us have to slog our way through a pile of crap, and we do it because, well, we like to eat and feel obliged to support our kids. I would strong suggest both parents AND teacher face their responsibility to prepare kids for the life that's OUT there, not some utopian fantasy.

Jim Mork
Cooper


*********************original message*****************************8 The first problem I see is the potential for abuse or misdiagnosis, for lack of a better term. Say you have a kid who's got lousy grades or struggles to earn mediocre grades. Sounds like a good candidate for a vocational program, right? What if instead, the problem was the kid had bad eyesight or a hearing loss and nobody realized it because the parents had no health care and the kid never went to a doctor? Or what if the kid had a learning disability or something along those lines that nobody realized?

I think part of the problem is that much of school work is simply boring and
tedious. Who actually remembers enjoying doing worksheets or answering the
questions at the end of the textbook chapter when they were growing up? I
know I thought it was lame.

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