It's the 2ond paragraph from the end John.

Are you sure he isn't just talking about taking initiative and setting and achieving goals, like the entire rest of the speech was about?

Allen,

You sure can read alot into a couple sentences.
I just don't see where you are coming from.
Are you a Rush L fan?

Mike

Nahhhh, Rush is a big-government neocon marxist/socialist, only he doesn't want welfare for the poor, he only wants it for the military-industrial complex and other politically connected beltway buddies, like the white-shoe boys on Wall Street, etc.

ANYWAY,

Let me elaborate a little bit on my previous accusation that Meliferal was apparently ready to dismiss.

David Farragut, the future Civil War Admiral of the Union Navy, joined the service as a Midshipman at the age of 12. Do you think that he was in school then? Heck no, he QUIT. While still 12 years old, he was given command of a captured British Warship, and successfully brought her back to port as a War Prize.

Questions for you guys: How well do you think our young and talented Mr. Farragut would have fared in our current Prussian-Modeled/Socialized Public School System which would have required him to "stay in school" until the ripe old age of 18? Do you think his ambitions would have remained the same? Do you think his aspirations would have never diminished as he was forced to learn about such important things as Robert Frost Poetry and other God-awful boring crap?

Let's look at another example, shall we?

An exceptionally gifted 16 year-old named Louis Braille developed, mostly on his own, a system reading for the blind. He made a very important contribution to the betterment of our world. His happened in the very early 19th Century.

Questions for you guys: How well do you think our young and talented Mr. Braille would have fared in today's Prussian-Modeled/Socialized Public School System which would have required him to "stay in school" until the ripe old age of 18, in some "special needs" class setting? I would venture to say that reading for the blind might well have taken another 100 years to be invented because a disillusioned and bored-out-of-his-mind Mr. Braille would have been too "busy" with "homework". Homework like reading how to put a condom on a cucumber or learning important things like 2x-xyz = 2xy30-kv7 (no offense intended King Tut)

My point is that we're forcing EVERYONE to learn too much of everything, most of which is boring and uninteresting to most students, and leaving them no time to pursue their own passions and interests.

Carl Sagan was another example. At a very early young age, he went to the Library because he was fascinated about stars. He found a book which told him that stars were extremely large, but very very far away. Would he have had time to develop his passion for Astronomy if he had a backpack full of "homework" which forced him to delve into other subjects that were boring and meaningless to him? Do you see where I'm going with this?

Anyway.............I'm off to work...........

Ummmm....I went to one of the best public schools in my state. Never on any night did I ever have more than an hour and a half of homework at the most, unless I procrastinated on some reasearch paper until the last minute. The thing about giving kids a broad spectrum of things to study in school instead of a narrow one is that it allows them to specialize or pursue the things they're really interested in. If the kids who are good at math and can't stand english want to stop taking English classes, then they can stop taking them if they decide to go to college. I had a general education requirement to take two english classes my freshman year, and they were both easy. I also dislike math, so I took "math for non-math majors" and an intro to computer science class.


And for kids who had part time jobs in high school, there were plenty of garages to work at for kids who wanted to be mechanics. My father, who owns a construction business, allowed kids who wanted to do manual labor work on site for him during the summer. Kids who like politics and political science had model UN or a debate club. There are plenty of opportunities to pursue things you're passionate about outside of school if you so desire, and many kids do. Lastly, if kids can't find a job doing nuclear engineering or bio molecular science part time, there's always tons of books and other sources of information available for young people to learn. Although a lot of learning occurs in the public schools in the span of a normal school day, it doesn't have to stop once the kid leaves.