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Date Posted: 23:26:27 07/18/03 Fri
Author: mvd
Subject: As I said
In reply to: Adilbrand 's message, "Perhaps I am misunderstanding you" on 20:51:05 07/18/03 Fri

As I stated in another post, I am not opposed to exposure to other subjects. I just think that it would be great if after the child is exposed to several different things that he was allowed to sort of pick the ones he likes and the teacher guide him into the ones he's good at.

For the child below, I would say...

loved to read books (excelled at it, even), hated English class, hated math, enjoyed art, hated social studies, hated music, hated gym, and loved science (esp. Dinosaurs and geology).



Give him more access to library time. If he loves to read, English class is probably not going to be a major concern for him because he will learn the rules intuitively. If he hates math, then don't make him take math beyond elementary adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Give him access to dinosaur books and geology. Assign projects to students based upon their interests. Then, when the boy learns that some higher math may be needed for geology, he will be inspired to take it, rather than having it force-fed to him so that he is left asking "why?" Gym, frankly, is a waste of time. Every kid I ever knew got plenty of excercise without gym class, and the kids that didn't certainly didn't benefit from being made to do jumping jacks and aerobics for an hour two days a week. If a kid doesn't like it, why make him do it? He will only learn to rebel, act up, and question why the heck everyone is forcing him to do things he doesn't like. The same goes for social studies. Doubtless, through reading on his own, and through interaction with his own kind, he will learn plenty about social interaction.

The Mountaineer hinted that it was good to be force-fed this stuff, but many times kids (especially in junior high and high school) will simply find creative and subversive ways to avoid doing any of it. (I knew some very clever honor roll students that cheated their way through higher level chemistry and other classes. It was very common, actually.) Such kids will never learn anything because, quite frankly, they never cared to begin with. Now, if a teacher had recognized early on what a student truly cared about and helped that student to find resources and things he was interested in, don't you think that would be better than hoping he will pass the tests in subjects he hates and turning a blind eye to all the cheating that goes on?

I don't know. This just my thinking. It may be wrong.

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