| In a perfect world, school curriculum would include | | | | different expectations. Over the course of their |
| interesting, relevant and useful lessons that would | | | | school-age years, kids will be exposed to great, good, |
| inspire students to learn, develop and seek more | | | | fair and poor teachers. Learning to cope with the |
| education. | | | | weak ones may, ultimately, teach them more than |
| But, alas, we live on Earth where perfect exists only in | | | | what they learn from the strong ones. It's the Knight |
| our imagination. As anyone who has ever been to | | | | effect. Legendary (and controversial) basketball coach |
| school knows, a lot of what's taught there is boring, | | | | Bobby Knight was so difficult to play for that, after |
| irrelevant and useless. | | | | dealing with him, his players could work with anyone. |
| The result? Kids hate school. They hate it so much | | | | 2. Smart students adapt to their classmates. In our |
| they quit. In the United States, 7,000 kids drop out of | | | | public schools, kids are randomly thrown together into |
| school each day. That's one every nine seconds. One | | | | incredibly diverse clusters. I'm always amazed at how |
| out of four American high school freshmen won't | | | | well my socially successful students adjust to the |
| graduate with his or her class. When you consider their | | | | idiosyncratic propensities of their peers. Again, perfect |
| frustration with our flawed educational system, it's | | | | classmates are nice, but learning how to deal with the |
| understandable. | | | | exasperating ones may spur more growth. |
| Understandable but still regrettable. Because as | | | | 3. Strong all-around students - and, right or wrong, kids |
| twisted and irrational as school can be, it's still good. It's | | | | can't get into college without being sound in all subjects |
| still important. It's still valuable. Getting a diploma and | | | | - must adapt to their different courses' requirements. |
| getting a degree will always be better than not getting | | | | Some kids are math/science kids. Others are English |
| it. | | | | social science kids. But the best students are |
| The reason, although easy to understand, is just not | | | | industrious, and that enables them to adapt and make |
| communicated to kids as much as it should be - that | | | | the grade in any class, from art to P.E. |
| battling their way through our imperfect schools | | | | 4. Tough students gut it out and adapt to the lousy |
| inadvertently prepares them to battle their way around | | | | physical conditions in which they're supposed to learn. |
| our imperfect planet. | | | | They have to endure uncomfortable chairs in crowded, |
| Obviously, schools won't promote this. "As bad as we | | | | too hot or too cold classrooms. Too often, their |
| may be, stick it out because we're preparing you for | | | | bathrooms are disgusting and their campuses are ugly. |
| reality." Yet it's true. Education, sometimes in spite of | | | | The working conditions at most fast food restaurants |
| itself, works. For example, it reinforces Darwin's major | | | | are better than the learning conditions at most public |
| point: Adapt or die! Our less than ideal schools | | | | schools. |
| unintentionally teach students how to adapt in four | | | | Think of the thirteen years of California public |
| ways: | | | | education as boot camp for life, because that's pretty |
| 1. Successful students learn how to adapt to different | | | | much what it has become. (This is called seeing the |
| teachers with different styles, different rules and | | | | glass as half full). |