[Dianna]

During a teacher conference with my son's kindergarten teacher, she commented on his large vocabulary. She repeated something that he had said in which he used the word "lair" and then asked me if he used the word properly because she didn't know what it meant.

What upset me the most, wasn't that she didn't know the word, but that she was so intellectually un-curious that she couldn't even be bothered to look it up.

[tanknetter]

What upset me the most, wasn't that she didn't know the word, but that she was so intellectually un-curious that she couldn't even be bothered to look it up.

At the end of 7th grade my family moved to a new town. The second or third day there I was trying to figure out the spelling of a word during English, and asked the teacher where the dictionaries were. He instantly made me the most-hated kid in the class by loudly pointing out that the new kid had actually asked for the dictionary on his third day, while none of the other kids had bothered to ask for it the entire year.

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What upset me the most, wasn't that she didn't know the word, but that she was so intellectually un-curious that she couldn't even be bothered to look it up.

This is the fatal flaw. There is very little curiosity. When children are very young, say five or six years old, they want to learn everything and they want to know how everything works. At the end of their twelve years of public education, they want to know nothing. It never occurs to them to look something up. We graduate wonderful consumers, people who know how to covet, and people who have no problems obtaining life-long debts. We do not graduate learners. An interesting read is The Dumbest Generation. I'd also recommend Weapons of Mass Instruction. Both are eye-opening.

[Sirius Lee]

Homeschool. Quickly, before it’s too late.

[Reily]

When my daughter was in elementary school her 6th grade teacher thought Saint Patrick's contribution to the world was he brought the potato to Ireland. My daughter who know better came to me and said, ‘Dad you know what stupid thing Mrs So-n-Son said to day?’. It was a year of “huh” coming out of that lady's mouth, but that's the one I remember best.