I shoveled many tons of chicken poop and toted thousands of bags of potatos in my HS days. I also cropped tobacco. Most kids I see today won’t even consider working that hard.
Kids will do a lot more than we think if they don’t have any choice. After doing this kind of work for the summer they would be a lot more motivated to be attentive in school.
Yep, I mowed a ton of lawns as a kid, and when I was 12, started working on a farm, haying. By the time I was 14, I worked my way up to driving the tractor, mowing, tedding and baling the hay. Harvestingt he corn, too, with a single-row harvester. I was thrilled to make more money for easier work than loading the bales onto the trailer, then loading them into the barn. I also got to drive on the roads with the farm license. At 15, I was driving a dump truck and running a backhoe.
Some days I miss being a kid.