Those are all good points. I agree that boys, and often girls, too, would benefit from education that teaches them to do something useful. Fixing an air conditioner, for example, would be more valuable to me than all the Spanish literature I've studied :-).
We live in a society that emphasizes "schooling" rather than "learning" or "education." I find that makes it difficult to focus on what my children really want to learn and might need to know (for real life), because we also have to consider what the state wants them to be doing now, and what colleges will want them to know and have done for admission. While it's true that college is not always valuable for a student, I want them to have the opportunity, if they choose to pursue it!
I like your suggestion about creative writing. My oldest daughter does a great deal of that, and it definitely develops skills. However, it's also useful to do persuasive and expository writing -- giving facts about things, expressing and opinions and reasons. Free Republic gives us all opportunities for reading and writing of this kind :-).
Regarding literature, I agree that much of what is taught in school is pointless at that time in life, and in that situation. Most of the world's great literature is aimed at willing adults, not incarcerated 15-year-olds. When a person wants Shakespeare in his life (or Dickens, Hardy, Tolstoy, etc.) those books are available in the library, along with the information the reader needs to help him understand it, if he finds it difficult.
This is what people (of any age) will do when they WANT to read and understand something, instead of being forced to. For example, I taught myself to read French in college (although my efforts to speak it are catastrophic), because I wanted to read "Cyrano de Bergerac" in the original.
I have never been interested in literature. I'd rather write something worth reading myself than read what people read hundreds of years ago. I think teaching in the modern era should be updated with modern subjects. At the same time, sadly, it seems like efforts to take that advice wind up in analysis of rap songs and the like, which I'm not sure is an improvement.
What's great about Free Republic in this regard is that it gives people an outlet for their interest in persuasive writing on subjects that its users are passionately interested in.
I think that's the best way to learn. It might be something worth sharing with older children as they try to grapple with related skills.
The question is how to passionately interest a child in something nowadays. Our culture seems to oppose passion about anything and I find the curious lack of ethusiasm in today's kids - even the good ones - unnerving and depressing.
Have you faced that problem and how do you personally deal with it?
D
Forcing antiquated, uninteresting books on captive teenagers leaves such a bad taste in the mouth as to ensure that most of them will never pick up a book again.
Reading should be a joy.