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My advice to young folks today entering high school is to read everything they can get their hands on.

Reading is the key to learning.

My high school education in the 1970s was a colossal joke (think "Welcome Back Kotter") but reading got me through. As a result, people just assume I have a college education based on how I communicate both written and orally.

As for college, I never went except a few night courses on specific topics that my employer mostly paid for. So zero college debt for me and my income is well above the average of college grads even in my age group.

Lastly, I should mention that the public libraries are still FREE. Since I was about 10 years old, I've had a weekly habit of going to the public library and checking out a stack of books. I did this even when in the military.

Even if I read only a portion of them, I'm getting something out of it. I also like to pull books off the shelves at random. What do you have to lose? If I don't like the book I randomly picked, it just gets returned the next week anyhow. But more often than not, that random book sends me down a new path of learning. That is how I expand my base of knowledge.

Reading is the key to learning.

I quite agree and this is where our schools are failing their students. I taught junior high history but a big part of my job was getting the kids to actually read the texts. I had them for three years and by the end of the 8th grade, most, but not all, actually were reading the textbook.

The move to using the internet/smartboad to teach is not doing the kids any favors. It’s not as if the kids are starved of screen time.

They need to be able to read and I tell them that reading is not just calling out words in your head, but the transfer of ideas from the book into your brain—that’s the whole point of reading.