successful children

This is the title of a book I just picked up.  I Love it!  It is all about how academics may have very little to do with why kids are successful.  It is actually home experiences, personality, etc that guide how successful children can be.  The author provides lots of study results to prove his points.  I know data and studies can be manipulated to prove any point, but at the same time, I believe there is truth to what he is saying anyway and he has the studies to prove it.  It isn't just about pick yourself up by the boot straps and make a life for yourself, no matter what your past has been.  It is about how past experiences can really damage a person and that it is important to recognize this and care to it, in order to help kids succeed in school and life.  We are so consumed with test scores.  I just had one of my bosses say to me that he saw on the news where we are losing ground in the world...for example, years ago we would have been able to just get (whoever that man is) from Russia but now we are not (feared or respected enough, I guess is what he was saying) to have them just hand him over.  So what he is telling me is that he wants the U.S. to have power and that comes from good test scores or the way we educate kids....well I don't agree with that at all (guess that fits in with my previous blog of needing to leave this system). 

The reason the U.S. has lost respect is because we do some really dumb-a** things in terms of world activities.  We don't care as much about people (as maybe we did back during WWII, and did things militarily for the right reasons ??etc.), but we do care about being number one...well nothing good comes of greed and power...I have seen that up front.  So...if we have lost respect and (power), maybe it is because we don't handle things the right way, outside of education.  Education is a great target for what is wrong with our country...it basically has no one to defend it and the people who work for it, for the most part, care about kids, so it is the number one blame to all of the ills-plus teachers get summers off-they need it....can you imagine working with kids non-stop seven hours a day for 10 months and if you ask me...more occupations should have more time off-like Europe.  We don't enjoy our time in the U.S.

Anyway....I started out writing about this great book about caring about the whole child in education (not just the test scores or A students) and I ended up venting about one quick comment made....wow.....still waters run deep....oh well....needed to get it out and I better make sure I keep my filter in.