First of all, I HATED macaroni art. Getting glue all over my hands was not my idea of fun.
Second, Jim; Loose the attitude. When the school system can teach me more about physics and history than I learn playing a space game, or in a few hours of argument among peers, is when they have the right to tell me to sit down and study.
Which is soemthing I haven't had to do, given that our school system is pathetic and utterly unchallenging. I've always enjoyed the flustered looks I get when I turn my math work in before the teacher even finishes explaining and doing the sample problems, and without any written down "problem solving". I'm sorry that I'm not a goddamn vegatable like the rest of your students, but don't yell at me for it. This latest school, I've had some genuinely good teachers. I've learned some stuff. Yet
most of it pales against what I've learned on my own. More Homework? So, more time uselessly going over something I understood the first 5 times you 'explained' it?
Third; Most of the learning problems of highschool lstudents can be attributed to a combination of poor parenting, poor schooling, and a environment loaded full of
crap, like most of the rap these kids listen to, with schooling being the foremost issue. They're being babied to the point of uselessness, and most schools aren't willing to do anything more. When I moved to Texas after attending a Magnet School in Florida (N.B. Cook's School of the Performing Arts), I was a good two to three grade levels in advance of everyone. Most of my former class mates would have been able to be placed in 'advanced placement' classes, simply because the school we went to actually taught us, and fostered our intellectual and creative abilities isntead of supressing them with mind numbing repetative learning and below level workloads.
Edit:Sorry to anyone else for the RAAAAAEEEEGGGG, although I guess some of what I talked about was on topic