School. My son is Failing some subjects. Should I worry?

reply to post by Pedro4077


So long as he knows how to wield a pickaxe he'll be fine working in the strip mine ..... And I guess no drug dealer or pickpocket really needs to be able to add up their takings.

On the other hand, the ability to learn and remember and understand things will set him up for 1001 other jobs.

All depends on what you want him to achieve in life.?

If he can't find New York or Iraq on a map I'd be worried.

Nope...if your son plans on doing nothing with his life then he might as well drop out now and make room for people who want what little KNOWLEDGE they offer is schools nowadays...Seriously, its a shame you don't realize how silly you made yourself look by questioning the value of being educated past the three R's. Granted, some of that info seems pointless...until you get to College or University and realize that you only scraped the surface in grade school. He'll use some geometry in Electronics, for instance. If more people actually took interest in world affairs and history, we wouldn't be in the state of disarray we currently are. To blindly say your son might not benefit from an education is basically condemning him to a life of being taken advantage of by people who understand certain concepts and facts...I'm trying to help you understand...please don't take this as an assault on your freedom and liberty. I have met no one in my field without a HS and College diploma...even now in today's world a college education is useless unless its in a very specific area of study...you need a bit of a walk IRL. Maybe stop listening to TV and Mass Media in general...they tend to cloud judgement and give people a false sense of Reality...

Our knowledge and wisdom has been hard won, chaos and ignorance are ever just a disaster away. The point is that you should be wanting your son to get a job where he could put history or geometery to good use. If his aspirations are to live in your basement and flip burgers till the end of his days you need to break out a can of butt whoop.

Originally posted by MsAphrodite
Your son needs to learn to develop critical thinking skills. This is the point of education.

It's actually the total opposite. They don't want you to think critically. The purpose of school is to indoctrinate kids to become working, tax-paying 9 to 5 drones, nothing more.

Listen here mate

Children tends to evolve differently, so because he has troubles about this subject now, wont mean i has the same problems later in life. We all grow in our own speed and has our own talents and abilities. Don't force your kid because it might push him even further away ! Some might learn it better when they get older and take classes, others might never need it because they have completely different lines of work.

So let him take steps but don't push - he will make it when he needs it

Hey OP!

Don't stress too much, I was a failure at school.....but it doesn't mean he doesn't love to learn.

I wasn't given any details, no who, what, why and when.....I craved seeing how things progressed

For example, I always wanted to know what led up to a conflict and how it effected the world and local population, it was the teachers who didn't have the answers so it killed my motivation. Reading your OP, it seems the curiculum in Austrailia is much more indepth then what we were taught....Ghangis Kahn was propably mentioned once...

I remember reading something that said only 1/3 of children learn well in schools.

Also, take into consideration what goes on at home, I had a very hostile home life so school was my escape.....I was more relaxed and took advantage of the fact I could mouth off and kick back.

OP, your son will not use all the information he learns. You don't attend school to exclusively learn facts or formulas, you're also learning to persevere at something you may not like - do you like every single aspect of your job? I sure don't. You're also learning to absorb material while being time-constrained, think critically, fail and try again, compare your world to others, see a bigger picture...the list goes on and on. It's not all academic.

Speaking from experience (and in the hopes of encouraging your son) I can tell you that there were a few subjects I disliked in school but returned to later in life with a lot of interest. Years later I vaguely remembered learning about something, I then looked it up and it became a passion. You won't like everything you study but you won't know that until you are exposed to it.

reply to post by Pedro4077


It really depends. Knowing all those extra things give you much knowledge that will make you a more interesting person when you engage in a conversation. Other than that I really have not used much of the things i learned in college. I cannot remember the last time I had to use differentials or had to use assembly language. It is fun stuff to know once you have all your needs met and you are on your quest for more knowledge since you have to find something to do when you are not making a living.

I find that many things in school are pointless if they are not part of your end goal.

When I was in college the only thing that was standing between me and my degree was a stupid section V class. I had to take some arts class or something. Huge waste of time and literally pointless. Had I not taken it i would have not received my degree. The funny thing is I was already working in my field of study without the degree, I just got it out of principle.

If i were you I would talk it out with your son and see what he wants. If he does not know tell him to jump through the hoops put in front of him till he knows what he wants to do. Either that or tell him that school is the equivalent of you working. My father pretty much told me my only job in life when I lived at home was to get good grades. If i didn't want to be in school i either needed to get a job or move out. I just went to school till i figured out what i wanted to do. It just took me so long to figure it out that i ended up finishing a degree

Originally posted by Pedro4077
My son will be 15 soon. I have been teaching him to drive, fence, lay concrete, weld ect. He will most likely never be out of work. He has a head start on the others who obsess about perfect grades.

What if he does those things with you now because he's young and being mentored by you, and that works for him at the moment? What if he wants to take his life in a completely different direction in 10, 15 years? Don't you want him to have those options? IMO that's what education gives you...options.

reply to post by Pedro4077


Supposedly, he is being taught

HOW TO LEARN

and more importantly,

HOW TO THINK.

To much of the latter is HOW TO THINK LIKE THE PUPPET MASTERS WANT YOU TO THINK.

However, hopefully, there's also some training in critical thinking skills.

And, he's being EXPOSED to a lot of material that educators THINK is what EDUCATED FOLKS know about, understand, can discuss intelligently.

And

that ALL THAT STUFF

IS

USEFUL

when confronted by unknown challenges requiring bright problem-solving skills . . . things that are impossible to train for specifically because much of what adults will experience over the course of their lives, did not exist or occur during their teachers' years of training.

imho, education is never wasted if the person is thoughtful and uses it all as a background, a substrate on which to perceive the world and problem solve toward better living and relationships.

Then there's the whole business of warehousing millions of youth in a protracted educational process to keep them off the streets and out of the elite's hair until they can exterminate them 'properly' a la UN Agenda 21. But that's another topic.

yeah

take him out of school, and teach him the illuminati are after him

good plan

reply to post by SeenAlot


I learned everything there from common people after I had left school. That is a creation of experience not schooling. I did learn reasoning in school but I am disappointed that my daughters weren't taught reasoning in school, everything was with a calculator and just plugging in data into formulas without trying to understand the formulas. Being the fact that I was always in advanced classes, maybe I never realized that they may not have been teaching reasoning in the other classes when I went to school.

Do you care if he works at mcdonalds the rest of his life?

Your son needs to learn these things because failure to do so results in a failure in class. Getting accustomed to failing is not a good habit to develop. You personally may not need to know about geometry and various other subjects but a lot of opportunities could be lost with out that knowledge. Lots of people dont like to study what they deem to be useless. It could be argued that my 90% of the work I do at my job is useless but I still gotta do it. On a side note Im Canadian and most of my history classes revolved around the BNA act, I sure wish they taught me about Genghis Khan instead.

earlier school is about finding the area that both your kid is good at, and that he finds if not enjoyable, than at least tolerable..this will help him later in life when he/she is deciding what career path. Also school is trying to teach your kid how to think.
Granted, how many wives Khan had may not help him in some future investment broker job or whatnot, but it may give him the seed that all stories have complex histories that should be noted in order to better understand life now and their neighbor. that sort of thing.

Finally, you do your kid an injustice. You don't see the point. Children mirror their parents overall outlook..and is failing classes/doesn't see the point. What are -you- teaching your child?

Get him excited about some trivial fact. don't ask when you would ever use whatever that is..instead, challenge him and yourself as to what career path would come across that.
Angles? how about designing satellites, or creating some great video game engine (kids dream about being a vid game developer..he might make the next skyrim when he is older, and some of the coding may require him to know square roots, angles, etc...make it real for him)

and stop being lazy minded yourself! If you want to connect with him, why not take some college course on anything...do homework at the same time, etc..chat about teachers, but show your excitment about the course your taking, even the stupid assignments


If you want your son to have the best possible chance at being in a field he is happy with and good at, then you need to change his, and your, attitude about education. the three R's are great, if you want to be a butter churner in the 1800s

This information is pointless if you dont want to go to college n just want to work at taco bell... But if he is learning this stuff now (geometry) than he is in a more advanced class. If its too hard for him tell him to go back to algebra. Cause Geometry is hard....

Originally posted by Pedro4077
For 3 years I worked in a Tile Factory. Many of the workers there were highly educated University Gaduates. Guess What - their certificates meant nothing when you have 500 people applying for the same job.

Im sure having that certificate was a benefit over those that didnt when HR was looking over the resumes.

reply to post by Pedro4077


I wouldn't worry too much about it. So long as he can read and write, and use a computer, that's all that really matters. I think people should strive to learn everything they can, but I don't think being forced to learn trivial information is the right way to go about it. I think it breeds contempt in kids for education and teachers. It did for me, anyway, until I left school and started to study topics I was actually interested in and found out that learning can be fun if you're allowed to investigate things you want to.

His real education won't even begin until he leaves that conditioning camp anyway and enters the world outside. All you can really do his prepare him for the shock of realizing that school didn't even come close to introducing him to the troubles and challenges of human life and struggle on earth. Be the best parent you can be - what else can you do? If you do that job even half well (that's not hard if you love him), your son will do the rest on his own, and in his own time Not what most parents want to hear, but it's a fact of life that we all forget as we get older; that kids find their own way in the world no matter how hard you try to steer them. That sometimes means they learn some hard lessons on their own, but that's the way it should be! When it comes to knowledge, there's no substitute for experience.

Much of the stuff he learns seems pointless. Once you learn the three R's what is the point of all the useless information.

reply to post by Pedro4077

One of the concerns I have is due to the fact that children pick up attitudes of their parent(s), and if you feel that his education is meaningless, he will also. I am not trying to be judgmental, but a parent's positive attitude towards life, school and other issues goes a long way towards success in a child. Remember that they are unfinished products, and need to be guided in a positive way. One of the first things I would do is have YOU go and talk to his educator(s), and try to ascertain what the problem seems to be. It may be more than just not reciting facts or mastering geometry. He may have a learning disability, or there may be some social situation in school that is bothering him. Parents are usually the last to find out such things.
Whatever you do, PLEASE be positive about his education. Study after study have shown that a positive attitude towards a child;s education results in a much more favorable outcome. In addition, when teachers believe that the parent is taking a positive role, they are much more likely to feel that their efforts are worthwhile. Teachers are human too, although I know some don't believe that. lol!

World knowledge can help someone relate in intelligent society. As a photographer with high end clients, having world knowledge has been extremely helpful to me. So look at it this way...

Be smart, know the world, understand the past to create the future.

OR..

Grow up to be Honey Boo Boo.