I like the idea of doing something different with teenagers as well. I’m not anti-school, and I think things like drama and music can certainly be beneficial group activities that a school presents, as well as sports, but I think students spend too much time outside of those activities worrying about who they are/should be dating, how they measure up to others, etc. Taking them out of that closed in world might help break down some of this pressure to conform and to be like the ‘popular’ kids.

It cost money to educate this way, but I cannot believe that a group of intelligent people could not sit down and devise a way for this sort of plan to work that would not only be effective, but would be fiscally possible. People can be-little homeschooling or privatized education all they want, but those programs have come a long way over the years. By and large they are networks of people trying to broaden the educational possibilities for their kids while trying to do so in a safer environment. The public schools need to take a cue from them and make some well past due changes.

Instead of starting back to school most would start work or apprenticeship programs - but not be placed in them. Again, it would be up to the kid to find a placement. For those kids who do show academic skills let them compete for scholarships to continue their education. All kids should be paid, but like a dollar an hour or even less, and even scholarship kids should get something too.

If a kid didn’t make an effort to get a job, apprenticeship, or scholarship he or she would get zip. Now society would have to make plenty of places for them so with some effort every kid could find a position.

Then after awhile tell working kids they can have time off for hour or two of classes in the late afternoon. If they pass they can continue to take the class, if they don’t, they can’t go back. As the kids get old offer more opportunities to get back into the academic track - but even then require earning a scholarship or making the kid pay for his classes.

All classes should go at a steady fast pace and anyone that is disruptive or can’t keep up will be kicked out. Sure, you could have some classes for slightly slower learners, but there should be no babysitting.

We have invented a tremendously expensive babysitting system. Not only that, but we keep pounding our heads trying to invent one system that works for all kinds of kids.

Tell kids when they start kindergarten that if they study hard they might get to be academic type people. Other than that keep telling them they need to find out what they like to do and offer them opportunities to test out different kinds of activities. Really get into the science of predicting what a person will be skilled to do and also enjoy doing it.

Also, instead of going to fun places on field trips, take the kids to see people working, and every year take the kids to see a prison or jail.

I think if kids had to work for every coke or Wii cartridge they might find some drive within themselves.

I think I mainly wasted my youth trying to avoid having to do anything. I didn’t settle down to business until I got married at twenty-five, and I was thirty-three when I finished college. Most of those school hours from 7th grade through early college years were wasted on me.

I can’t blame them for not being interested. I don’t remember being much interested in school myself. I remember just beginning to be interested in some things as we learned about them but then the teacher decided we’d learned enough of that and never came back to it. It was frustrating, but we never disrespected the teachers.

Once kids reach upper primary, they seem to have lost that never-ending curiosity of how things work and why things are the way they are and they seem to have dropped into an ‘I’m not gonna do it’ response to life. Maybe it’s because there’s so much happening in their bodies that they’re just barely treading water. Or maybe it’s because they’re brains are going through another massive restructuring. Who knows.

What I do know after 27 years teaching them is that a significant proportion of teens don’t do as well as they should in the school system. When I was that age, I found a lot more to interest me in high school than I did in primary school - the academic side, I mean - as we seemed to spend a bit longer on each topic and delve a bit deeper, ask deeper questions. But there was a whole new social world opening up for me too that academia took a poor second place.

About the only thing kids seem to learn in schools is social skills - and not even that well. Today I lost the battle with a child. He’s fourteen, perpetually grubby, always in the middle of whatever altercation is around and constantly sure that nothing he does or tries will make a difference to the way his life is. Today was his last day at my school. He’s moving to an island that has a small generally low socio-economic population and the nearest high school is over an hour by boat - the stats are not in his favour.

Of course there are the exceptions. There are still kids out there who will hear a dry 60 minute lecture on the human resource manager’s role in industrial relations and still be able to ask, ‘but what if …?’.

I’d love to be the teacher who inspires kids to learn, to question, to want to know and sometimes I do. Every few years, there’s a gem of a kid who simply can’t get enough information into their brains, whose enthusiasm for knowledge and life makes struggling with the others worthwhile. You never know when another interested kid will come along.