You can be whatever you want to be…BULL

   Did your mother tell you, you can be anything you want if you put your mind to it? Mine did. I think it has to do with those rose colored glasses our parents see their children through. You know, the ones that make them think their kids are the cutest and best. Well, let me tell you, sooner or later those kids grow up and have to survive in the real world without mom.

   “No child left behind”  Sounds good doesn’t it? After all shouldn’t every child be treated the same? Shouldn’t every child go to college? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all 300,000,000 of us Americans were either college graduates or future college graduates? But wait… Who’s going to work on your cars? Pave your streets? Drive the taxi? Paint the houses? Collect the garbage? The truth is, “No child left behind” really means no child excels. It really means, lets all be average. The hard cold facts are, that children have different learning capabilities. We aren’t all cut out to be doctors or lawyers.

   I coached youth sports for 21 years, and the biggest lesson I learned was  that I couldn’t treat all the kids the same. I realized after a couple tough years, that I had to take advantage of what each of those kids brought to the table. Let’s look at soccer. You got em. You can’t cut em. You gotta play em. By the third practice, you have a good enough Idea of skill level to divide them up into two teams and let them scrimmage. Don’t bother them. Just let them play. The defensive minded players will gravitate automatically to defense. The offensive players will gravitate to the offense. Then you’ll have the ones who are all over the place. Those are your midfielders. Once you’ve figured out where they need to play, then you better figure out which ones are going to help you and which are going to hurt you. Once you do that you can place them in position to make the most of their talents.

   By the 9th grade you can pretty much separate  out the kids that are college material from the ones that are destined to be manual laborers. So take what the child brings to the table and expand upon it. Place them in schools according to ability in the 9th grade. Put these kids in an atmosphere where they can be successful. I can tell you from personal experience that theirs nothing more frustrating than sitting next to someone a lot smarter than you. Lets face the realities of life, kids drop out of school because they can’t compete. Most youth soccer leagues have multiple under 6 teams. The league I coached in usually had about eight. By the time you got to under 19 soccer, you were struggling to find enough kids to have one. The kids that can’t compete drop out. That’s a hard cold fact of life.

   Let the smarter children, as well as the less smart children be all they can be. Do not hold one group of kids back so the others can keep up. Teach kids according to their ability. I promise, the cream always rises to the top.

   Why in the world would you move on to algebra before a child grasps basic arithmetic? Why would you try to teach a child to break down a sentence, when you’ve not taught him to read? Guess what. It’s not working people. I don’t care how much you push barely get by Joe, he’s never going to keep up with straight A Johnny unless you put him in a position more Identifiable with his abilities.

   Divide these children according to ability. Teach them what they need to be successful. Get businesses involved in education. Have apprenticeships for high school kids.  Teach those that aren’t as fortunate the basic reading, writing and arithmetic. But also teach them a trade. Don’t keep sending them out into the real world unlearned and unskilled. You aren’t helping anyone.

Recommended reading this month: Flags Of Our Fathers by James Bradley

Have a good un

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