The Poor Scholar's Soliloquy

Very good article. The boy can't necessarily remember facts about presidents or states, he might not get why it's important to do math problems that have no relevance to his life, but he has a lot of common sense and is obviously smart besides those things. Look at the math problem that they talked about, he has to be pretty smart and think more abstract if he realized in the math problem they didn't say how the telephone pole landed. Most students would think, "ok, I add then subtract, not a problem." They wouldn't think twice about it. He can do the problems, he just doesn't see why he should. Why measure a road with a telephone pole. He can relate and see the relevance when adding miles or telling a farmer how much their animal stock cost, other than that, why worry about it. It seems that if it doesn't affect him or someone else, he doesn't want to do it. He spent hours after school trying to learn the constitution because he wanted to be a good citizen, but what he really wanted to do was help clean up a playground for other children. He thinks he's not smart because he does badly in school, he has bad grades, and the teachers don't support him. For example the diesel experiment in class, the teacher didn't even give him a chance. They judged him before he even spoke. Just because a students does badly on tests, doesn't mean he isn't intelligent! The problems in this article are still the same as now; the idea is still useful even though this is an older article. The article is from the 1940s. It is timeless.

This is a very important article to keep in mind because this is something that happens all the time. A student might be able to do the work but doesn't want to, doesn't see relevance in doing it. Maybe it's just not their subject! I think in this article, he would excel in other shop classes like automotive or something along those lines. Now a days i don't think he should quit school because there isn't as many opportunities to do well without a diploma. In the 1940s there were a lot more jobs available to do with out a high school diploma.