> Anyway, 7-year-olds do not actually have an anti-authoritarian streak; they crave the attention, acceptance, and approval of their parents and teachers. FUCK

> Anyway, 7-year-olds do not actually have an anti-authoritarian streak; they crave the attention, acceptance, and approval of their parents and teachers. FUCK YOU. This is the response you would have heard from 6 y.o. me, if only I wasn't scared that my parents would punish me for swearing. That's how far my respect for authority went :) I had gone to preschool for one year. I remember it as being locked up for half a day with a bunch of infantile imbeciles under supervision of not much more serious adults. I despised all those alphabetes who didn't give a damn about anything farther than 1 meter away from their nose and equally despised the teachers who acted surprised that I didn't care to socialize with the former. I think they suspected me of autism, but this was clearly just psychological defense to cope with my rejection :) Caring about the teachers attention and acceptance would have meant behaving like a little dumb shit running around screaming and quarreling with others such. Not an exciting perspective. I remember how at one time the teachers complained to parents that I never greeted them (which means I probably did, ha ha). My parents had to enter the class with me after having threatened that they'd make a scene if I didn't greet the teacher :) Actual school was only barely better. At least the other kids were forbidden screaming. Still boring as hell. > Where things get serious is when a kid refuses to read AT ALL, or worse, is demonstrably incapable of focusing long enough to read. Why would anyone focus on something he/she doesn't care about? I strongly feel that the reason behind most of those learning disabilities is keeping kids in an environment where ability to read is completely unimportant except for those few unfortunate hours they spend at this asinine place called "school", hours they'd like to forget as soon as they end. I hated school for being childish and boring, but other kids apparently had their own reasons too. I don't think many kids there actually cared about school. Especially in the first few years. BTW, regarding reading being unimportant, I wonder if the rising popularity of computers won't suddenly provide a magic decrease in "reading disabilities". I was raised in the age of TV, but I feel like nowadays it's harder to obtain entertainment with no ability to read at all.