I'm a fan of the Mathematician's Lament by Lockhart (might be misspelling his name). The idea being that we need exploratory learning. It expands outside of mat

I'm a fan of the Mathematician's Lament by Lockhart (might be misspelling his name). The idea being that we need exploratory learning. It expands outside of math as presented in his essay. My best friend, while in highschool, had routine problems in core classes. Simple algebra? Forget about it. Spelling? Grab a bunch of letters and pray they slam together right. Instead, let him at something that interested him, and it was amazing. When he was 15, he had already rebuilt a couple engines and a transmission and was getting an old Corvette up and running that he was giving by family. If you heard a plane go over head, he could identify the sound of the engine, name the model of the plane, and rattle off the history of it, leading back to ww2 or whatever. At junior college, he took a geology class and suddenly he was academic. He saw how math helped and passed through trig. His spelling and essayship became solid as he saw the value in communication about geology. The long story short: people, even those who might not appear promising, can shine when exposed to something that interests them. Education should be broad and varied at the beginning to help kids find what interests them. A few lucky ones will learn to be interested in most things and for them, most schooling will be easy.