> My personal hypothesis is that people in America (parents) give way too much responsibility to the school to educate their children and expect magic to happen

> My personal hypothesis is that people in America (parents) give way too much responsibility to the school to educate their children and expect magic to happen from people who are merely paid to take care of your children. Quit having kids or take more responsibility in teaching them. My mother is a teacher too and I recall she spent more time teaching me stuff at home before I even went to kindergarten and that definitely helped keep me ahead of the curve. Sure, her ability to teach helped her a bit but surely it is not that hard as a parent to take more of an active interest in your child's education rather than flopping helplessly and whining about schools and such. /end rant Do you have kids? It's not that simple. Picture this: you're a smart (at least according to the people around you) guy tht wants to give the best possible education to your kid by teaching them things at home to give them an advantage at school. You like learning and knowing things, and can't wait to pass this on to your kid. And then your kid turns out to be the complete opposite of you: an extroverted, extremely social creature that has a short attention span and who only wants to be around people and has very little interest in learning about how things work and stuff. It's really hard to connect to a kid like that - no way to spend hours teaching them things. I used to say things like what you said until I experienced it myself. I was a bright kid who was always willing to learn, and thought I'd grow up to be the adult that teaches that bright kid things. Well, it didn't turn out that way. When your child shows so little interest in learning new things, you just give up after a while and hope it will somehow work out after a few years of going to school.