First,
Thanks for the link and the kind words.

To your two points:

1. One thing many people don't understand is that some people have a part of thier soul or whatever (I am one of them)that subconsciously fights following directions. When I buy a new gadget, I know that I will understand the object quicker if I read the manual first, but it's extremely hard to do. I've only been able to force myself to do this in my thirties. My curiosity overrides my common sense and I have an intense desire to just jump in and get dirty. Unfortunately that means I learn a lot of things the hard way. But it also means I discover things other people hadn't even thought of. My entire life I have found it almost impossible to follow directions. I desperately wanted to, but I couldn't. Kinda like an addiction or something. Read the essay by Josh Shaine from MIT that I linked to in my post. Maybe then you'll understand. Today they drug kids like me.

2. My parents were involved and loving as were my wife's. They were as baffled as anyone as to why we strggled so much in school. I actually had more fun than my wife. My wife describes it as a complete waste of 12 years of her life. While we were discussing the success of this post last night, and she said she couldn't think of one redeeming quality to her education. She said everything she learned was wrong.

I know her parents well. They are great. There is nothing either of our sets of parents could have done about this, other than allowing us to quit school, which they weren't going to allow. In the 80s we needed an environment the simply didn't exist.

Steve: Wow! Thanks for looking and responding!

So I'll counter-respond with a couple of clarifications:

1) I, too, am one that will often (or usually) forgo the manual. I don't have a problem with that and I agree with your reasoning. It's the idea that "unwillingness" to follow directions is some sort of criticism of schools that I don't agree with. Knowing how do do something by reading the manual is not the same as "understanding" something. Particularly these days, when manuals are often nothing more than a few steps illustrated with pictures and nothing is explained.

Maybe the use of the word "unwilling" threw me off. If a student has real trouble and the school doesn't try to help or accommodate, bad on them. If a student insists on running the bases third-to-second-to-first in a softball game because he is a free spirit unwilling to follow directions, that's not the school's fault and he shouldn't be playing.

2) There was certainly no disrespect to your parents or to your wife's parents intended. I don't know the first thing about them, and if what I wrote came out wrong I apologize unreservedly.

My experience has shown that most "problem kids" have "problem parents", and even "good kids" with a particular issue have parents who have that same issue, or at least knowingly allow it to continue in their child. Better parenting wouldn't improve public education (in and of itself) but it would improve the results of many kids in public education.

And if the 20% of the kids who are real "problems" could be reigned in and addressed, I believe that the other 80% of the kids would benefit very greatly. A few bad apples, and so on...

Too much to comment on in too short a space. I'm just going to hit the big one, I guess.

"My experience has shown that most "problem kids" have "problem parents", and even "good kids" with a particular issue have parents who have that same issue, or at least knowingly allow it to continue in their child. Better parenting wouldn't improve public education (in and of itself) but it would improve the results of many kids in public education."

Yes, most kids with certain sorts of issues have a parent with those same issues. If not a parent, then an aunt, uncle, or grandparent.

One of the things I am realizing as I work with 2nd generation students is how much of this is genetic. I can hear the voice of "environment" ringing, but I am talking about children who have not lived with the parent whose behaviors they are emulating - and it is to the point that I can 'sit in' on an IEP meeting by phone and predict what these kids I do not know well in person will have done in response to certain actions by the school OR the parent to try to "reign in" the kids' behaviors.

Yes, if you could address their problems, life would be a lot easier. Unfortunately, so long as we put academics ahead of selves (let alone testing ahead of academics) in our schools, the problems will continue to be exacerbated, rather than resolved.