Boy vs School

I have a son. He's in elementary school. For the 3rd year in a row he has gotten a female teacher over the age of 45. I'm getting a little tired of older, female teachers that want their students to sit down, be quiet and read their text books. In grade 2 my son's teacher suggested that I take my son to the doctors so perhaps the doctor could give him something to help in focus in her class. WHAT!?!!

My son is your average 9 year old boy. He has lots of energy and most of the time you have to tell him more than once to do anything. He can be a little scatter brained at times. He is very loving, has wonderful manners and is more creative than most other kids I know. He loves science, building lego, star wars and playing outside with his friends. He finds school boring. I feel like everyday he hates school a little more.

I just finished a book called "The Power of Focus" By Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Les Hewitt. In Chapter 2 they talk about the need for focus and on page 34 it reads " Top performers spend very little time on their weaknesses. Many of our school systems could learn from this. Often, children are told to focus on their weaker subjects and not spend so much time on the ones they do well in. The rationale is to develop a broad level of competency in many subjects instead of focusing on a few. WRONG! As business coach Dan Sullivan says "If you spend too much time working on your weaknesses, all you end up with is a lot of strong weaknesses!" This does not give you a competitive edge in the marketplace or position you to be wealthy. It just keeps you average. In fact, it's an absolute insult to your integrity to major in minor things". Well said.

I have a friend Kathy who made the decision to pull her 2 boys out of public school and home school them. Her reason is that she believes that each of her boys have talents and abilities and that will take them down a road to success. By making them study subjects they have no interest in and are not going to take them down a career path based on their strengths that they are wasting their time and their sons talents. Time that could instead be spent developing those better suited skills.

Now I have to say that I do think it's important to learn a little about a lot of different areas. How will you know what you are interested in if you don't?? How will you know about the world and our history? I am confident that based on my sons personality type, his interests and talents, that being a doctor or engineer isn't in the cards for him. I believe he will end up in emergency services or perhaps a trade. Both honorable professions.

I get angry every time I think about my son and school. I'm not at the stage yet that I would entertain the idea of home schooling, but I strongly believe that we are raising an entire generation of kids that are being let down by a "girl focused" education system and no matter how loud we scream, no body is listening.

A friend of mine commented this past week that there is a certain personality type that exists in our schools. These kids (boys and girls)have lots of energy and are the future movers, shakers and visionaries and adults are afraid of them. Instead of nurturing them, we are medicating them at a staggering rate. All to get them to be quiet. WOW!

I just want the best for my son. I want to know that when he goes to school that he is being encouraged, positively reinforced and appreciated for what he brings to his class and school community. Is that really too much to ask?