Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pcstel who wrote (144861)	8/1/2014 11:54:20 AM
From: koan	Respond to of 149317

"Kids need to want to go to college" That is simply not true. How can they want something they do not even understand? That is not how education works. Studies show once a kid takes a few classes and succeeds they keep going. Many undereducated people are sure they cannot do it. But most can if they get a little boost. They have a new program in Colorado where they get the students to just take one college class and they have found once they succeed they keep going. When I was 19 and working in a paper bag factory I was stone cold ignorant. My high school grades were all c,s, d,s and f,s and so I didn't have the grades and I could never have passed a test to get into a four year college. I had to work too much to go to high school much. We were poor. But I was determined not to live my life ignorant. Luckily they had a community college in my area where I could enter with no grades or tests needed. I just had to pass my courses. In the beginning it was all very foreign to me. I didn't even know what the word society meant. I thought it meant high society. It would take me a week to write a very shitty 500 word paper. Something I could do today in 5 minutes. And I could only think for 15 minutes at a time. My mind was weak. Learning strengthens the mind like exercise strengthens the body. Each semester I got smarter and college got easier. After two years I transferred to a state college and two years after that to graduate school where for the first time college was easy for me. I studied 3 hours each morning, went to my classes and never pulled one all nighter and got pretty much straight A's. The power of education. I grew up in a dangerous city full of gang bangers, and I saw a lot of those kids saved by that community college. The key is to get kids to the point where they know they can learn. Once they know that most kids do fine. The family also must value education. Most of my liberal friends kids went to college. Most of my conservative friends kids did not. So I have lived the experience of being ignorant and growing out of my ignorance. <<No.. People need to want to learn.. My next door neighbors.. Respectable and quite wealthy. The "expected" their daughter to go to college.. Got her in to a "Liberal Arts College" on the Central Coast of California. She bombed out.. Spent more time surfing than studying. She doesn't want to learn. You can lead a horse to water, but can't make it drink. The Government has provided and continues to provide Workforce Training to help elevate those that seek better jobs through education.