My son is in second grade, and complains regularly about it. Part of it is my fault; I’ve been pushing him to read, both together with me and on his own, since he could speak, and he now reads a lot. Unfortunately, the books of the moment are from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. I take heart in the fact that it’s written about and for middle school boys, and my son is thus reading comfortably at a level three of four levels above his grade. But the books do encourage a negative attitude about school in general. His second grade teacher is good, but this is her first experience at this grade level: interestingly, up until now in her career, she’s been a middle school teacher. And like his father, my son is a relentless and laser sharp critic.
Similarly
Mark’s most recent post had me thinking on multiple levels – about the way education works, also prompted by a link to another essay which bothered me to no end from Matt Boutte, who trenchantly commented on Mark’s ramblings – about economics as a discipline, and how it intersects (or really acts as a skew line) versus the actual conduct of economic activity – about the actual articles he cited, one of which I read and had a similarly visceral reaction to, the other of which I stand tempted to read but, really, why?
And then I got distracted.