[Tigermoth]

SoloAJ,

I'm from Atlanta.

I am pretty opinionated when it comes to public education. It's always struck me as government-funded baby-sitting, catering to a non-existent "average."

Often, people go through their lives as apathetic because no one has enough faith in them to challenge them.

My mother teaches art history to mostly ex-felons. I've met her students, and for most of them, society's given up on them. She treats them as intelligent adults, and the response has been enormously positive.

My mother also used to say that high school English teachers are the most evil people on the planet, because they impart their love for literature on to their students, who in turn get English degrees in college, then study to become high school English teachers, who impart their love for... Basically, because English teachers are so awesome, their students end up broke (but also awesome).

Give your students cool, interesting things to read, and they will want more. Give them books written by people who are 200 years dead and that have no relevance to anything that's happening now, and both you and the students will not gain anything.