Chapter 15 EDUCATION AND GROWING UP The Chinese royalty used a disciplinary technique that would straighten out any modern kid. A prince would be raised along with another child. If the prince misbehaved, it was the other child, not the prince who was punished. A child might be willing to risk a spanking for outrageous behavior, but even a young kid would feel some guilt if his spanking was administered to another kid. "Whether a school has or has not a special method for teaching long division is of on significance, for long division is of no importance except to those who want to learn it. And the child who wants to learn long division will learn it no matter how it is taught." - A. S. Neill The famous philosopher, Socrates, was illiterate. Of course, this is no excuse for modern kids to drop out of school, unless you want to be a philosopher when you grow up. Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie never made it through grade school. Thomas Edison's total school education consisted of three months. When Martin J. Spalding was fourteen years old, he was appointed professor of mathematics at St. Mary's College in Kentucky. At the age of ten, Francois Auguste de Thou was appointed Chief Librarian of France. Sweden once had a supreme court justice who was nineteen years old. When he was ten, he could speak fluently in 12 languages. Law professor Ericus Aurivillius at the University of Uppsala, Sweden held lectures for eighteen years, even though only one student ever showed up in all that time. Braille was invented by Louis Braille in 1824. He was fifteen years old at the time and blind since he was three years old. The United States spends $353 billion for education every year. That's $1,452 from every man, woman and child in America. And here's what we get for our money: Over two thousand random American adults were surveyed about their understanding of science. 21 percent thought the sun revolves around the earth, and 7 percent were unsure whether the sun goes around the earth, or if it is the other way around. The National Science Foundation conducted a study and found that only 33 percent of Americans know what a molecule is. Every year 700,000 students graduate, but when tested, they cannot read as well as fourth-graders are supposed to. Three out of every ten American kids drop out of school before graduating. It is tempting for American kids to drop out of school. Who would want to finish school if their plans are only to build race cars or marry somebody rich? But sometimes plans don't work out the way you expected. More importantly, in the United States, school is free, supported by taxpayers. It's free!! You might as well take as much as you can get. In parts of the state of Mississippi, 44 percent of the adult population is illiterate. In a recent Gallop survey, Americans were asked to identify America on an unmarked world map. 14 percent couldn't do it. According to the Oregon Department of Education: "...For every 100 pupils in the 5th grade... 99 enter 9th grade 88 enter 11th grade 76 graduate from high school 47 go on to college 24 earn a bachelor's degree" World wide, the figures are like this: For every 100 people, 30 are literate, 1 goes to college. In Gujarat, India, school supplies are in short supply. The kids write on their thighs with sharp wooden splinters. The marks are good for about 12 hours before they fade away. There are 800,000 American children currently on Ritalin. That is approximately one out of 125 kids. This drug is prescribed to slow down "hyperactivity." Many doctors currently think hyperactivity is normal in some children and they should not be routinely treated with drugs. With other children, it has been discovered that by eliminating refined sugar and artificial chemicals from their diets, their behavior becomes much more acceptable. Seventy-five percent of parents never visit their kids school. There are 35 million step-parents in America. At graduation a child has logged 13,000 hours of school, and 15,000 hours of television. Television sets outnumber bathtubs in America. If you paid $1 for every murder a child has watched on TV until the age of 18, that child would have $15,000. 13,500 kids take guns to school everyday. Every day, 200 teachers are physically attacked by their students. Of the 156 women who are college presidents, 105 are nuns. Approximately 66 percent of average prisoners end up in prison again after release. In San Quentin prison where they teach some of the prisoners computer programming, less than six percent return to prison.