278 Teaching Minds hoops they have to go through. They do what they are told. Similarly, students try to get through high school so they can go on to college. As long as students are not in school to get an education, you can be pretty sure they won’t get one. Most of our graduates have learned to jump through hoops, nothing more. Confined children: Children like to run around. Is this news to anyone? They have a difficult time sitting still and they learn by trying things out and asking questions. Of course, in school sitting still is the norm, So we have come up with this wonderful idea of ADHD, that is, drug those who won't sit still into submission. Is the system sick or what? Academics viewed as winners: Who are the smartest kids in school? The ones who are good at math and science, of course. Why do we think that? Who knows? We just do. Those who are good at these subjects go on to be professors. So those are certainly the smartest people we have in our society. Perhaps they are. But I can tell you from personal experience that our society doesn’t respect professors all that much, so something is wrong here. Practical skills not valued: When I was young, there were academic high schools and trade high schools. Trade high schools were for dumb kids. Academic high schools were for smart kids. We all thought this made sense. Except that are a lot of unemployed English majors and a lot of employed airplane mechanics. Where did we get the idea that education was about scholarship? This is not what Ben Franklin thought when our system was being designed, but he was outvoted, The need to please teachers: People who succeed at school are invariably people who are good at figuring out what the teacher wants and giving it to her. In real life there is no teacher to please and these “grade grubbers” often find themselves lost. When I did graduate admissions, if a student presented an undergraduate record with all A’s, I immediately rejected him. There was no way he w