When I was in school, I had a friend who conned us out of lunch money by predicting the next day’s weather. He became a world renown climate scientist. Another was kicking our tails with his custom built racing bikes, later providing expertise in boosting our car’s horsepower. He makes his living building and selling super-modified race cars. My childhood hobby was amateur radio, which provided a base for a life time of employment. All of us could have cared less about learning anything except as it pertained to our interests.

I see the same thing with today’s kids. They are totally bored out of their skulls with structured education, and society loses them by the time they are 13. Want to see their natural curiosity in action? Take a bunch of teenagers on a week long tent camping trip to really remote WV, and just turn them loose. No internet, cell phones, or any other modern conveniences. They will drive you nuts in the beginning, but the trip home makes for great conversation.

Yet when it comes to school, we expect all of them to learn at the same rate and ready to be pushed out the schoolhouse door like an endless line of cars from an assembly line.

The trick for education is to find the student’s interest, then provide the resources to mold that natural interest into a life time of learning. The entire wealth of the internet is worthless if no one has the desire to use it.

The biggest problem facing parents and educators right now is the practical one of what to do (physically) with students who do not need to go to the school building in order to get their education. If they are left unsupervised, nobody believes that they will stop playing video games (except to do drugs and have sex). So where do parents put them?

Brick and mortar public schools will have to continue to exist in the 21st century despite being obvious anachronisms.