Misspent Youth
My 16-year-old son is ranked 28th in the country in the ESPN fantasy football power rankings for 10-team leagues. Wish he spent as much time on his calculus homework.
Dispatches from District 48
My 16-year-old son is ranked 28th in the country in the ESPN fantasy football power rankings for 10-team leagues. Wish he spent as much time on his calculus homework.
Gongrats.
Is it a matter of incentives?
How many hours per week does he spend doing that? Not so sure it's a good thing, but congratulations anyway. Success does breed success even of the manifestation seems odd at first.
I wish I had been allowed to take calculus at 16.
No doubt academic achievement should be valued since it evidences intellectual curiosity as well as diligent effort. However, achieving athletically is also a worthy pursuit. Setting goals and working hard to achieve them, whether academic or athletic, evidences a quality of character that will pay dividends in life.
Fantasy football is one way you can make statistical modeling relevant to young men. It can also teach them its limitations.
Is your son's hair as nice as Mel Kiper Jr's?
> I wish I had been allowed to take calculus at 16.
You should have taught it to yourself then. The #%^#^#%^$& bastards tried to tell ME I couldn't take it, having taken all the pre-reqs in 10th grade and the summer school between 10 & 11 (I also happen to have skipped a grade, meaning I was 15) -- So I went to the public library and checked out a college textbook on the subject, and learned it on my own. $%&^$$% 'em. With a sharp pointed stick.
The idea that you MUST have a teacher for a subject is just one more of the folderols foist on us by "Modern Public Edumacation".
Here's a teacher, revealing, and not-so-subtly, the TRUE purpose of Public Schools.
> You should have taught it to yourself then.
You are right about that. I listened way too much to people telling me I was just a kid and I wasn't as smart as I thought and you just have to sit in class for another 6 years before we let you do anything. (Of course I found out at 25 that one school wanted me to start skipping grades, but fortunately my father protected me from even the knowledge of that so that I could while away the next 9 years in crushing boredom socializing with kids my own age and my enthusiasm and work ethic slowly eroded)
Ryan says "I wish I had been allowed to take calculus at 16".
Huh? When I was 16, I just got a good textbook and taught myself.
If a kid is interested in something, he'll go for it, be it calculus or fantasy football.