Little boy Lyle in 1st grade: Look what I learned today! In 2nd grade: Yes, school was fun today! In 3rd grade: We learned handwriting a new letter today. 4th grade: Yeah, I learned some stuff in school today. 5th: Yeah I got my homework done- want to play catch?.

As most people do, children become bored with the same subject 5 days a week during every school year for more than a decade. To make matters worse, each class has the same standard to live up to. A child who learns faster than his fellow students isn't given a reason to do better on his schoolwork because he doesn't need an A or a B to pass. The child who is more intelligent realizes early on that he almost cannot fail because the subject has been made easy enough for everyone to understand it. The challenge our kids and teachers face in school is the same challenge that many of us struggle with each day- unless we've found our dream job, that is- which is keeping interest in our work.

The missing ingredient in education is interest. When a high-schooler is in a classroom and the math teacher openly confronts a student about his failing grade and lack of interest in doing math work, and he responds: I don't need algebra for the career I've already chosen. If she can't supply a good reason he should do the work then that serves as an unfortunate lesson to everyone in the class. In school we are forced to study things that sometimes we neither care about nor need.

I have no doubt that mathematics are potentially amazing and that math is extremely helpful in real life, but outside learning basic algebra I can't think of a good reason to learn a level of math any higher than that.

Besides, as we all know, the more you practice something the better you become at it. We have adults, folks, who are struggling to read. We have people who can't read their own writing. The problem isn't just interest in the subjects but a lack of practice in those subjects. Once reading and writing are officially 'learned' in school those subjects are left by the wayside and new subjects introduced. A second missing ingredient is not being able to admit that all people do not learn at the same speed. Once this undeniable fact is accepted and steps are taken to treat each person as an individual we'll be able to address the learning speed problem.

Interest, learning speed, and applicability are the 3 missing ingredients in education. In order to correct these problems we have to take action and speak on behalf

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