Stay in school

When I first started sub teaching, I was concerned about some students who seemed to have no interest in school. These were mostly males who came from dysfunctional families and normally without any male role models. I finally learned to approach them by saying I can encourage you to learn but I can't make you learn. While this did not cause them to become interested in the work it did take away some of the animosity they had toward me and helped with their classroom deportment. As years past I came to understand that the idea was to keep these students in school until they were 18 years old as statistics indicated that this greatly reduced their odds of ending up in prison. Someone has made the economic calculation that $15,000 per year cost in school is better than $30,000 in prison. More importantly it gives the student a better chance at life.