It's having a passion for something....any skill.....whether it is tinkering with a used car you match funds to buy with him, or a sport, or a musical instrument or vocal group, garage band, woodworking, science lab, raising cattle and showing them at the county fair, hairstyling or barbering, hunting, debate......ANYTHING that the person can excel in.
This is where I disagree with middle schools comprised of 1500 or more students. The kids become anonymous and they get little guidance by somebody who actually knows them and what sparks their interest. And then there's the aspect of a caring faculty and guidance staff.
And most of what I've seen is guidance toward college prep only, when we all know there are now too many new college grads who cannot get jobs in their degree area and are working as servers and retail clerks and living at home. While I believe a solid liberal arts curriculum is key to a solid classical education, I believe the kids need vocational-technical education, too!! I have used BOTH types of education. One complements the other in having more possibilities for a job and career.
There are smaller, rural high schools that run circles around the big suburban ones that ignore vocational-technical education and pump the top 100 college prep students to hold up the IMAGE of the high school by taking lots of AP courses etc. (which by the way, leave many students floundering when they get into a real "college-level" course they've been placed in).
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