Stan's comment about education on the moon thread reminded me of a conversation I had with a gal from Kenya the other day. She said that in Kenya you basically get one shot. If you miss up in school.. i.e. get pregnant, drop out, etc., than you have blown you chance. You don't get to come back and finish. She received her degree in hotel management. When she came here, she wasn't finding the job she wanted in that and so set forth to get an education in another field, nursing. She said that the American black guys don't value education and the opportunities they have here. She is married to an American black guy and they are having difficulties and she believes part of it is because of his lack education and the fact that she has an education.

I believe that we do not value education in the US and we are now in the process of dumbing our students down with the idea of no child left behind. The teachers are having to teach their classes to the middle of the road students and give them all grades that won't affect that childs self esteem. The kids grow up knowing that if they mess up they can continue to keep going to school. I wonder sometimes if that doesn't hurt our school systems to keep letting the kids that are messing up big time to continue to return to the school. Why not say you have chosen to not value your education so now if you REALLY want to get your education you will need to do this through e-schools and such. This would save the teachers a lot of headache and allow them to really teach to their classes.

Stan... you may have mentioned this before.. but what college did you graduate from? Was it from KU? We were having a conversation with some friends concerning colleges and the belief systems some colleges are putting forth to their students.

In the last issue of The Walrus, a Canadian politician was talking about his political life on the campaign trail. He mentioned an instance where he was confronted by a Caucasian woman who demanded that he do something with the school system. When he asked what was wrong, she pointed in the direction of the local high school and said quite seriously, "The Asians study too much and my son can't keep up."

Living in Vancouver and studying at Simon Fraser University which has a very large Asian student population has made me realize how attitudes differ towards education. Many of these students I talk to come from countries where education is a privilege, not a right. In some of these countries, hundreds of thousands of people compete for relatively few seats in universities. These students study all hours of the day, night and weekends. Failure isn't an option.

I'm not proud of it, but I went from being an A+ student to having academic difficulty and was suspended from a Canadian university. It wasn't that I didn't have the intelligence; I just didn't value my education enough and got pre-occupied with being a young adult from the farm experiencing city life for the first time.

I have bitter regrets and had to do just what the original poster said; start with open university distance education and e-learning. It's been a hard lesson, but I've learned the value of education the hard way and am thankful that I was able to get back on track and regain my academic credibility.

All that said, I would certainly hope that social & academic challenges hampering success are not mislabeled as not valuing education.

It's a complex issue and one I often ponder - finding that balance in life between survival of the fittest and bringing everyone along.