To greyhavener's last post...
I agree, about the way history is taught.
It seems like all they do is throw names and dates at you and you are only supposed to memorize them. They forget the significance of what it was like to acutally live back then. It is important to learn names of people, but it doesn't mean much if you do not understand the society in which they were living.
I must say that I have learned more about history through acting classes than through history classes. Now what does that say about all of the history classes I ever took.
I think they try to cram too much into one semester. If topics were more focused then people would learn more thoroughly what they need to know.
In some ways home schooled children are a little better off (well, perhaps). All of my homeschooled friends are quite brilliant, such as Frodo was.
I think that another important factor is role-models. Frodo had Bilbo as a role model (and Bilbo is a pretty darn good one). Sam really looked up to the Elves (at least, what he had learned about them).
I think that today kid's look to pop culture icons to be their role models because a lot of parents aren't being good ones (I am sure that all of your parents here are excellent though!). I am not saying that there are no good pop culture icons, it's just that a lot of kids don't recognize the ones that they should.
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