August pleasure reading, part 2

Since the Duke library was taking its sweet time bringing me Ender's Game, I was able to borrow it from one of my friends (thanks Emily!). I finished it in 4 days -- I really liked it!



It's hard to explain exactly why I enjoyed it so much, but just the whole concept was really interesting to me. I was also surprised to find that some of the story took place in good ole NC. It seems like this story was a bit ahead of its time, writing about alien invasions and everything and I wonder what time this story was supposed to take place.

Reading about how the kids were trained from such a young age makes me think about how kids learn now. With more and more students trying to get in to the best schools, the pressure seems to be placed on them at younger and younger ages. I don't remember any of the stress in elementary school that I see kids dealing with today; I didn't even really care about applying to the super schools or anything. I knew what I wanted to study, and what my family could afford to pay for my schooling, and that's what I worked with. But now kids are thinking about colleges when they're 10 and 12 years old, majors, and jobs, and how to get ahead in the world. Parents send their kids to high schools far from where they live to get them access to all the available AP classes, and kids will take 8 AP classes each year. Does that really help kids at all? I don't think so, because students do not have interest in all those AP areas, they just take the classes to boost their GPAs. Why take AP Psychology if you have no interest in it? Why take AP Calculus if you want to study something in college that has no math requirements? I mean, it pushes kids to do well (or it pushes them to go beyond what they're actually capable of), but how much is it really helping them to fill up the advanced classes with students who have no genuine interest? And really, I know a lot of kids who took the all-AP route or went to schools like NCSSM (by choice, not because they were from rural counties) who are frankly not that smart. I am bothered by parents (and students) with elitist attitudes about where they (or their kids) went to school and treat other students like they're idiots for going to public schools. I went to public high school and a state college and I think I turned out alright.

I believe there are other books in the Ender's Game series, but I'm not sure if they're as good as the original or if they're just sort of afterthoughts. Maybe I'll look in to reading those also...