[speaker001:] been about ten years since I graduated from high school I got a GED I was a drop out up until that point
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and uh as my memory serves me school was not that um didn't achieve it's goals as being an educational institution very well and I would suppose that the trend in government is for things to get worse kind of like uh chaos and regular deterioration so I don't not having seen anything to change my mind I would assume it's gotten worse in the meantime
[speaker002:] yeah I graduated about the same time you did and um I graduated early only and I was lucky because I don't think I would have graduated at all I was skipping and everything
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] up to that point and I just happened to have enough credit hours so I could get out
[speaker001:] yeah I had really reached the point where I'd quit going entirely I was tired of it was off working somewhere
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] there was almost no challenge to it at all
[speaker002:] I was on the college track doing all the classes and I was done
[speaker001:] uh um
[speaker002:] it was boring they weren't interested
[speaker001:] yeah I had started in that uh that track but just got sick of it and turned into a juvenile delinquent instead
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] went off and joined the military and then uh came back to college it just the material was so repetitive it was stuff we already seen probably half a who knows how many times before and it was just presented so dryly and I suppose that if um if you're going to pay teachers the salary that they're paid that's that's the level of education that's going to be presented
[speaker002:] that's true we have to pay our teachers more and give them more incentive to interest the children
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] um yeah I really I really believe the same thing I mean here I am now just now finishing up college it took me that long to get interested to go back
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] you know and but I find college a whole different ball game
[speaker001:] yeah absolutely it's a stress test
[speaker002:] it is but it's so stimulating I mean those teachers really are at least mine of course I'm in nursing so
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] ours is a lot of life threatening but um I it it isn't I I don't miss classes I love it
[speaker001:] yeah yeah I agree it's a whole another class of everything the level of education the uh excitement and the the interesting instructors their level of understanding the material everything's different
[speaker002:] maybe we ought to um offer this kind of enrichment to our high school students
[speaker001:] now how would you recommend doing that
[speaker002:] well if somehow we could make give them a certain amount of independence cause that's part of college
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] right um and then simply say this is up to you to achieve this
[speaker001:] sounds a lot like the um what do they call let's see uh fire fox Foxfire method
[speaker002:] I haven't heard about that
[speaker001:] that's the one where uh some guy it's here in Georgia north Georgia several years ago ten twenty years ago walked into a class room and they the students retained command and he just kind of threw up his hands and said basically do what you want to do and developed this uh program where the students pretty much did what they wanted to do the teacher was just there to kindly loosely kind of loosely guide them um along and to make sure that they weren't getting
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] getting off into weird senseless subject areas and stuff like that and I think there was some kind of sociology class along the lines of um
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] what did they do they went out and collected stories and culture of the area in southern Appalachian uh mountains
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and published a bunch of books and the guy's real famous now and in fact I just read recently that some school here in north Georgia decided to completely um adopt the Foxfire method all the classes are that way
[speaker002:] oh really
[speaker001:] and they say that the results are just tremendous it's a whole another um magnitude of improvement over regular public schools
[speaker002:] see and that and it works
[speaker001:] yeah I wish there had been something like that years ago when we were younger
[speaker002:] me too I wish they had computers
[speaker001:] yeah they've made a an amazing change
[speaker002:] I think I think elementary school is educational is stimulating for children and I think we lose them somewhere between junior high and high school
[speaker001:] a friend here in town just recently helped a um third grader with his science fair project and he was describing some of the interaction
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] uh between the the teachers there and the students and the teachers there and himself and other people like him
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and was really disturbed with the uh mentality of the people there they treated him like uh he was one of the kids you know they had their little domain
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] I remember he brought up a story about how he needed a desk to set up the uh the science fair project that he and this other guy worked on and they couldn't find one anywhere and they found one in a room and the instructor there was really possessive of it and wouldn't let him use it
[speaker002:] oh you're kidding
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] well then that goes to maybe not having the funds for things