My post for the first week of school might seem "jockish" (is that a word?) but it's not. Read the article. We've discussed all of the issues before.

Seventeen Reasons Why Football Is Better Than High School

Don't let the title throw you off.

WE DEFINE SCHOOL as a place of learning. But as I visited classes in the high school in which I was an observer for a year, what I saw mostly -- and what the students told me about most frequently -- was not learning at all but boredom. I saw students talking in class, not listening to lectures, having conversations instead of working on their study guides, putting their heads on their desks, and tuning out. Teachers talked about what a struggle it was to get students to turn in their homework at all, much less on time. Students picked up enough information to pass the test, did their work well enough to get the grade, and then totally forgot whatever it can be said that they had learned.