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The True Cost of High School Dropouts

It never really crossed my mind that dropping out of High School was a possibility when I was going to school.  The reasons are varied,  but I had great parents that pushed education, a pretty good school system, and the social structure I grew up in.  What shocked me in reading this article was this statement:

Only 7 of 10 ninth graders today will get high school diplomas

In today’s economy the chance of a person without a high school degree of successfully supporting a family are likely to be low, but the discussion of the societal cost points to a low return on our investment when nothing is done.    Read the article and see what you think.

The True Cost of High School Dropouts.

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Artist of the Week (Learn to Appreciate Music Project)

My musical tastes are fairly limited.  As a kid my mom mostly listened to oldies stations and my Dad listened to NPR.  When your favorite “songs” are Morning Edition and All Things Considered you might end up a little musically declined.  My wife’s family appreciates music for all of it’s artistic greatness.  They listened to a lot of different music growing up, can sing, play piano and one of them is even in a band.

I enjoy listening to a lot of different music (just not rap music for some reason), but it isn’t something that I really seek out.  In addition, for me it is really filler/background part of the environment.  I can listen to a song 20 times and still not know the lyrics, artist, etc.   So in an effort to expand my musical experiences I am moving forward with a project to listen to a new artist each week on Pandora until the first of the year.  This is a great way to experience some new music and possibly find some really great artists that I haven’t heard of.

Each week you can see the artist that I am listening too at the top left corner of my blog (screen shot of what to look for to the right).  What I need is some suggestions of artists to listen to for the next couple of weeks.  So far I have listened to the artists below:

  • Allison Krauss (this weeks selection)
  • Derek Webb
  • James Taylor
  • Josh Turner
  • Carrie Underwood
  • Yanni
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Do we really know how to study???

Check out this link from the NY Times that talks about some of the latest research on how to really study effectively

Basically, don’t believe anything that you learned in school or that you read in the average back to school, get you kid on a schedule article online or in the newspaper.

Even if you are not headed back to school, it gives you some tips on simple techniques you can use to study more effectively.