KIDS: Exercise brains this summer

School will soon be out. And students will have three months to waste, or use to better prepare them for life! Which will it be - a time for catching up if you are behind in essential knowledge and skills, or wasting time playing or even getting into trouble?

There are just a few days left until school is out. There is time enough for teachers at all levels to challenge and motivate young people to strive to chose the more noble cause - to hone their skills in Math and Reading (learning the true history of the world and of our great country) or continuing our dumbed down mentality.

A recent poll showed that 27 percent of high school students could not name our first president! (Can you?) Wouldn't reading a non-revised history of the world and our own land be a wholesome way to spend some of this time? A student thus encouraged by the teacher and parents who did this, would be a better student and a better citizen.

To this end I challenge every teacher and parent to become active in promoting their charges to improve their Math and Reading skills. It's OK to skateboard, bicycle, etc., but not to the exclusion of exercising the brain!

There is a resource that I would recommend which is available at goodreads.com. That source helps young students and adults and shows them how to acquire the books inexpensively at paperbackswap.com. To be armed with a list of good, instructive books and you will find the library a great treasure. Books of fiction may be interesting, but usually you know as much when you are done as you did when you started the book.

There is also a magazine, "World," which would be helpful in accurate learning. One book for high school and above is titled "Father of us All, War and History" by Victor Davis Hanson. It is not about religion.

Question: When September comes around and school starts, will your children or students and you personally be any more knowledgeable about the important aspects of life, how to live, earn a living now or in the future, or know more about true history than you now know? Or will we just be more "dumbed-down" than we are now? Are you brave and motivated enough to accept the challenge, or are you just disinterested and lazy? Time is short. President John F. Kennedy said, "If you don't read, you might as well be illiterate!"

GEORGE W. RODKEY

Post Falls