School

He told us that American school is stupid. Teacher have to CONVINCE their students to read something. And if someone WANTS you to do something, then you DON'T want to do it. But what if we just PRESENTED the item. His example as a book on how to have power. A kid asked: "May I see that book?" He replied: "No." The kid then asked again because now they were curious as to why they couldn't have it. He acknowledged this and then explained to us how he thinks we shouldn't GIVE, and CONVINCE kids to do things.

We should say "Here's a book on how to have power, if you want to have power then read it. IF you want to be weak then don't read it." Of course all people want power and by saying this then kids would perhaps read it.

It would work if everyone were the same, but everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. In RPG terms, that power is like...giving a mage physical attack power. Like...let's say your friend is extremely good at math, and you can barely manage a D in it. You're just not as good at it, it's your weakness, and if you can barely manage a D, then at the best, you can raise your resistance to that weakness and manage a C or even a B-. (Basically, you're trying hard and you end up getting a D, your friend doesn't really try hard and gets an A.)

People want power, but there are those who want power that suits them.

Do you think we should give, tell, and then convince kids to learn, or should we tell them that knowledge is at their fingertips and if they want to have it then they can read it? Which way do you think kids will learn better, and have a better attitude towards learning.

I think there should be multiple paths available for learning, to suit the preferences of the students. (Schools supposedly place importance on students, as the reason and purpose of a school is to "educate" students, so how about focusing more on them by expanding the things done? More activities, more "caring" about the students. More ways to learn, more things to learn, more ways to be taught.) For example, most math classes are...learning by the book. That's about it. It's not really fun, and only a handful of people are good at it.
(as far as it goes, it seems like basic adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing are what some people need in life, any further and it might just not compute in their minds. I don't understand anything and close my math book after opening it . Also, it's not like you can't learn these things later, it doesn't seem to be a now or never thing, especially since after summer vacation, some classes revisit things, if you didn't understand it before, you'd have a second chance.)
It's similar to some anime, sometimes if you rewatch a show, you'll understand it better than you did the first time, making it more enjoyable.

(Math...I'd enjoy it if they had some video game based math things. Like figuring how many battles or monsters you have to fight in order to level up, RPG stuff, something along those lines, it makes it more bearable, and maybe even more fun. At least the thought of it feels fun.)

There's also maturity involved at some point in this discussion, but, it's as if teens these days have..well..become more stupid. A little too immature to think straight. "Think before you act" doesn't apply to them. If some people think a little more, they'd understand a little better. It doesn't guarantee that they'd learn something, but it helps sharpen their minds for future events, and not be a total idiot with everything. (Like on mmosite.com, there are idiots who think it's cool to constantly post "WoW Clone" on articles.)
I mean, if they see a fight, they would probably join in, rather than stopping it or ignoring it and letting a proper authority figure step in.
It's always about sex, drugs, money, cars, whatnot.

[I'm a teen myself (A "hypocrite", I may be..), and the irony is, I've learned to think straight from games. War games, Strategy games, the like. Some self-awareness came from MapleStory (at different times, 3 years ago, 2 years ago, recently this year, too.)
I guess it's because I have grown a bit from games...it's why I defend it when people slander video games...saying they are bad for you and whatnot. There are many angles to the game. Like puzzle games, solving puzzles takes thought, learning to use that thought via the puzzle game is -good-.]

As for forcing....force isn't always the best option. That's as bad as peer pressure. Either they give in, or they give up. "You have to do this or you get an F" "I've tried a thousand times and I just can't do it, give me that F because I give up." (-Personal experience- I did happen to have a phase in school where I gave up, which caused a repeating of the 8th grade, let's just say, schools don't really care about students, and I was depressed. Probably still am, but am in control of it.)
It takes time to learn, force takes away time (Do this within the next 9 days.) And with some other methods, the problem would be...we'd have a bunch of lazy idiots in this world wasting resources. They'd literally be a waste of life in that sense.
It's pretty much a double edged sword.

(I have a bad habit of stretching out posts with random stories and such, and it's now 5:34AM, nearing the usual sleeping time, so excuse me if I make any typos or type up something that doesn't make sense. I usually spend the final moments awake with posting something up somewhere, then head to bed.)