Adolescence as a failed cultural model

[nosajj12345]

LOL...this is the man, who today, at a speech at some church, stated that he believes America will soon become a secular, atheist nation dominated by radical Islamists.

How does he think Islam will come to dominate in a secular, atheistic society!

This man is sounding as idiotic as Sarah the pin-head Palin. I don't care if you vote a republican into office, just get one in who is rational and intelligent. I'll give him this much though, he's dead on about us becoming more atheistic which is good

[deniserattigan]

WTF? How did he become an educational expert? He has his PHD in education?

[ChannelofLiberty]

central planning fails in farming, manufacturing, so we don't do that because it would ruin entire portions of the economy. CENTRAL PLANNING IN SCHOOLING IS DOING THE SAME THING, FAILING, THE RESULT IS PERHAPS WORSE BECAUSE IT RUINS PEOPLE MINDS!!!

[FreeAgain2]

You were expected to work at 13.

Public Schools are systems of dis-engagement.

Hits it right on the head.

[PentonODD]

Russell Baker said something similar in the July 25th, 1969 issue of Life magazine. Although he uses the word "youth" instead. His take on things is interesting. The story is titled, "Don't Ask Me, I Only Live Here". He is not so negative about it, but does offer a warning that, I think was prophetic.

[Rjdukerjduke]

So where is the money going to come from to fund all these additional kids in the educational market....especially since the tax base has been weakened by all the outsourcing (to China) that began in the Reagan years...Reagan, a guy you worshipped...so we are to get MORE money for children...to send them to college...get the money from where ...to get jobs where??????????

[lambskin4u]

This is the most profound thing I have heard from a politician EVER. It was nothing new to me as a home educator and my young adults graduated at 15 and started college! Amazing! How do we change the culture to engage our greatest natural resource?

[lambskin4u]

This is the most profound thing I have heard from a politician EVER.  It was nothing new to me as a home educator and my young adults graduated at 15 and started college! Amazing! How do we change the culture?

[PentonODD]

He isn't the first to mention this. I believe it was in the issue of life magazine that covered the Zabruder film that I read something similar.

[Pattifish]

Brilliant!!

[blackdawnninja]

I fully agree with what he says... In the video at least. He however does not mention the need for an adjustment in the courts and judicial sections of the government to make it easier for us teens to access them in the case of abuse in the workforce. Other than that I fully agree

[InActuallity]

This guy is 100% correct. I'm an honors student, and I still find myself copying homework assigments that I find a waste of time. I could easily graduate after this year, but I can't.

[FreeAgain2]

I have been saying this for years.

Another tough nut to crack is "you can be anything when you grow up" - complete BS - you have a God given talent/desire - find it and follow it and you will find your happiness.

[diminutivedeception]

Gingrich's idea could greatly benefit our social development. In Erik Erikson's psychosocial stages, he postulates it is vital in our adolescence to explore independence and aquire a sense of self (identity vs. confusion). Gaining this sense of identity by jumpstarting a career and leading a purposeful young adult life, instead of initiating the implied stagnation of adolescence, would massively effect the desires and motivation of generations to come.

[arwentheelf02]

I met Mr. Gingrich and heard him speak. This man is a very very smart man.

[melodicdreamer72]

If school would have had some of this approach when I went, I would have seen the world in a completely more enlightened way at an earlier age than how it worked out to be...this goes for a good bunch of my friends as well. The system is just plain set up for underachieving (and/or failing)...it is really the root of the big problem...of course the root has plenty of offshoots like my out of control bamboo, can't keep up with the rhizomes this year (digression at my discretion).

[05027802]

@beepollen1,

Really well said.

[05027802]

@beepollen1

Hey! :) Yes I do listen to US politics on occasion just so I can get a head start UK politics! I mean your country is responsible for some of the most awful breaches of human rights in the world, but at least your country is original, mine just copy whatever your guys tell us haha

[mongoosiandmeese]

I definitely agree with him, and I can provide an opinion from the adolescent population. So many teenagers in my school are irresponsible and immature. If they had to do actual work they would definitely be better off. Once kids are allowed to be so childish at an age when they could be acting like an adult, it will take longer for them to actually become functioning members of society. My cousin is 22 and still lives at home. He doesn't even have a permit yet! This guy is correct in his theory

[05027802]

Adolescence was a concept developed in the 19th century he says which didn't exist before. If he is meant to be a historial he is twisting the truth. There was 'always' adolescence right throughout time it just didn't have a name. Look at back at ancient Rome, the Greeks, there was plenty of examples of spoilt little shits doing drugs, partying and orgies and this continued right through our history up until today. The difference was that is was reserved only for the ruling classes.

[InspectorHound]

This is great and everything, but it's easy to make sweeping suggestions and then offer no way of implementing them.

[WhatsUnderTheBridge]

@InspectorHound it's also easy to shoot those suggestions down without a second thought...

[tedwilson79]

Speak Newt!! This is a fantastic start to the rejuvenation of North American ingenuity and hard work.

[911insidejo8]

How about ending NAFTA?

I think we need to end globalism and say so what if we're isolationists, this 1-world globalist system they're engineering that Gingrich pretends like he's not a part of isn't working for America.

I think Newt is a big fat neocon. You listen to him speak and he sounds wonderful, but then on key junctions he's out making videos with Nancy Pelosi on how we all have to be taxed on cap and trade legislation or selling the phony war on terror.

Newt=NEOCON.

[ZeldaQueen64]

Wow, he sure thinks well of teenagers, huh?

I don't seem to recall my teen years with any cheating, drugs, or junk TV.

[stopularno]

you obviously live in the outer suburbs lol i grew up in Detroit and suburban Detroit...he's 100% right.

[ZeldaQueen64]

Suburbs of Pittsburgh.

Still, seems to me that if you have to reach all the way back to colonial times for an example, there's a bit of reaching going on there. I mean, of course people started college and work earlier then. People died earlier too.

[princessdisney26]

hey I live in the suburbs and didnt do any drugs or any thing along those lines but nonetheless he is so right...and I agree with you. this man knows what he is talking about!!

[zachthomas39]

he says they would use the cost of your senior year toward scholarship money. but, public schooling is free.

anybody care to elaborate if im missing something?

[nVei06]

yes, what is missing is that you are extremely ignorant. you must a liberal. guaranteed correct? in the urban failed school system, it costs about 20,000 a year to process every student. K-12 grade. it could even cost even more than that. in nice suburban school, the costs runs between 4-15 thousand., and they get results. it is the liberal school, urban school, which promote, crime, sloth, socialism, satanism, and communism. these people should be killed.

[Thespian827]

I kind of get where he's coming from, BUT...I believe the Information Age almost REQUIRES a period for Adolescent learning. I'm 17. I'm a senior. I'm DYING to leave for college, but I think maybe, there was a point in detaining us.

[nVei06]

nah, you're just stupid and evil.

[interest009]

unhappy and discontent makes a person ugly

[mistaspot1]

This guy's insane. Yes, let's destroy innocence even earlier. Let's bring back child labor! China is doing it, so we should be doing it, too! Makes me want to throw up.

[nVei06]

that would. burn the liberal.

[mistaspot1]

Murder is a typical right-wing value. Your comment is about what I would expect from one of you.

[nVei06]

actually, liberal can not use words. they can only lie. liberals are murderers, as all liars are. but it is true, conservatives do see a value in destroy evil men. it is not murder, as you so wickedly described it.

[whiskeyvengeance]

This guy has some decent ideas.

[whoo689]

I believe it was Galileo who actually "rediscovered" in the 16th Century, not long from the 17th, that we live in a heliocentric solar system, after of course Greek scientists like Aristotle who knew this long ago but were largely ignored by the rest of the world, for whatever reason.

The only reason we didn't know of adolescence earlier is because society was too dumb to think outside the box, form hypotheses, and test them regarding humanity. They assumed you're either an adult or child.

[nVei06]

you stupid liberal. you will have a brain or soul. whatever the liberal tells you. you must fit into the, i took psychology in school because i wanted to be smart like the smart people so i study the brain. all of you are not smart, you only get dumber after going to school.

[whoo689]

Lol! What a bunch of anti-intellectual nonsense. Why do conservatives have such a hard time with facts and science? OF COURSE ADOLESCENCE EXISTS! Biologists know it. Psychologists know it. Don't give me this "historical precedent" nonsense. People had slaves in the past, so does that mean we should do it again? What about the Inquisition? The Crusades? I could go on and on with this point.

Adolescence was only discovered in the 18th Century by scientists through better tests.

[nVei06]

let me guess, black? you are black

[jm4847]

I agree with this guy. My teenage years were such a waste of time.

[katofalltrades]

When I was 13, I was on honor roll, played clarinet after school, and took Saturday art classes. Not all children wind up on crack when they're bored you know.

[ArtOfPhire]

Holy shit. I could not agree ANY FUCKING HARDER.

[AbelNOON]

Genius!

[AtlasShruggery]

No, Newt Gingrich is a failed cultural model.

Newt Gingrich is a thrice married Family Values Republican and draft dodging "patriot" who divorced his first wife when she was still in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery.

Republicans: Please, please nominate this little worm Newt Gingrich for president in 2012.

[epicpolyphony]

Seriously? Rather then coming up with a valid argument against his piece here, you decided to attack his personal character? If you are going to post something on the internet, at least have the decency to think before speaking. Please. Also, Obama is doing an OH so wonderful job. Republicans (of which I am not) could run anyone and still be better then him.

[eronanke]

I hate that I agree with this.

[ThePoliceStoleMyCar]

Why because the liberal media has brain washed you to think that anyone who is not democrat is an evil racist capitalist who hates America?

[dantheman2889]

Wow, Newt is fucking crazy! Maybe we should all become evangelical Christians and condemn anything that children have a natural inclination to do. God forbid children learn about the S-word: SEX, only sinners have sex before marriage. And God forbid children enjoy their adolescence, the only time in which they can live a relatively carefree life and not worry about their career or the pressures of adulthood.

[Buckeyes1647]

Seriously you don't lean much of any value in Middle School and High School and everyone is treated the same no matter what your strengths and weaknesses are. Why not go to college at 13 when you are better able physically to learn and be out by 18 and able to get a job? Also, in college if we could eliminate pointless GEC classes most bachelor degrees could be finished in 2-3 years. Besides allowing people to start their adult lives earlier, this could save billions of dollars on education.

[ConserativeSmartAss]

Technically you sinned when you took a shit this morning.

[cambaprecoz]

Hey man we can have plenty of sex and partying later, actually the concept of me graduating from college at 14 or 16 is great, because I can get the rest of my life time to myself.

Here I am feeling like shit going to school everyday, it's tedious, it gets boring, and in the end I don't feel like I learned anything.

Pasing highschool is easy as fuck, I just memorize the textbooks for the exams, and then what? I'll forget the info in a week or so.

[cambaprecoz]

This has little to do with God and Christianity.

You really didn't understand the basic premise, the basic concept, which is to incentivate young people to study not for passing grades but for themselves and their future.

[mandis101]

Surprisingly, his argument makes sense.

[faithm]

yeah it does. i remember as a kid being bored and disappointed by school by the time half the year was over in 1st grade! some stuff i didn't understand and some i did and we were STILL on it, but we're only made subject to ONE definition to understand something instead of helping that student relative to his method of understanding.

[brumlevec08]

Probably because incentives have been taken out of every part of our economy.

Can't run a business? We'll give you cash. Can't quit smoking and lose a couple pounds and end up with heart disease with no way of paying? We'll give you health care. We need to entice people to get educations and learn work ethic. Not to go out and buy fuel efficient cars, as appealing as that sounds

[starcannon]

I wouldn't let this man look at my children, much less determine whats best for them.

Newt may feel free to raise his spawn anyway he sees fit.

This guy is a complete maniac.

[cambaprecoz]

Yes his children are proffessional who win a lot of money.

It is up to you to raise your child as you see fit, but don't shield them against the realities of life.

Sooner or later you're gonna have to teach your kids why they are studying, and how hard life really is.

[intelligenceisacurse]

that would be awesometastic.

[jwberrie]

Newt Gingrich wants to pass a law outlawing adolescence.

[wtfanman60]

The current system is so rock solid with the freaking unions, you can't sneeze without them getting 2 weeks extra sick days. Seriously, unions, every year, demand more pay for less work...and the kids are pushed through if they can read or not.

[Raelth]

the US has the worst system for vacation and sick days in the Western world. so uh way to go?

[InspectorHound]

Holy shit this is awesome

[sidineser]

i hate this guy he is a fucking stupid

[musicman8580]

Not a big fan of Newt, but I am totally on board.

[billyboe92]

fuck modern schools,

i love this guy!

but of course no one will let this guy go through with anything?

[p00pdawg]

This guy is fucking crazy

[urGermanfriend]

does this guy think everyone is bored and watches junk television?

[veryhighsamurai]

I agree with most of what he said. I do not agree with our current system promoting disengagement and boredom but that's just me.

[SaltWaterHippo]

Nothing wrong with smoking drugs

[Alburfheas]

@SaltWaterHippo

Maybe not, but everything is wrong with thinking something is right just because you do it.

[ModernModr]

Someone please help me understand how kids will CHEAT LESS when they're told that finishing school quickly will grant them a free secondary education? I would imagine that this policy would encourage kids to jump into a profession with little forethought. Universities would love this policy because it's more cash for them, especially if the TAX-PAYERS are funding the whole debacle. If you're really interested in replacing the education system read Paulo Friere ;)

[joygasm247]

have faith in the children of the education system... if we taught the kids better then we wouldnt have to rely on government to babysit and tell them what to learn. I used to get bored everyday in school and i never applied myself, I say let the kids go at their own pace and utilize their strengths rather than be held back by a curriculum made in the 50's

[ModernModr]

Agreed, I don't think most kids applied themselves in that system, however I don't think that giving them huge scholarships for finishing school faster will encourage them to do so. "let the kids go at their own pace", this tactic has been tested with "free schools" in Ontario in the 70's. The results were that kids didn't apply themselves. They just used the class room as a hangout. I believe you're on to something Joygasm but I don't think you know what that is. (XD @ your name)

[zulufrog22]

u a prick

[cultusstultus]

Truth

[rickrik00]

That's bold change, and I agree totally.

[SpecialK234]

Interesting.

[mastadon1976]

Blah blah blah. More simple minded,turn back the clock conservative bullshit .

[bertly71]

Newt has more intellect than Obama. Libs will find that out in the next presidential debates. No teleprompter and Obama falls apart. If this debate turns into a battle of intellect, Obama will be unarmed. Be afraid liberals, be very afraid.

[brockunc]

I think your picking the wrong battle there. Oboma is very intelligent. He graduated top of his class from Harvard and was captain of his debate team. I don't think newt would fair that well against him.

Turning this into a political partisan remark really says nothing about the validity of the concept.

But that's not to say I don't agree with some of the points he has made. I think we should evaluate ideas rather than focusing on who says them.

[bertly71]

I think that many mediocre people get thru our dumbed down education system. I have worked with some. Look at what happens in his speeches when the teleprompter fails.

Obama was debating college kids not a professor of history. The partisan remark was not needed.

Newt is the front runner for the Repubs because of his intellect and experience. The experience issue is hurting Obama and our country right now. He is learning on the job and at our expense. Newt could hit the ground running.

[patrick112590]

How is it simpleminded? It is a far more radical and intelligent proposal of change than ANY that Obama has presented. In fact, I see this man as less conservative than the president, because he is actually willing to pursue real change - change that can revolutionize America.

[brockunc]

All politicians talk big about change but few will actually be able to institute it. You may agree with him and he may even believe it, but there is no way he would do anything like this if he was actually president.

If you think he would your just being naive.

Stop focusing on partisan bs because no one who actually gets into power does half the things they talked about. Democrat or republican its all the same in the end.

[tsbdsd]

and do you learn anything in that time anyway? i dunno but i got Bs and didn't learn a thing.

[tsbdsd]

btw if your iq is 150 that means your mental age in seventh grade = 12 x 150/100 = 18 which means you should be graduating high school and going to college soon. what a waste of a mind!!

[TimeWarp66]

IQ tests are nonsense.

[patrick112590]

No they aren't. They accurately predict the success an individual will have throughout their lives.

[HermanTHW]

I'm currently in 11th grade, and about 3 months ago I came to that same conclusion about disengagement. I'm forced to do horribly uninteresting work for 6 hours a day, completely letting my mind daze off into some false reality even while doing the work.

On coming to that conclusion I've tried very hard to find something interesting about whatever it is I'm doing, and this way I can still get a decent education and be engaged all day long. Sadly, I doubt many kids would try that on their own.

[tsbdsd]

man i can relate. i was so bored throughout school. they should let you graduate early if yu can do the work, or if you have the ability to do so. on the other hand i had a lot of fun. savor it while you can!! after this it's ether tons of schoolwork in college or, work~!

[starcannon]

So you learned something; you learned just what it is your parents have to go through day in and day out at their respective jobs. Mind numbing jobs, the entire family counting on your succeeding at it, and knowing that if you fail, the family doesn't eat.

Enjoy highschool, its your last few years of "freedom" after that its wage slavery for the vast majority of us out here.

[MikeRoch6969]

what a complete jackass

[eugeneonegin09]

coming from a married fraud who NEVER saw marriage as a SUCCESSFUL cultural model!

[RestrainedNoMore]

great vid! My children are being raised to be responsible, thinking young adults! .

[fjfjvmvm]

Listen closely to the beginning of this statement. He wants 13-17 year olds to be in factories and coal mines?

[craigk87]

He's saying that was the noble intention behind it, but the idea failed despite good intentions.

[CountArtha]

Listen closely...he doesn't.

[fjfjvmvm]

"I wanna propose to you that adolesense is a failed 19th century idea. It was an experiment to keep middle class kids out of factories and out of coal mines and its long run effect is a disaster."

So taking kids out of factories and coal mines is a "disaster" according to Newt. But he's not endorsing child labor?

[CountArtha]

It's not the 19th Century any more!

[HermanTHW]

He said "the long term effect is a disaster", taking kids out of factories and coal mines is clearly supposed to be the "short term effect", which here is to mean a positive effect. Of course he thinks children in factories and coal mines is detrimental! I think he's condoning the expediency and near-sightedness of creating a culture that opens up a massive window of opportunity for crude behavior, just so the kids can be protected, as if there was no better solution to help them.

[fjfjvmvm]

When you use quotation marks you're supposed to quote something. Using quote marks to make a distinction between long-term and "short term" effects is fraudulent when Newt didn't use the term or make the distinction.

As for the claim that Newt doesn't want kids in mine and sweat shop; that claim is bullshit. That is what this whole "free-market" ideology is all about. That is how it was in what to them is the golden era - i.e. before the Progressive movement.

[fjfjvmvm]

Conservatives including Federalist Society lawyers and judges lionize what the Supreme Court did before 1937, which was to strike down all attempts to do away with child labor, improve horrendous working conditions, institute greater leisure time for ordinary working people.

The court claimed it did so because they said the Constitution barred such restrictions on the "right to contract." I didn't and it never has. They ruled that way because they elitist who sided with the owners.

[fjfjvmvm]

So yes free-market certainly means children working in sweat shops, machinists losing limbs constantly, no weekend. no retirement security and all other manner of evil.

Owners want everything for themselves, workers can only achieve a decent life by organizing in favor of policies that restrict what people like Newt call the "free-market" - which is a bullshit term in any event as their concept is not a free-market it is just an ideological construct of a system that most favors owners.

[eleventytwelfthprez]

We need to know two things in this great nation... the ins and outs of calculus and algebraic number theory, and the fine art of bacon making. We are at odds with the nation of Canada, which by no fault of its own, insists that ham is bacon. I have had ham and I have had bacon. Canada proclaims them one and the same, but as an upstanding American (in the sense of the country better than its continent) I say that even the crispest and fattiest of hams shall never be called "bacon"

[stevemcgee99]

I completely agree. Not with everything (or even most) of Newt's ideas, but 100% with this.

I worked with adolescents for years, especially the 'at-risk' population.

School is counter-productive.

Teens are in a limbo that destroys their curiosity, deflates their motivation and confuses their identity.

More insidious is the affect that the attention on adolescence has on our society.  Americans live for at least a decade - the time when they are learning to be adults - as unimpowered adults

[Shewib]

Gingrich/Jindal 2012!!!

[KoroOutbreak]

As far as conspiracy nuts go, there are as many of those on the left as on the right (David Duke, Jerry "Gays Started It" Falwell, etc.) You can't judge Obama on that, however, many mainstream Republicans associate any critique of Bush with a form of treachery. Bush doctrine fails. Republicans running everything failed, miserably, and you can keep whining as much as you want, it won't change what you did to my country.

[KoroOutbreak]

Haha, responsibility coming from a man who left his wife and children living in a trailer without a single fucking dime to feed themselves,

What a fucking hypocrite and a poor excuse for a man. Shut up Newt, you worthless ponce.

[onewaystreet67]

Newt how long did most poeple live when Ben was around? Why don't improve the school system whith the money you talk about and give everyone a better chance!

[hitide286]

what ever happened to the ""contract with America", that he pushed so hard...guess he broke that one too...

[USAJuly4th1776]

Newt Gingritch wan a Republican-majority congress in 1994 for 12 years with "contract with America." It's amazing to see how how fundamentally unfair and uncivil liberals behave and treat people with whom they may disagree politically. Liberal meanness turns me off, it is pessimistic, negative and unhealthy, reason why I left the Democratic party.

[KoroOutbreak]

You realize that for the past 8 years Republicans have been calling anybody that disagrees with Bush "traitor" and "terrorist." The right has been spitting enormous amounts of bile and intolerance. This election shows their cruelty and prejudice in full color.

[USAJuly4th1776]

Liberals have been calling Bush Hitler, the troops terrorists and America the 4th Reich for 8 years... liberals have been saying that 9/11 was either an inside job switching responsibility away from those actually responsible for cynical political reasons, or claiming that America deserved the attacks, echoing Jeremiah Wright's words.

"Disagreeing" with Bush and giving the enemies of America talking points are two different things. Liberals actively root for America's enemies, that's treason.

[KoroOutbreak]

No liberal I know has ever called a troop "terrorist." My mother is a Catholic activist who works with veterans and is anti-Iraq war. I come from a military family. What we've experienced is comparable to FASCISM because when people hide behind the flag and spit bile everywhere instead of actually figuring out what's happening, that is a form of fascism. That is the definition of fascism. "The face," a system that glorifies the symbolism of a nation rather than what is actually happening.

[robsoletethinking]

I can admit this sounds great in theory, but how would a teacher possibly implement a curriculum for 25 different students at different achievement levels?

As in, Bill is on Grade 10, 1st semester material, Sam is on Grade 10, 3rd semester material, Jane is on Grade 11, 2nd semester. . .etc. etc. etc.

How do you teach that?

[enotdetcelfer]

have a class/studyroom for each semester.

turn in coursework out of the textbook for each chapter to get the test. coursework would all be done in class. the teacher answers questions and does examples if needed and the kids that are almost done with the semester help the ones just starting. this would reinforce their knowledge. If you finish all the tests and pass a final then you move to the next semester.. start this from 7th grade and I bet most people could get at least 1 year college free.

[dhc21atyahoo]

Students are placed in the appropriate grade level course as deemed by their credits. Yes, some will be faster than others, but everyone can progress at their rate. So you could have 15 year olds in a class with 18 year olds.

[EF2000CanFly]

Great idea Newt, this is practical reform we need from MCCain/Palin 08

[sunofsand]

The top students will always make it regardless of whether the schools are great and the lesser educated -mainly poor- students will for the most part struggle and while in school will have their independence stripped so as to make them easy to train worker bees Has nothing -very little- to do with intelligence.

[sunofsand]

I'm all for achievement based. Costs too much. Teachers won't be able to keep up. Schools won't work. Revolution is needed and revolution is a dirty word. Pipe dream in America. We have a system that we like.

[carolinem94]

I agree with Newt 100% and I'm 14.

[pacifist299]

I love Newt Gingrich!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm currently reading his book winning the future it is an amazing read! 5/5

[tonygem]

I think that Mr. Gingrich should get a real education at Harvard or Yale, then come back with some substantial ideas about American culture.

[James92802]

tonygem, I think you should devote your life to having 1/10th the impact on America as "Mr. Gingrich".

Name us any current political professor at Harvard or Yale that would not be asked to step aside the moment "Mr. Gingrich" expressed a desire to teach.

[enotdetcelfer]

american culture? i was bored out of my fucking mind in high school like most people i knew and if a system like what he suggests existed I would have graduated my sophmore year to get the two years in college.. if you think american culture is what you were imprinted in public education then you're probably one of the good workers it produced.

[thejohn95]

Isn't it ironic that the generation that shut down school campuses is pretending that they were the responsible ones and telling today's kids what to do?

[enotdetcelfer]

this is so awesome!

[larryfowler40]

I wish my subscribers who find it odd that "To Renew America" is in my list of books on my channell page could see this series...oddly Newt would find some ardent opposition from his (and my former) party the good old GOP...that part about spending more than Obama has proposed would be the dagger...I have 22 senators (McCain included) who have a problem giving educational benefits to combat vets because of costs imagine all american children willing to do as newt suggests NEVER love Newt though

[56page]

would you like to see how bad things really are ? Youtube will get a gazillion hits to bouncey titties or stupid people sticking arrows up their ass but how many folks do you think will see this video?

[Morloon]

The sad truth. Newt is right.

[esj80503]

Traveled a bit outside the states. Spent twelve years in Asia, some of it in third world countries. I met 12 13 and 14 year old men, who behaved maturely, had families, and ran businesses. A bored 18yr old kid in high school is such a waste not only of the kid's time, but of our nation's resources. At least we should track the kids, so if they test low on academic interest, give them an option of attending a trade school.

[TravisTCleveland]

Amen Newt. You have it right 100%. I am astounded that not enough people are saying this exact thing.

[Brambledemon]

Amen! When I was in high school, I had 2 study halls per day. In some cases, I would come to school and go right to study hall for the first two periods.(rotating periods) It was a truly horrid experience. Boring!!! I wish they had goal based education when I was younger.

[stonescourt3]

i agree, i agree, i agree! after all, the sooner you begin work, the sooner you may retire with more money, skills and experience! what a concept!

[jfk1976]

RUN FOR PRESIDENT PLEASE

[Vman923]

Gingrich 2012 or 2016! (hopefully the latter)

[upcountrywater]

In my adolescence (13)! , 3 friends and myself started a business, "Have Jobs Will Travel" we cleaned cars, raked leaves, We bid on them! So we made a low wage SO WHAT, better than ZERO. We could only work in the summer. Those were the days. What Newt is talking about still happens in other countries TODAY!

[mtoosxy]

NEWT FOR PRESIDENT!!!

[Bleakfacts]

You Rock Gingrich

[jefeisdguard]

I like Newt a lot. Kind of wish, he was running as our presidential candidate instead of McCain!

Can we write him in?

5/5

[SeekerNLife]

Newt is correct, as usual.

Sheltering our teenagers from life's harsh realities does them a disservice.

Working in the adult world is good preparation for being an adult.

Teenagers have a natural eagerness to engage in the vices of adulthood, thinking that that is what being a grown-up is all about.

But without the responsibilities that come with adulthood, which keep those vices in perspective, engaging in adult vices often destroys young lives.

[3Haydens]

First, thanks crazy.

Second, I worked as a sub for 5 years, never got a job because I was deemed too old and too conservative. This meant, I was appalled by the waste in education spending. Cut all social experiments being perpetrated on our kids. Bring the system back to STRICTLY educational & academic issues for those kids who want it. Have trade schools for those who don't. Have seperate "special needs" schools for those who DO need it & fully staff and fund THOSE schools.

[crazyforcrowe]

Oops, sorry, star, just sent you this without seeing your comment. Man, great minds just think alike, don't they? =0)  Newt included.

[overmind25]

I like this idea overall.

[eclecticEel]

Finally, Newt. This is the type of 'real change' we've been waiting to hear

[hellorodney]

yeah,,,,lets get right on that,,,lets get the teachers union to focus on this one,,,yeah,,they want the kids to do well,,,,yes, good idea,,,unfortunately, your ideas make too much sense,,,,soooooooo, it wont happen anytime soon,,,but im with ya man,,,,im with ya