The Daily Riff - BE SMARTER. ABOUT EDUCATION.

What we love about this exchange is how we see a good time shared between Fred Thompson, former Republican presidential candidate, actor and author of the newly released "Teaching The Pig To Dance - A Memoir Of Growing Up And Second Chances" and Jon Stewart.  Both obviously share a  passion for the political and while not aligned politically, come together with a breezy banter, perhaps sharing more than one would think -- both thankful for second, third and even fourth chances. 

Thompson was a 17- year-old from a small town in Tennessee who was husband and father on the "verge of flunking out of high school".  He talks about how "That was the way (teaching a pig to dance) - my teachers, my parents - everyone who knew me, thought about me.  I was the pig."  He was "hard to teach anything" and he had to have the second, third and even fourth chance going for him in life.  Thompson bombed with his presidential bid at the get-go after much anticipation.

Stewart and Thompson may share an "outlier" commonality of experience with their background - check out Stewart's:

 "After graduating from the College of William and Mary in 1984, Stewart held numerous jobs. He was a contingency planner for the New Jersey Department of Human Services, contract administrator for City University of New York, puppeteer for children with disabilities, caterer, busboy, shelf stocker at Woolworth's, and bartender at a local blue-collar bar, the Franklin Corner Tavern."  (Wikipedia)

We have not had a chance to read Thompson's book, with link HERE, and while not our usual style, we wonder if there may be any relationship between the force-fed "education" that has taken hold in many schools versus a real understanding of how students think, learn and are motivated.  The fact that Thompson was a philosophy major is not lost on our group here. Reminds us a bit of of The Daily Riff post, "Famous Failures", with link here.

Would like to hear your riffs on this. . .

Related stories from The Daily Riff:
"Famous Failures", link here.
"Missing In Action: MIA's:  # 7" , link here.