At what point do kids lose their interest in school? It happens, let’s not fool ourselves. How do we take a human, that is intensely curious of the world and grind that out of them?

Watch any growing up and you can see them performing experiments constantly. The poke and prod. Push and pull. They don’t read signs that say “Emergency Shower,” they pull the lever to see what really happens. (I watched my own son do this in our A&P lab, and he did get a shower.) His response, “I like pulling levers.”

This same child was getting bored in school and didn’t want to go anymore. What happened? His curiosity was not being fed. We see the same scenario in the opening minutes of the documentary, “Most Likely to Succeed.” The director’s 4th grade daughter is brought to tears in a parent-teacher conference, as her teacher is lecturing her on how her behavior in classes now sets the stage for when she wants to go to college. The look on the girl’s face screams, “This is B%llSh!t.” Her father even remarks these exact sentiments. It’s not that this girl is bad at math, or any other subject. She is bored. She is not allowed to feed her own curiosity. She is slowly being institutionalized.

What do we do as educators? That is the million dollar question. Come watch, “Most Likely to Succeed” at the November Friday Forum for some possible answers.