[TheBattman]

Actually, it really depends:

I had a student for the last several years in my band program - until he just decided that playing video games was his top priority. His Junior year he barlely kep his grade point to the minimum to participate. He mother was contacted many times and she too tried what she could (single mom- away from the home a lot of hours with two jobs to support herself and her two sons). His senior year (last school year) was even worse. He got a part-time job at the local grocery store. So - his day consisted of oversleeping (missing one to 3 periods regularly), getting to school and sitting through class, gripe about the eligibility requirments, get out of school, go to work, get off work, play video games (unless it was a day he didn't work, in which case he played video games right after school until he fell asleep).

Only passed two classes (three if you count band, but he didn't get credit for that because he missed too many days by oversleeping), thus he didn't graduate. His mother even paid for a correspondance course to help him graduate on time - he didn't even do the first assignement.

He was not going to return to try to finish his credits to graduate, but my understanding is that his mother threatened to kick him out of the house if he didn't.

The child was encouraged and pushed by nearly evey faculty member at the school, including me. His mother did what she thought she could. So who's fault was it?

[Tarl]

In my earlier post, I mentioned finger pointing could go in all directions. There has been a sense throughout the fabric of our current society that personal responsibility is no longer expected of its citizens or it's youth, not to mention the undermining of authority at home and in the school. Much of this pervasive "brainwashing" is delivered via various media sources: television, video games, pop music, etc.