Mentors in the form of celebrities...athletes, actors, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, you name it...all push the 'stay in school' mantra. 'Reading is cool,' they advertise. Teachers starting as early as kindergarten and the first grade encourage reading and some even require it in order to pass the class. So why, then, is my 8th grader anti-reading? He hates it. He CAN read...I have seen him and heard him read aloud. He is capable of reading. He just hates to do so.

I read a news article earlier this week about the shocking statistic that 75% of today's youth are both (not either...BOTH) too obese and too under-educated to qualify for military service. This is just sad. Not that they cannot serve in the military, but simply that by their sedentary lifestyles and lack of discipline in school, these kids effectively eliminate yet another opportunity presented to them in their young lives.

My 8th grader aspires to join the Marine Corp someday. He seems to be under the impression that he does not need to graduate high school to do this, nor does he need to have good grades to become a professional hockey player or to open his own auto repair business. My 8th grader has zero aspirations in the right now other than to go outside and play and when he cannot go outside to play, he wants to play video games or surf the internet.

Are the celebrity mentors wasting their famous breaths? Do these literacy campaigns even work? I really want to think so. But every day I see my 8th grader fail to grasp the reality of his 13-year-old lifestyle pitted against his aspirations, I fail to see the purpose of celebrity mentorship.