What's wrong with a challenge?

It's starting to get to me. This idea that school is merely a preparation for the workforce. The only way that you learn is if you're 'engaged'. That if a kid doesn't want to do something, he/she shouldn't have to. What's happened to the thinking that perhaps some things we don't actually like might be necessary? I really loathe cleaning my teeth but I do it at least twice a day. It's good for me. I also detest reading the newspaper. Not a day goes by when there isn't something despicable in it that moves me to tears: hundreds of hippos dying of thirst, children killed, people wiped out, animals tortured, or a mix'n'match of any of these things. But I read two major newspapers a day. It's necessary. It's not about me. It's about my responsibilities. The recent generation (click and go?) is all about itself. Some would argue that this is how it's always been. Maybe. Maybe not. I think that if we look beyond our shores, the situation is not the same everywhere else, and Australia will suffer in the end.