Country Boys and Girls better in Science and Math than city kids. Why I am not surprised.

Here is an interesting study that finds rural children perform better in science and math than their city peers. The results find:

Rural students did better on national science tests than urban students in every grade level.

In math, rural students did better than urban students at every grade level.

Rural fourth and eighth-graders read better than urban students.

Here is the actual study.

Now, let me tell you why this Country Boy from a farm in downstate Illinois is not one bit surprised by any of this.

There is no doubt real world application plays a role here. Country kids are exposed to science their whole lives. Learning how corn grows, where milk and beef comes from, and I very likely doubt there are any Country Boys or Girls that can be fooled into believing offspring comes from a stork as most have witnessed the birth of animals.

There is also a lot of math involved on a farm. How much is corn worth at harvest, how many bushels of corn needed for a profit. How much is livestock worth at the market. So, there is really no surprise here.

Another thing that may be playing a factor, country kids are just not exposed to the urban anti-achievement I don’t have to work culture. Most country boys and girls will do more physical labor in one day that their city counter parts will do all month and have more responsibilities around the farm as well.

I remember waking up at 4:30 am as early as 12 years old to feed the livestock before school started. I also remember working well before the sun comes up and well after the sun goes down during harvest season.

Here is something that was not noted in the article, but I have noticed from my experiences. As Hank Williams Jr. says Country folks can survive.

Because you can’t starve us out And you cant makes us runv Cause one-of- ‘em old boys raisin ole shotgun And we say grace and we say Ma’am And if you ain’t into that we don’t give a damn.

I can catch catfish from dusk til dawn, I can skin a buck and I can run a trout line, cause a country boy can survive. We do not need any help from the government to do it either!