Nature or Nurture?

Sometimes I meet a student's parent and all of a sudden everything makes sense.  It's why they (whoever they is) made the saying "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."  We all get things from our parents-that's how DNA works.

But I've also experienced the opposite.  When we were dating my husband was a ripped jeans and stained hoodie kind of a guy.  He wasn't interested in anything fancy from food to clothes.  So imagine my surprise when I first met his parents and found them to be fashion forward with an impeccably decorated condo and we ate dinner by candlelight. When we met my husband and I were both working at a summer camp (he was working/living there year round) and that environment shaped who he was.

I always come down on the side that it's a little bit of both.  But then I read Masterminds by Gordon Korman and I started to re-think that.  Masterminds focuses on a set of adolescents being raised in Serenity, New Mexico-the most perfect town in the world.  Honesty and integrity are the most important things.  So you would expect kids raised in Serenity to be perfect kids.

But what if there's something else....something you can't see at first sight.  There can't really be perfect kids?  Can there?

I want to say soo much more about this book-I couldn't put it down.  But anything else would be a HUGE spoiler.  So all I can say is read this book yourself. You won't regret it.

Self-Discovery....that's kids stuff.