Filed under 'Jeff Foxworthy'

Once known for his "you might be a redneck if…" one-liners, Jeff Foxworthy is now known for making us question our educational background in his hit TV quiz show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Jeff and his wife of 24 years, Pamela Gregg, have two daughters, Jordan, 17, and Julianne, 15. The 51-year-old stand-up comedian/actor/TV host wrote this thoughtful article for PARADE, outlining the many lessons he's learned from his own two daughters and from the smart kids on his show.

"I get all kinds of people coming up to me in the grocery store and at Home Depot, but instead of shouting, “Hey, I’m a redneck!” like they used to, they say, “Guess what? I’m not smarter than a fifth-grader!” That’s the big appeal of the show—every adult thinks he can do it, and then he finds out pretty quickly that even if he learned it once, it’s gone now! You look at your brain and you wonder, Why did it decide to keep the file with all the words to the Gilligan’s Island theme song but delete anything about triangles?

I’ve learned a lot from working with the kids themselves. For starters, I’ve learned that they’re much more capable than we believe they are. We’re probably the most overprotective generation of parents that’s ever been on this planet, but I’ve found that if you turn a group of kids loose in the outdoors, they learn to work together. They learn how to build forts and solve problems, like, How do we cross this ditch or this creek? That’s how we all find out what we’re capable of. Best of all, they figure out how to entertain themselves without electricity. Amazing!

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