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| Future Leaders of the World |
It's no secret that Americans are getting dumber by the decade. Not only is the intelligence of the average American waning, Americans celebrate their own stupidity. As a nation whose average college-educated citizens can only read at a fifth grade level, we are continually finding new ways to dumb down just about everything. In fact, even as standardized tests are intentionally made easier so Americans can appear smarter to each other and the rest of the world, average test scores are still declining. Some argue that right-wing conservatives have a calculated agenda against education, commonly referred to as anti-intellectualism. The theory goes that the rich and powerful, because of their desire to remain rich and powerful, have a vested interest in keeping the rest of the country ignorant and powerless.
Consider Paul Krugman's argument in last Thursday's New York Times, for example. He argues that there is a war on education. One facebooker responded to Krugman this way:
There's a vested interest in keeping America dumb. It strengthens the class divide, which I assume
the majority of those on the more economically gluttonous would prefer. It makes the majority of
average Americans more easily persuaded to vote against their own best interests. And if I recall
correctly, a large percentage of the armed services comes from poor, disadvantaged and otherwise
under-serviced segments of society. Couching even part of this invitation to willful ignorance - even
active disdain of smart or educated people - in *religion* concerns the bejeezus out of me.
You might disagree with Krugman's argument. But what if he and millions of other Americans who believe there is an anti-intellectualism conspiracy afoot are right?
More and more often teachers labeled as "hard" or "tough graders" are being censured by apathetic and falsely entitled students who think they should "get" (as opposed to earning) A's or at least passing grades simply for showing up to class and turning "something" in for homework assignments. Students are more likely to view college as a place you "buy" a degree than as a place where learning takes place as their critical and creative thinking skills are honed for the purpose of inventing new ideas and creating new knowledge. When many students claim that the most superficial analyses are just "reading too much into it," whatever "it" may be at the time, how will we ever raise a nation of thinkers?
While education is, for the most part, intrinsically linked to social class and individual economic success, our political leaders are slashing education budgets and student financial aid. Meanwhile, the cost of a college education has risen almost 500% over the last 30 years while the national rate of inflation for other goods and services has only been 115% since that time (Inflation Data). Thirty years ago, the average American citizen could expect to earn a degree s/he could afford without incurring mounting debt and that degree all but guaranteed that individual a job that earned a salary that would support a middle class existence. Now, tuition soars higher every year, more and more students must take out loans as financial aid is cut, and that degree gives its owner no guarantee of a job at all much less one that would sustain a middle class lifestyle.
Who's fault is all this?
While education is, for the most part, intrinsically linked to social class and individual economic success, our political leaders are slashing education budgets and student financial aid. Meanwhile, the cost of a college education has risen almost 500% over the last 30 years while the national rate of inflation for other goods and services has only been 115% since that time (Inflation Data). Thirty years ago, the average American citizen could expect to earn a degree s/he could afford without incurring mounting debt and that degree all but guaranteed that individual a job that earned a salary that would support a middle class existence. Now, tuition soars higher every year, more and more students must take out loans as financial aid is cut, and that degree gives its owner no guarantee of a job at all much less one that would sustain a middle class lifestyle.
Who's fault is all this?
If our nation is going to derail its current trajectory toward the world Mike Judge depicts in his scathing satire Idiocracy, everyone of us must commit ourselves to our own, individual educations, whether that is in a college or books we check out from the local library or free online lectures from TED, MIT Open Courseware, Academic Earth, and others where the world's most intelligent minds share their knowledge for free. A renewed passion for intellectualism might be the only thing that will save our country from this bleak fate.
What is your attitude about education and the future of our country? If the Joe Bauers (aka Not Sure) of this world remained steeped in apathy and ignorance, what will become of us? What will become of your children, of their children and their children's children?
What is your attitude about education and the future of our country? If the Joe Bauers (aka Not Sure) of this world remained steeped in apathy and ignorance, what will become of us? What will become of your children, of their children and their children's children?
Education Flaws in the U.S
ReplyDeleteI believe the education standards in the United States have dropped. I believe when the passed the “No child left behind Act in 2001, that we signed into law a legal way for the government to allow some of our child to slide between the cracks and end up as failures due to lack of learning. When a child falls behind in the Elementary schools, there is little hope of them ever catching up. This also leads to a lifetime struggle of not smart enough to further education. I think the government wants our youth to be obedient to their causes and keep them dumb enough so they don’t realize that some wars may be started purely for financial gains. There is an elite group of people that would love to be able to keep others under their control. These same people run most of the media outlets. The news the tell is exactly what they want the American people to hear but it is not always the truth. I have several friends that are elementary teachers and they tell me each year the curriculum is dumbed down and that some of the students can’t even keep up. After each year of less learning the kids are not able to grasp some of the concepts that future generations were able to excel l. As a parent of two children, I took special interest in their education. I sent my daughter to a private high school for two years to give her an edge over the rest of the public school kids. I am currently homeschooling my nine year old son due to his schools failure to teach him. They were just herding him along with the rest of the sheep even though he had fallen behind. That is not education. That is daycare.
I believe if no action is taken to change our educational objectives in this country then eventually a small group of elite’s will run the whole show and the rest of the Americans will remain dumb to the fact they are even being taken for granted and will remain poor. With the high price of college and lack of funding for the poor, how are they ever supposed to get a fighting chance at success? For the amount of money that is spent per student at the colleges, such a small percentage seems to go to the professors. Where is the rest of the money go? I believe that if this trend continues on the downhill slide it has taken, that eventually Americans are going to be used by those in power. I included a chart that just shows the literacy of the top 40 countries. America better that their act together because our children and grandchildren’s future looks bleak.
1 Finland 100
2 Georgia 100
3 Greenland 100
4 Luxembourg 100
5 Poland 99.8
6 Cuba 99.8
7 Estonia 99.8
8 Barbados 99.7
9 Latvia 99.7
10 Slovenia 99.7
11 Samoa 99.7
12 Lithuania 99.6
13 Slovakia 99.6
14 Belarus 99.6
15 Kazakhstan 99.5
16 Tajikistan 99.5
17 Russia 99.4
18 Ukraine 99.4
19 Hungary 99.4
20 Armenia 99.4
21 Uzbekistan 99.3
22 Moldova 99.1
23 Monaco 99
24 New Zealand 99
25 Netherlands 99
26 Iceland 99
27 Japan 99
28 Korea, North 99
29 Australia 99
30 Belgium 99
31 Canada 99
32 Ireland 99
33 Denmark 99
34 Germany 99
35 Guam 99
36 Czech Republic 99
37 France 99
38 United States 99
39 United Kingdom 99
40 Saint Pierre and Miquelo 99
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=39
When looking at the anti-intellectualism argument, you should look at the effects from top-to-bottom rather than just saying "kids don't want degrees now and that's the problem." With or without a conspiracy involved, we all know that the government is cutting educational funding. Educational cuts lead to underpaid teachers and schools just wanting to hire the ones who will work cheapest. This leads to disgruntled employees who have to deal with some of the most annoying people one will ever meet: children and teenagers.
ReplyDeleteThey become ridiculously unprofessional, such as cases that I experienced as a child where one teacher would favour the "cool kids" and outcast "nerdy kids" to fit in with fifth graders because they're that starved for attention. And, as one could expect, teachers who work overtime as both high school and college professors can be especially difficult. After evaluations, professors are dangerous creatures as some feel no incentive to care. Particularly vile ones have habits of becoming sadistic if they do not feel that the results were optimal. This causes incidents such as over-working students (not teaching, just giving unnecessary homework that has little value) and grading papers based on opinion.
Out of all the poor teachers I have encountered, the one that ended up harming me the most was one who was one of the nicest. Art has been the closest thing that I have to a passion that I can start a career with. Sadly, it's one of the most expendable programs and always thought of as an "easy A" class. In middle school through high school I had a single teacher who would instruct students. I never was particularly impressed with my work as I wanted to be, but my teacher never critiqued me so that I may improve my work. For the longest time I was under the impression that I was only doing what could be done for my age.
In the latter years of high school, I realized how my art was still atrocious and how anyone who went to other schools that I knew had surpassed me by far. It was then I opened my eyes to how that teacher was letting students copy drawings and encouraging uncreativity. There was one single time where she gave a lesson on basic human drawing anatomy and she quickly dismissed it. She never gave us help to better in a field of art, just gave us assignments to use every medium and technique imaginable only once, no matter how little they would apply to us. Now, age twenty, I only "know" art and I do not even know it that well. This leads to many days where I will be filled with so much self-depreciation that I don't even want to wake up. I feel that I have wasted all preparation for life and that I will end up completely letting down my family who keeps semi-facetiously expecting me to be "the famous one."
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Er, "kids don't want degrees now and that's the problem" should have been "don't want to work for degrees." Apologies for any confusion.
Delete(Continued from previous post)
ReplyDeleteThat is where student insubordination rises. They are crafted from these corrupted teachers and get impressions that education doesn't matter or that failure is inevitable. Of course, family matters play a large role as well, but I will retouch on that subject. This unethical food chain of education not only causes the stubborn to stay dumb but those who seek guidance to be jaded and lethargic. If there is a shadowy counsel who act as the puppeteer to this debauchery of education, then they are doing a good job. And I want them to pay dearly.
I wish not only for academic upheaval but also social education to be instated. Currently we have a few programs and "days" to stop "cyberbullying" but they're usually met with ridicule. Partially because we are attempting to halt all drama between hormone-happy teens and partially because the posters and little slips of paper that are sent home with kids that they don't read are a bit humourous. These need to be serious lectures and courses given to students at earlier ages to teach them the importance of diversity and equality of humans. If we can assure that these children at least learn of sensitivity before their backwards parents pull them out of the school for it not imposing their values, at least a chance of that lesson has a chance of surviving to another generation. People seem to care about social matters before educational, and if we combine the two in an unburdening manner, perhaps they will benefit each other. Or maybe this is just bitter rambling from someone who has had to live in a town of sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic Luddites for all their life.
Oh yeah, there is a movie I should be talking about.
Honestly, I don't see the semi-intellectual or normal individuals striking for a change very much. As I said before, most have been conditioned that authority is corrupt and so their say is of little importance. While it may not turn out to be as drastic as Idiocracy portrays, at this rate the "average" person will become spineless and lay low. This does not mean that rampant idiots will rule, as they will be as low as a normal person. It will mostly likely be the manipulative to be put in charge, ones who aren't the most intellectual but the most crafty. These would be the only ones with the confidence to step up but only out of selfishness as altruism would probably be dying or dead.
As for my children and children's children and et cetera? I definitely do not plan on having a child in the foreseeable future. Not only do I feel I would not be equipped for the job, but I do not want to bring someone I care about into this rotten world. They don't deserve that.
I agree that education is declining in American, but as much as I enjoy a good conspiracy theory, I can’t fully believe this anti-intellectualism one. I feel a more proper subject to point our collective fingers at is ourselves and our misguided values as a society. If you ask any child how one becomes rich in this country, the answer is almost always going to be “become famous.” Whether or not that fame comes in the form of athletic abilities or entertainment, everyone knows that its fame that leads to wealth in this country far more often than intelligence. That being said, it is not only our misplaced values that have caused this decline, but I know that in my case personally it’s a severe case of disillusionment. Every year during my precollege education it was drilled into our head that with a college education we would be set for life. So with this as my driving force, I jumped straight into college right out of high school. It is after a few years of this that I began to see my older friends graduating with their college degrees just to return to their previous minimum wage paying jobs. There is a fact that people must face in this country, and that is that there are not enough entry level, college degree jobs for an entire generation. Having a degree used to be the minority and therefore guaranteed a decent job. Now, with a generation of people straight out of college with their degrees looking for jobs, those jobs have come up short. What is worse, is that those that do manage to get their minimum wage paying jobs back after college are told that they should be thankful to have a job at all. This is complete nonsense! Our whole lives we were told to get a degree so you can have a better job and won’t be stuck flipping burgers, and now that we have sacrificed the time and substantial amount of money to get that degree, we are now told to be happy with what we had. What kind of message is that sending to future generations? It sounds to me something like, “Its not worth trying, might as well keep what you have.” Simply put, the problem with our education system comes from a lack of motivation caused by a declining reward system for those that do pay the price for a degree. If it continues along this path for very much longer, we will decline further into a society that sees little value in higher intelligence, and instead pushes towards distraction such as entertainment. It didn’t work for the Roman’s and their gladiators, and I don’t see a much brighter future for us either.
ReplyDeleteThe satirical film Idiocracy raised a lot of questions in my mind concerning the future of the nation’s intelligence as a whole. On the surface, the film presents a very hollow sense of humor, in that it almost seems like a child’s level of humor (with the addition of a little vulgarity, of course). After a few eye rolls and chuckles due to the lame jokes, I set aside my personal preferences, and I began to see a much deeper meaning that ultimately led to critical thinking about not only today’s society, but also future societies about education and intelligence. Viewing the film in a much deeper context made it evolve from simply a silly movie to one that actually made me go “huh, I like it! It makes me think!”
ReplyDeleteEducation in this nation is at a downward spiral. It is no doubt one of the most important elements of life. Yet, our nation’s leaders are continuously placing it on the backburner when it comes to fiscal spending. This in itself screams of stupidity because it has created a vicious cycle of shallow thinking leaders who deal with responsibilities poorly. I say it has created a vicious cycle because, well, think about it: (now) educated politicians are leading our country and cutting the proper funds that are needed for future, well-educated leaders—aka the students of today. The students, in turn, will not be equipped with the knowledge to run the country in the future because of the education that their forefathers deprived them of! It has a circular effect, really: the uneducated deprive the uneducated—now, that is sad.
The film mirrors my prior stated opinions, as well. Taking a look at the president of the United States in the futuristic film, Mr. Camacho, the viewers see a tall, muscular, ex-wrestler of a man. His middle fingers fly very loosely, and he is not too shy to throw around the “F” word a time or two in the wild addresses he gives to his people. Mike Judge was making a very clear and brutal point by casting the president to be such a character. He wanted to highlight the low intelligence and informality of the president. He wanted to make a point that the man leading the country was no smarter than the gentleman flailing his middle fingers and spewing curse words in the front row. While this may not say much about our current times, it does say a great deal about what our current times are headed for. Politicians nowadays are revered in a way that places emphasis on their knowledge of foreign policy, business skills, and ideas of monetary spending—all elements that are above and beyond the “average Joe.” We are headed for times where the norm is to be uneducated, though. The film, which presents a futuristic context, perfectly captures this idea by presenting the president as no smarter than the “dude” sitting next to him, drinking “Brawndo,” shooting guns, and eating what appears to be butter…for every meal.
Maybe we are headed for times such as the film Idiocracy presents, or maybe not. Unfortunately only time will tell. Let’s just hope we’re smart enough to figure out the difference between water and a sports drink to irrigate our crops, though…
I want to respond particularly to aashby's comments, but my response is in part a reply to everyone's comment and is relevant at least to all of you.
ReplyDeleteOur education system is failing our students because often it fails to challenge students at all grade levels to work at their highest potential. I would like all of you to keep this mind as we near the end of this semester. On the last day of class, I will give you an anonymous survey to complete, and as you fill that survey out, I want you to think about this class and whether I challenged you to work at your highest potential.
My hope is that I challenge all of my students to work harder and to stretch the limits of their imaginations and worldviews by presenting them with new and unique information and experiences that push the limits of their beliefs, that cause them to question themselves and the the world around them. I think, though, I tend to teach to the middle sometimes, to challenge students who would normally be in the C range to work harder and think more critically. Sometimes I feel that this approach leaves my students who more easily earn A's unchallenged. Still, there are students who struggle for C's and try hard. As a teacher, I owe it to everyone to challenge them to push their potential and grow as students and as people. I will be interested to hear from you all on this issue, so that I may better accomplish this goal in future classes.