American kids, dumber than dirt

[frostfire]

Not sure where this one belongs. Sad indeed and must be old news to the folks here

San Francisco Gate, October 24, 2007

American kids, dumber than dirt
Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

I have this ongoing discussion with a longtime reader who also just so happens to be a longtime Oakland high school teacher, a wonderful guy who's seen generations of teens come and generations go and who has a delightful poetic sensibility and quirky outlook on his life and his family and his beloved teaching career.

And he often writes to me in response to something I might've written about the youth of today, anything where I comment on the various nefarious factors shaping their minds and their perspectives and whether or not, say, EMFs and junk food and cell phones are melting their brains and what can be done and just how bad it might all be.

His response: It is not bad at all. It's absolutely horrifying.

My friend often summarizes for me what he sees, firsthand, every day and every month, year in and year out, in his classroom. He speaks not merely of the sad decline in overall intellectual acumen among students over the years, not merely of the astonishing spread of lazy slackerhood, or the fact that cell phones and iPods and excess TV exposure are, absolutely and without reservation, short-circuiting the minds of the upcoming generations. Of this, he says, there is zero doubt.

Nor does he speak merely of the notion that kids these days are overprotected and wussified and don't spend enough time outdorrs and don't get any real exercise and therefore can't, say, identify basic plants, or handle a tool, or build, well, anything at all. Again, these things are a given. Widely reported, tragically ignored, nothing new.

No, my friend takes it all a full step — or rather, leap — further. It is not merely a sad slide. It is not just a general dumbing down. It is far uglier than that.

We are, as far as urban public education is concerned, essentially at rock bottom. We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait.

It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking — and nearly hopeless — dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.

Now, you may think he's merely a curmudgeon, a tired old teacher who stopped caring long ago. Not true. Teaching is his life. He says he loves his students, loves education and learning and watching young minds awaken. Problem is, he is seeing much less of it. It's a bit like the melting of the polar ice caps. Sure, there's been alarmist data about it for years, but until you see it for yourself, the deep visceral dread doesn't really hit home.

He cites studies, reports, hard data, from the appalling effects of television on child brain development (i.e.; any TV exposure before 6 years old and your kid's basic cognitive wiring and spatial perceptions are pretty much scrambled for life), to the fact that, because of all the insidious mandatory testing teachers are now forced to incorporate into the curriculum, of the 182 school days in a year, there are 110 when such testing is going on somewhere at Oakland High. As one of his colleagues put it, "It's like weighing a calf twice a day, but never feeding it."

But most of all, he simply observes his students, year to year, noting all the obvious evidence of teens' decreasing abilities when confronted with even the most basic intellectual tasks, from understanding simple history to working through moderately complex ideas to even (in a couple recent examples that particularly distressed him) being able to define the words "agriculture," or even "democracy." Not a single student could do it.

It gets worse. My friend cites the fact that, of the 6,000 high school students he estimates he's taught over the span of his career, only a small fraction now make it to his grade with a functioning understanding of written English. They do not know how to form a sentence. They cannot write an intelligible paragraph. Recently, after giving an assignment that required drawing lines, he realized that not a single student actually knew how to use a ruler.

It is, in short, nothing less than a tidal wave of dumb, with once-passionate, increasingly exasperated teachers like my friend nearly powerless to stop it. The worst part: It's not the kids' fault. They're merely the victims of a horribly failed educational system.

Then our discussion often turns to the meat of it, the bigger picture, the ugly and unavoidable truism about the lack of need among the government and the power elite in this nation to create a truly effective educational system, one that actually generates intelligent, thoughtful, articulate citizens.

Hell, why should they? After all, the dumber the populace, the easier it is to rule and control and launch unwinnable wars and pass laws telling them that sex is bad and TV is good and God knows all, so just pipe down and eat your Taco Bell Double-Supremo Burrito and be glad we don't arrest you for posting dirty pictures on your cute little blog.

This is about when I try to offer counterevidence, a bit of optimism. For one thing, I've argued generational relativity in this space before, suggesting maybe kids are no scarier or dumber or more dangerous than they've ever been, and that maybe some of the problem is merely the same old awkward generation gap, with every current generation absolutely convinced the subsequent one is terrifically stupid and malicious and will be the end of society as a whole. Just the way it always seems.

I also point out how, despite all the evidence of total public-education meltdown, I keep being surprised, keep hearing from/about teens and youth movements and actions that impress the hell out of me. Damn kids made the Internet what it is today, fer chrissakes. Revolutionized media. Broke all the rules. Still are.

Hell, some of the best designers, writers, artists, poets, chefs, and so on that I meet are in their early to mid-20s. And the nation's top universities are still managing, despite a factory-churning mentality, to crank out young minds of astonishing ability and acumen. How did these kids do it? How did they escape the horrible public school system? How did they avoid the great dumbing down of America? Did they never see a TV show until they hit puberty? Were they all born and raised elsewhere, in India and Asia and Russia? Did they all go to Waldorf or Montessori and eat whole-grain breads and play with firecrackers and take long walks in wild nature? Are these kids flukes? Exceptions? Just lucky?

My friend would say, well, yes, that's precisely what most of them are. Lucky, wealthy, foreign-born, private-schooled ... and increasingly rare. Most affluent parents in America — and many more who aren't — now put their kids in private schools from day one, and the smart ones give their kids no TV and minimal junk food and no video games. (Of course, this in no way guarantees a smart, attuned kid, but compared to the odds of success in the public school system, it sure seems to help). This covers about, what, 3 percent of the populace?

As for the rest, well, the dystopian evidence seems overwhelming indeed, to the point where it might be no stretch at all to say the biggest threat facing America is perhaps not global warming, not perpetual warmongering, not garbage food or low-level radiation or way too much Lindsay Lohan, but a populace far too ignorant to know how to properly manage any of it, much less change it all for the better.

What, too fatalistic? Don't worry. Soon enough, no one will know what the word even means.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...ss.mmorfo%20rd

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate and in the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle.

[SF18C]

We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait.

You could only get away with that in a MSM (liberal) newspaper!

[Kyobanim]

Originally Posted by SF18C

You could only get away with that in a MSM (liberal) newspaper!

Only if it's in America.

[Sten]

Just about every kid I know can read do math and are actually quite bright. So I call shenanigans on the premise of his article. I will concede that there are an enormous amount of stupid people in the world but that has been the case from the dawn of time it is not the fault of TV or fluoride or "big" special education.

I am also mad, my generation (Generation X) was slated to be the end of the America, not this Johnny come lately generation. I will not let them get the credit for the death of America.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Sten

Just about every kid I know can read do math and are actually quite bright. So I call shenanigans on the premise of his article. I will concede that there are an enormous amount of stupid people in the world but that has been the case from the dawn of time it is not the fault of TV or fluoride or "big" special education.

I am also mad, my generation (Generation X) was slated to be the end of the America, not this Johnny come lately generation. I will not let them get the credit for the death of America.

I think this says more about the people you associate with than the actual average intelligence of kids today. There is an amazingly ignorant underclass of young urban dwellers out there today, many who could not identify the US on a world map with the countries labeled.

Do not confuse your sample with a statistically significant and balanced one.

TR

[82ndtrooper]

This is from San Francisco right ?

"Evangelical lemmings" Why do the far left insist on labeling anyone with a religious belief as "lemmings" ? Do they believe that all of us are handling rattlesnacks and talking in tongues ? Do they believe that sex is continually preached to be repressed and that our parishiner females must wear full body dresses with little or no neck line ? It's obvious that they have not been to any church lately, or for that matter in their entire lives.

If there ever was a cult in America, it's not evangelical christians that deserve the lable, it the far left moonbats on Air America and those types supporting Gay Rights Day parades in San Francisco. Now that's a cult.

I suppose national consensus reports show that our K-12 students are on average scoring lower on aptitude tests than say .......Japanese students ? I don't purort to know that answer definitively, but I'v witnessed an awful lot of young students are in fact in the honors classes and not being pushed through grade school or high school with average or below average standardized aptitudes for math, science, english, and history.

I do know one thing. My sons are both honors students and can wiz bang me in math anyday of the week.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by 82ndtrooper

This is from San Francisco right ?

"Evangelical lemmings" Why do the far left insist on labeling anyone with a religious belief as "lemmings" ? Do they believe that all of us are handling rattlesnacks and talking in tongues ? Do they believe that sex is continually preached to be repressed and that our parishiner females must wear full body dresses with little or no neck line ? It's obvious that they have not been to any church lately, or for that matter in their entire lives.

If there ever was a cult in America, it's not evangelical christians that deserve the lable, it the far left moonbats on Air America and those types supporting Gay Rights Day parades in San Francisco. Now that's a cult.

Why is it always about religion with you?

You are free to worship in any way you please, but this is not a religious board, and is not going to become one.

TR

[sg1987]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Why is it always about religion with you?

You are free to worship in any way you please, but this is not a religious board, and is not going to become one.

TR

Sir, an honest question….Much of what I read about our historyand our leaders indicates that it always came back to religion for them as well.

How does one with a Christian world view enter into serious discussion of issues and leave out what it central to his/her belief system? These folks didn’t:

Did you know that 52 of the 55 signers of "The Declaration of Independence" were orthodox, deeply committed, Christians? The other three all believed in the Bible as the divine truth, the God of scripture, and His personal intervention. It is the same Congress that formed the American Bible Society, immediately after creating the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress voted to purchase and import 20,000 copies of Scripture for the people of this nation.

"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers. And it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." First Chief Justice of Supreme Court John Jay to Jedidiah Morse February 28, 1797

"The American population is entirely Christian, and with us Christianity and Religion are identified. It would be strange indeed, if with such a people, our institutions did not presuppose Christianity, and did not often refer to it, and exhibit relations with it." John Marshall, in a letter to Jasper Adams, May 9, 1833, JSAC, p. 139. Marshall was Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1801-1835.

"We shall not fight alone. God presides over the destinies of nations, and will raise up friends for us. The battle is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave . . . Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry, in a speech March 23, 1775.

"The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His Apostles.... This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government." Noah Webster

"The fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teaching we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in the right for anybody except the state. President Harry S. Truman

"It is no slight testimonial, both to the merit and worth of Christianity, that in all ages since its promulgation the great mass of those who have risen to eminence by their profound wisdom and integrity have recognized and reverenced Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of the living God." President John Quincy Adams

"The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests." President Andrew Jackson

"America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scriptures. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very simple thing to ask of you. I as of every man and woman in this audience that from this night on they will realize that part of the destiny of America lies in their daily perusal of this great book of revelations. That if they would see America free and pure they will make their own spirits free and pure by this baptism of the Holy Scripture." Woodrow Wilson, 1911, pre-Presidential campaign speech.

82nd
I believe that this site, like much of our country today, does not appreciate much in the way of religious expression. It is their house and it would be considerate to abide by their rules. Keep in mind that you have had a change in citizenship. Some here have not; and find your/our logic as quite foreign…..

Philippians Ch. 3
“Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body”

[frostfire]

I've been working a lot recently with elementary school & high school students, as well as college freshmen/sophomore. While their physique tends to be way ahead of their age, their mental development/mindset is quite the opposite...or perhaps I'm expecting too much from these youngsters aka. being prudent and refusing to accept the 'ol excuse "kids will always be kids"

Hate to admit some reality to the article, but the few home-schooled kids that I've met were definitely different.

[Kyobanim]

82nd
I believe that this site, like much of our country today, does not appreciate much in the way of religious expression. It is their house and it would be considerate to abide by their rules. Keep in mind that you have had a change in citizenship. Some here have not; and find your/our logic as quite foreign…..

I find the fact that this topic has turned to a religious discourse rediculous.

sg1987, you might want to re-think that post of yours. Saying that the people on this site don't appreciate one of the basic freedoms is pretty close to heresy.

This is fooking stupid.

[3SoldierDad]

There is an amazingly ignorant underclass of young urban dwellers out there today, many who could not identify the US on a world map with the countries labeled.

Yep, this is true.

In our time many things are moving to the extreme - This is true with intelligence and ignorance.

I would submit for your consideration that, perhaps...

• The smartest kids this nation has ever had are among us....
• And, the dumbest kids this nation has ever had are among us....

The internet let's the ambitious be as smart as they want to be and it allows the slothful and indolent become as irresponsible as they want to be....

As an observer and father of three soldiers, I could carry the comparison into the military as well. Perhaps, the nation's best and worst soldiers are now in the military.

In a high-speed world everything will tend to move to the extreme.

The great battle between excellence and baseness is being waged all around us - The dramatic conflagration among us does indeed seem to be at a boil.

Hey, this is simply my opinion - As my boys like to remind me, I'm wrong once in a while.


Three Soldier Dad...Chuck


.

[Pete]

Mine just got their first SATs back, 1840 and 1825. They'll keep 'um.

Kids- you get out of them what you put into them. It's too bad far too many parents have other more important things to do.

I have to go to the Library in the morning - but after the little one's award ceremony. First things first.,

[PSM]

The title of the piece is incorrect. It should read: "San Francisco Bay area kids, dumber than dirt." This is their nuclear-free, gender-neutral, multi-cultural, non-judgmental, self-esteem worshiping, history-rewriting, sanctuary-city, old dead white-men hating utopia.

Pat

[aricbcool]

Originally Posted by 3SoldierDad

I would submit for your consideration that, perhaps...

• The smartest kids this nation has ever had are among us....
• And, the dumbest kids this nation has ever had are among us....

Well put. I was debating entering this discussion, because like Sten, many of the young people I know, and work with are very bright, and well informed. At the same time, there's no denying the widespread ignorance of much of America's youth. Your post sir, sums it for me.

--Aric

[Gypsy]

This thread reminded me of this...

http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/...ol+system+work

Too many schools teaching about Johnny's (or Susie's) two mommies/daddies...and handing out birth control pills to 11 year olds.