Dumb As Dirt

[MrPlum]

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 outdoors 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.

[Randy Cornhole]

I often hear the same ramblings eminating from the ears of fellow Brits. I once new a teacher who was told that his school were no longer marking down exam results for bad spelling or grammer. If the teacher knew what the pupil was trying to get across then they had achieved what was required, end of.

You also hear the coccoon brigade spouting the same. Well could your average wrinkley survive in todays workplace with all its computerised tom foolery. Could your average person of twilight persuasion partake in texting or skyping?
The truth is the world is changing. it has and always will be. Todays kidlings are just learning the skills required to exist in it. Believe you me in a few decades we will find it hard to keep up!!

Today kids with advanced xbox and playstation skills can master flying multi tasking fighter planes with heads up displays. Do you think Wilbur wright could pilot such a beastie?

I'm afraid your friend will just have to come to tearms that this day and age things are and have to be different.
But then again thats just my point of view...

It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country

Will he find it all a bit too much here...

[MrPlum]

Sorry RC I should have made clear. Article comes from here... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 102407.DTL

Is ramblings the same as guff? I spoke to one of the teachers here why they left the U.S. ? 'No Child Left Behind'. The dumb kids were holding back the bright ones and there was nothing the teachers could do about it.

Being unable to define the words "agriculture," or even "democracy." doesn't suggest well-rounded children. 'Not a single student could do it.'

When I was recruiting candidates for a support role in a Software House, they needed Two European languages plus English, I.T. Skills AND Interpersonal skills.

Finding kids that can play games is no problem. Finding someone who could do the job was almost impossible. Had to recruit Europeans. They were better educated.

[PeteC]

I'm not arguing with what the man is saying, except for the fact he is only writing about his own backyard, and doing copious amounts of generalizing. If he is writing for a worldwide audience, he needs to expand his research.

The Oakland school district you can compare to the Bronx, Wats in LA, little Havana in Miami, south Chicago, perhaps east London etc. Oakland schools were a war zone of race hatred and gang wars in the not too distant past, and perhaps still are to a degree.

There are still a lot of kids getting a good education in the public school system, but not primarily in the inner city schools. Pete

[margaretcarnes]

Should the location of a school make a difference to the standard of it's education Pete? I can see that the standard/behaviour of some of the PUPILS could have a detrimental effect. That happens in most urban schools now.
Mr Plum makes a good point IMO, and one which us Brits have been lamenting for ages. The PC ness of state education here is such that red pens can't be used anymore for marking. It sends the wrong message of descrimination and failure to the pupil. Poor things. Many schools don't even have winners and losers at sports days for the same reason.
How kids are supposed to develop the competetive nature needed in industry is a mystery. But as Mr Plum also says, a surprising number do still turn out OK.
As for English grammar - spelling doesn't seem to matter. I really have a problem wih this. Maybe due to having learned the old way, by sheer repetition and constant spelling bees! But it didn't do any harm. Neither did the Latin - which provides a basic understanding of the structure and origin of many words.
As for Randys' Wrinklies coping at work with new technology - easy Randy - we just delegate!

[sandman67]

Mr P

Agree with you but there are some other factors that need to be taken into account, and they are mainly societal.

Parents nowadays work longer hours than ever....for gods sake in America you get less paid leave than anywhere else I ever worked....my US colleagues were astounded when I explained I got 7 weeks paid leave take-able at ANY time of year, as well as about 19 days of flexi leave and public holidays.

This means that kids have less human input. Less direct learning. Less experience and acquired wisdom guiding them in the early years. The TV is now societies wet nurse.

Instead they are fed a junk food diet of pop news and sound bite politics, where having perfect teeth in your mouth matters more than the words that come out of it.

Scrambled brains are a direct result of scrambled input.

Im not swiping at the yanks here but Ive watched TV....or tried to...in the States and its sodding impossible. Adverts every 5 minutes, and generally brain dead opium for the masses programming. The only intelligent programming is on PBS and usually bought in from the UKs BBC or Channel 4 documentary divisions. They do some of their own good stuff too....but nobody watches PBS.

Computer games arent to blame.....some of the strategy games I play are so sodding complex the rulebooks now come as PDF files because they are so big. However, first person shooters, such as the one the US Army has put out for free, result in improved response times and....trigger happy goons who indulge in collateral damage and friendly fire. Brainless, pigeon chested, flat footed, CTR tanned robots who think the best way of engaging with a civilian is to wear mirrored shades and shove guns in their faces. Dicks who turn archaeological sites into tank parks, spray regimental colours and graffiti all over war memorials, and then wonder why the locals hate them so much.

I used to love watching 60 Minutes as it actually meant I had to engage my brain....but thats on late at night and mainly focuses, like most news in the US, on domestic issues. World news is a sideline on almost every news show I ever saw....the bit where we in the UK usually put in a feelgood story to alleviate all the war and death. No wonder most Americans dont understand the Middle East, or even where it actually is. All you ever see is a constant stream of Muslims Bad/Israel Good.

Politics has become a cheap charade of scandal and sleaze over policies and progress. Just look at the latest mud slinging match between the two presidential candidates and their co-runners. Heres a suggestion - if you want politics to grow up, and become relevant to the young, make it illegal to indulge in smear campaigns and employ attack dogs like Karl Rove or "The Bullet".

I have a mate who teaches history back in the UK. When he proposed teaching the kids about the crusades instead of the causes of the second world war he was asked why.......his bosses were too stupid to see that whilst Europe is stable we are repeating the mistakes made way back then in the Middle east....he just gave up and carried on teaching the same old crap about the Wiemar state. Irrelevant and uninteresting, it just turns off his students and discourages any interest in history.

Americans also arent great backpackers/travellers.....I can see why. Why bother when you have all the worlds geography right there at home? America is one of the most beautiful countries, scenery wise, I ever traveled in. Zion, Utah, The Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce, the Sonora Desert.....man they were breathtaking. Also your government loves scaring the willies out of you all and telling you most of the world is so unsafe its best to stay at home.....

So what that means is a low exposure to both geography and different cultures. No wonder when you make films you have to put "Paris, France" on a scene of the Eiffel Tower.....why? Does Paris in Texas have an Eiffel Tower? Dont tell me you would get them confused?

Ah well.........The UK is getting just as bad now. Our only saving grace is the Pub Quiz....at least that means general knowledge is still good for something

All in all its a mad old world, but if we are looking for who is responsible then look no further than your bathroom mirror.

The really funny one is this....intelligentsia tend to have smaller families or not to have kids. Dumbass donkeys breed like rabbits.....

Us smarties are just breeding ourselves out of existence! We are the human equivalents of pandas

[Vital Spark]

The really funny one is this....intelligentsia tend to have smaller families or not to have kids. Dumbass donkeys breed like rabbits.....

Absolutely right. Most of our intelligent friends in the UK have decided to have no kids, or only have one. It's a downward spiral.

But, hey, let's look on the 'bright' side - they're all getting loads of A* grades in their GCSE's and 'A' Levels so they must be more intelligent than us (I didn't get a single A in any of my nine 'O' levels - God, I must be dumb....).

VS