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Mindless Giddy Teenagers
by Jack » Sun 19 Dec 2004, 00:27:43
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Terran', 'S')ure I'm still in highschool, but I think there are intelligent people in highschool. The good thing is today we have A.P (advanced placement) courses. I'm glad during my junor year I had plenty of those classes. Most of the students are gifted high acheivers. You don't really have to worry much about idiots in mainstream highschool. Sure if one don't want to deal with mainstream highschool, just join A.P classes as a escape. A.P classes are where the bunk of the highschool intellectuals. Best of all, you'll receive a grade bump, and if you pass that college level exam, you'll get college credit.
There are some very intelligent students in high school; the median student may be another matter. More problematic is the question of whether the intelligence you mention is being developed to its potential. The average college student is not particularly capable of writing effectively, lacks mathematical skills, and is sorely lacking in critical thinking skills. This implies that many high school students are likewise deficient. Certain exceptions to the above are duly noted.
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by SilverHair » Sun 19 Dec 2004, 02:16:54
The real problem in public education is that there is no incentive for good teachers and no real detrement for bad teachers. Most all teachers get tenure and they stay as long as they desire. Both good and bad teachers get similar pay. A few years back I remember an incident in the local school where probably the best teacher the school system ever had was let go because he was the least senior member of the English faculty and they school had budgetary problems. Of course that did not stop them from building a state of the art gym a few years later.
Public schools do not need to be profitable so they tend to spend a lot on administration. The state educational beauracy adds to the cost burden. Many schools, particularly rural schools, think having a good sports program is more important than academics.
These same sort of decisions as to employment and spending are faced by private schools, but since they need to make rational decisions to survive and attract students, they tend to keep the best teachers and spend their money on what really counts.
Also there is the problem of manditory attendance. The just are some people who would be much better off learning a trade thru an apprentice system rather than draging down schools. They don't learn anyway, and to boot society is deprived of skilled craftsmen because the kid is forced to sit in his educational prison until he reaches the required age.
It is really sad to think that for the same money dumpted into mediocre education, just about everyone who wanted to could have a superior private education. For those who wanted private education, but could not afford it, scholarships probably would fill the void in most cases.
Maybe out of the economic and social breakdown some good will result. Foolish decisions like public education, which can be put up with in times of abundance like the last 75 years, will likely not be tolerated when there just is not enough to go around, plus with society moving to simpler less technological times, formal education will become less of an asset.
Public schools do not need to be profitable so they tend to spend a lot on administration. The state educational beauracy adds to the cost burden. Many schools, particularly rural schools, think having a good sports program is more important than academics.
These same sort of decisions as to employment and spending are faced by private schools, but since they need to make rational decisions to survive and attract students, they tend to keep the best teachers and spend their money on what really counts.
Also there is the problem of manditory attendance. The just are some people who would be much better off learning a trade thru an apprentice system rather than draging down schools. They don't learn anyway, and to boot society is deprived of skilled craftsmen because the kid is forced to sit in his educational prison until he reaches the required age.
It is really sad to think that for the same money dumpted into mediocre education, just about everyone who wanted to could have a superior private education. For those who wanted private education, but could not afford it, scholarships probably would fill the void in most cases.
Maybe out of the economic and social breakdown some good will result. Foolish decisions like public education, which can be put up with in times of abundance like the last 75 years, will likely not be tolerated when there just is not enough to go around, plus with society moving to simpler less technological times, formal education will become less of an asset.
- SilverHair
by Falconoffury » Sun 19 Dec 2004, 02:29:43
I think any study that compares a private to a government run social security system isn't taking a look at the whole picture. The study isn't including the damage done to the government due to lack of usable money. A private social security system may be able to protect the retirement money of more people, but that would take money out of the government's pockets.
I've been out of highschool for about 4 years, and it's difficult to say why American kids are dumber. It just feels like hard work is a more important quality than learning and being smart.
Even in college, it seems like most people's main hobbies are talking on their cell phones. It feels like nobody really thinks anymore. Everyone is just content to jump on the bandwagon. With the big jump in population in the last 50 years, you would think it would create more diversity in thoughts and interests, but just the opposite happened. Quantity has liquidated quality.
I have a good friend who is only a semi thinker. Lately I've been asking him where he sees himself in 5 years. He wants to join a government agency, but he doesn't know why or what exactly he wants to do. I'm content that I'm getting him to think about such things at least.
I've been out of highschool for about 4 years, and it's difficult to say why American kids are dumber. It just feels like hard work is a more important quality than learning and being smart.
Even in college, it seems like most people's main hobbies are talking on their cell phones. It feels like nobody really thinks anymore. Everyone is just content to jump on the bandwagon. With the big jump in population in the last 50 years, you would think it would create more diversity in thoughts and interests, but just the opposite happened. Quantity has liquidated quality.
I have a good friend who is only a semi thinker. Lately I've been asking him where he sees himself in 5 years. He wants to join a government agency, but he doesn't know why or what exactly he wants to do. I'm content that I'm getting him to think about such things at least.
"If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"Bush, Bush, listen well: Two shoes on your head," the protesters chant
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"Bush, Bush, listen well: Two shoes on your head," the protesters chant
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by Guest » Sun 19 Dec 2004, 02:51:05
Any one remember the movie 'Fast Times At Ridgemont High'? I've been there as a substiture teacher. It's here in the Clairemont area of San Diego (not the real name of course). Those poor kids there now are among the most deranged I've seen in this whole county. There is a dark cloud over their heads. I can only imagine what must be in their private minds about the crazy world they have been thrown into. It's sad beyond belief. When I started this thread I was hoping to start a conversation about how we got to a situation like this. Nothing doin'. I offered three concrete suggestions about what went wrong. No response to those suggestions. Not as far as I'm concerned. So let me offer another observation. The great British Historian Arnold Toynbee wrote a massive tract called 'A Study Of History.' He was a mega thinker and wrote an analysis of all the Civilizations that have come and gone throughout history. When a civilization is at its peak, the fortunate souls in those times give rise to wonderful expressions of the human spirit. But in the waning days, what usually happens is that the best minds focus on technology because that's what's left to them to act upon when the soul of their society is fled. We are in the waning days of a great civilization. Other minds in other times have wondered about this kind of situation, Boethius comes to mind. There isn't anything to be done about it. We'll just have to sit back and watch it happen. This time, the Barbarians at the Gate will be the teenagers. And they have every right to feel their rage. Woe to my own kids. They're so sweet and I love them so much.
- Guest
by Aaron » Sun 19 Dec 2004, 10:41:56
Interesting topic...
Perhaps the apparent "dumbing down" of America is a function of scale?
Like G. Carlin says, in any group of people there are a few smart winners, and a whole lot of losers.
Maybe we are just seeing this same distribution magnified by a larger population? Same percent of smart/dumb, just in larger numbers.
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IMO, it's the death of literacy which is the prime mover here.
Kids don't read today... without that basis for expanding vocabulary & usage, you can be the greatest thinker in history... but we will never know it.
"All men are created equal", does not actually mean "equal". It implies "equal in opportunity".
In today's soccer-mom, child obsessed America; after decades of "feel good" education and all the lessons of "entitlement"; our corporate overlords have lead us into a moral & intellectual sewer.
I recently went through a classic example of this thinking with my own son (15).
Going along with a group of kids at his school, he stupidly wrote the nick-name of a peer on the bathroom wall in school. I attended this same school myself, and in my day this kind of infraction would have drawn immediate punishment in the form of corporal punishment (what we used to call "Getting pops") (No offense Pops lol).
But today, this is a criminal offense which resulted in months of probation, and an exhaustive set of legal loops to jump through. For the 10 or 15 seconds it took to repair this "damage" the school has fined me $150, and along with lawyer fees, and court costs etc, has netted the system hundreds of dollars from my pocket. I'm not saying he should be let off, but it seems clear that since he would have received the same punishment for say... shattering a plate-glass window, that this is all about money, and has zero to do with correcting behavior.
The DA actually wanted to file FELONY vandalism charges!
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Seems to me that our education system is struggling with the same issue as society at large.
Greed
Can't let the neighbors kids jump on the trampoline... parents might sue me.
Don't keep alcohol in the house... if a kid breaks into my house and breaks the lock on the liquor cabinet, I'd be liable.
Gotta sign a parental release for my kid to shoot paint-balls with other kids on the range.
Perhaps we have "sanitized" the experience of youth in America to the point where we are now seeing an increase in "risk taking" by teenagers as an unconscious respond.
As N.S. says in his amazing novel "Snow Crash" :
<paraphrase> "At some point in every young man's life, he thinks that if I could just study for years on a mountain-top monastery, I could be the baddest MF on Earth."
And as Tony Soprano says:
"What they didn't know, was that when they got Gary Cooper to start talking... they couldn't get him to shut up!"
As I've expressed in other threads; this forum, perhaps we have "thrown out the baby with the bathwater" in western culture to some extent.
We lose machismo, but with it goes strength.
We discourage discrimination, and with it being discriminative.
I'll ask a question of the ladies here.
Which do you prefer as a mate?
1. Confident and strong man with ambition and drive, who is also open to criticism, is smart and desires a more emotionally sensitive partner to help him understand & integrate his own emotional life.
2. Weakling jellyfish who bends to your every wish, always agrees with you, and weeps like a baby at the slightest infraction?
As we struggle to integrate traditionally feminine values like compassion, nurturing, & equality into western culture, we should remember that women today have more access to traditionally male dominated positions of power than ever before in history. As if our women had pulled back the curtain of the male dominated world stage, and are eager to make sweeping changes to the terrible mess they found there.
Western peoples are by & very large, so separated from the natural world they inhabit, that they have lost a critical context for the meaning of life itself.
Like some zero gee plant experiments; when freed from the tyranny of gravity, they simply go crazy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I believe that a healthy person is a fully integrated person with a comfortable balance between our two selves. The Buddhist "middle path" where both our intrinsic animal nature, and our higher moral self, are woven together into a singular individual.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our common desire to cheat death is perhaps at the root of this issue as well.
Mandatory helmets for motorcycle riders? OMG!
Didn't work initially, so they repealed it here until some bright legislator grew a brain and proposed taxing those who don't wear a helmet through a non-helmet license.
Again with the G. Carlin:
"As cruel as it is, the kid who chokes on marbles on the playground, does not grow up to have kids of his own."
Circle of life Simba...
Perhaps the apparent "dumbing down" of America is a function of scale?
Like G. Carlin says, in any group of people there are a few smart winners, and a whole lot of losers.
Maybe we are just seeing this same distribution magnified by a larger population? Same percent of smart/dumb, just in larger numbers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMO, it's the death of literacy which is the prime mover here.
Kids don't read today... without that basis for expanding vocabulary & usage, you can be the greatest thinker in history... but we will never know it.
"All men are created equal", does not actually mean "equal". It implies "equal in opportunity".
In today's soccer-mom, child obsessed America; after decades of "feel good" education and all the lessons of "entitlement"; our corporate overlords have lead us into a moral & intellectual sewer.
I recently went through a classic example of this thinking with my own son (15).
Going along with a group of kids at his school, he stupidly wrote the nick-name of a peer on the bathroom wall in school. I attended this same school myself, and in my day this kind of infraction would have drawn immediate punishment in the form of corporal punishment (what we used to call "Getting pops") (No offense Pops lol).
But today, this is a criminal offense which resulted in months of probation, and an exhaustive set of legal loops to jump through. For the 10 or 15 seconds it took to repair this "damage" the school has fined me $150, and along with lawyer fees, and court costs etc, has netted the system hundreds of dollars from my pocket. I'm not saying he should be let off, but it seems clear that since he would have received the same punishment for say... shattering a plate-glass window, that this is all about money, and has zero to do with correcting behavior.
The DA actually wanted to file FELONY vandalism charges!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Seems to me that our education system is struggling with the same issue as society at large.
Greed
Can't let the neighbors kids jump on the trampoline... parents might sue me.
Don't keep alcohol in the house... if a kid breaks into my house and breaks the lock on the liquor cabinet, I'd be liable.
Gotta sign a parental release for my kid to shoot paint-balls with other kids on the range.
Perhaps we have "sanitized" the experience of youth in America to the point where we are now seeing an increase in "risk taking" by teenagers as an unconscious respond.
As N.S. says in his amazing novel "Snow Crash" :
<paraphrase> "At some point in every young man's life, he thinks that if I could just study for years on a mountain-top monastery, I could be the baddest MF on Earth."
And as Tony Soprano says:
"What they didn't know, was that when they got Gary Cooper to start talking... they couldn't get him to shut up!"
As I've expressed in other threads; this forum, perhaps we have "thrown out the baby with the bathwater" in western culture to some extent.
We lose machismo, but with it goes strength.
We discourage discrimination, and with it being discriminative.
I'll ask a question of the ladies here.
Which do you prefer as a mate?
1. Confident and strong man with ambition and drive, who is also open to criticism, is smart and desires a more emotionally sensitive partner to help him understand & integrate his own emotional life.
2. Weakling jellyfish who bends to your every wish, always agrees with you, and weeps like a baby at the slightest infraction?
As we struggle to integrate traditionally feminine values like compassion, nurturing, & equality into western culture, we should remember that women today have more access to traditionally male dominated positions of power than ever before in history. As if our women had pulled back the curtain of the male dominated world stage, and are eager to make sweeping changes to the terrible mess they found there.
Western peoples are by & very large, so separated from the natural world they inhabit, that they have lost a critical context for the meaning of life itself.
Like some zero gee plant experiments; when freed from the tyranny of gravity, they simply go crazy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I believe that a healthy person is a fully integrated person with a comfortable balance between our two selves. The Buddhist "middle path" where both our intrinsic animal nature, and our higher moral self, are woven together into a singular individual.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our common desire to cheat death is perhaps at the root of this issue as well.
Mandatory helmets for motorcycle riders? OMG!
Didn't work initially, so they repealed it here until some bright legislator grew a brain and proposed taxing those who don't wear a helmet through a non-helmet license.
Again with the G. Carlin:
"As cruel as it is, the kid who chokes on marbles on the playground, does not grow up to have kids of his own."
Circle of life Simba...
Last edited by Aaron on Sun 19 Dec 2004, 11:48:18, edited 1 time in total.
The problem is, of course, that not only is economics bankrupt, but it has always been nothing more than politics in disguise... economics is a form of brain damage.
Hazel Henderson
Hazel Henderson
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Aaron - Resting in Peace
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by Chuck » Sun 19 Dec 2004, 11:00:04
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')
"As cruel as it is, the kid who chokes on marbles on the playground, does not grow up to have kids of his own."
')
"As cruel as it is, the kid who chokes on marbles on the playground, does not grow up to have kids of his own."
Very good one Aaron! I keep it for my quote-file. Do you know where I can find more of this Carlin?
The government will think of something
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by Aaron » Sun 19 Dec 2004, 11:47:00
http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html
http://www.objectivethought.com/atheism/carlin.html
http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/q ... arlin.html
Many many more... http://tinyurl.com/3sqhk
http://www.objectivethought.com/atheism/carlin.html
http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/q ... arlin.html
Many many more... http://tinyurl.com/3sqhk
The problem is, of course, that not only is economics bankrupt, but it has always been nothing more than politics in disguise... economics is a form of brain damage.
Hazel Henderson
Hazel Henderson
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Aaron - Resting in Peace
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- Location: Houston
by Guest » Sun 19 Dec 2004, 12:50:24
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')And as Tony Soprano says:
"What they didn't know, was that when they got Gary Cooper to start talking... they couldn't get him to shut up!"
')And as Tony Soprano says:
"What they didn't know, was that when they got Gary Cooper to start talking... they couldn't get him to shut up!"
Enjoyed reading this. Sorry about your son. It just shows how wacked out our society has become with a loss of plain sense. What do you call a line of 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? (ans: a good start)
- Guest
by Riddick » Sun 19 Dec 2004, 12:55:26
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Riddick', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'K')eep in mind that our President graduated from Yale as an undergraduate, and got an MBA from Harvard. This weakens your argument.
He paid for those degrees. Earning them is another matter. If Shrub earned those degrees, then I'm the fucking Pope.
Your Holiness, it's an honor to meet you, sir! Please give my regards to Sister Bambi!
Seriously, the last truly intellectual president we've had was Carter - and, whatever his merits, he wasn't able to lead and inspire.
Would ANY country be able to handle an intelligent leader that told the truth? I doubt it.
Yes, I agree. Carter was smart and couldn't lead at all. His foreign policy wasn't exactly getting it done. It's the same thing a college student might experience when dealing some professors; I've had some absolutely brilliant teachers but they could't/wouldn't/did not know how to teach. They were only concerned about their research or were so arrogant they thought they could do anything without making mistakes. The latter part sounds exactly like the current administration. Arrogance on any level is a very dangerous thing.
I would also disagree with your last sentence. If someone were to come out and say, "people, we've got a situation here with regards to oil", I think that person might be regarded as a visionary and a sign of America's rebirth: maybe a new Kennedy; however, if a person were to do that, the U.S.'s military industrial complex would see to it that they wouldn't last 24 hours. War is a racket, in other words.
As with Carter's foreign policy, Bush's is just as reckless and a lot more is a stake. This whole notion of Bin Laden supposidley attacking us because he "hates our freedom" is ridiculous; he supposidly attacked us because we have our troops stationed in Saudi Arabia and our involvement with Isreal. Change the foreign policy and a lot less death happens.....of course that will never happen because the elites couldn't fathom losing money and power. The truth would set us free alright.
"Your failure to be informed does not make me a wacko." - John Loeffler
December 23, 2012
December 23, 2012
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