How did our country become so dummified?

Answer 1

When America started to reward mediocrity as excellence, the long slide began. In 1968, our students produced the highest ever SAT scores as a graduating high school class. It has never been equaled. Every year the students scored lower on that test, and it has been that way for 50 years.

When a student is allowed to "pass" a grade for social equality, it does the student no favor. Eventually that student becomes frustrated that s/he cannot do the class work and, if s/he does not drop out of school, s/he graduates. This phenomenon has been active for many, many years and gradually some of those students became teachers.

In 1977 the Washington Post literally copied tests devised by high school teachers and printed them. They were full of misspellings, factual errors, and bad grammar. Those teachers were the mediocre students who didn't learn excellence in school and they had successful "careers" in education. In short, those students who were socially "advanced" became the teachers of our children.

When we do not teach children basic grammar on the basis that "Johnny can't learn it because he is disadvantaged", we fail our children and dumb down the population. I understand that grammar graphing is no longer taught to children because "it is counterproductive." So now our children do not know sentence structure and cannot tell a verb from a noun. When we do not demand excellence from our children, we get mediocre adults.

When a child is praised for doing average work in school, s/he learns that education is not important. This child never learned cognitive skills...s/he has to do arithmetic with a calculator. This child never learns that writing is an art, not just some boring exercise. This child never learns to use his/her imagination...it's all on the internet. Because English grammar is hard, children are not taught it...so they do not speak properly.

When our children do not have time to daydream, to be quiet, and to think, they become mindless automatons who think the "latest thing" is the only way to be. There are literally millions of children and young adults who do not know how to cook, clean, or repair their own clothing. These young people have been sadly short changed in the education department when Home Economics was discontinued from the school system on the basis that "it's discriminatory". Johnny should have been made to take the class along with Suzie. A person who cannot cook, clean, and do their own clothes is called a dependent.

In the pursuit of the Great American Dream, we left our progeny in the dust. We let day care centers develop our children's personality, their moral standards, and their world view. We decided to abdicate our responsibility as parents to demand that our children be educated. We became passive parents on the premise that educators knew what our children needed more than we did.

The "New Math" experiment of the 1960's was a glaring example of how educators can be horribly wrong about education, their chosen profession. For those of us who lived through the nightmare of that experiment, we became healthily skeptical of "new" educational methods...but we forgot about it when our children went to school. We bowed to the "educators" who did not know how to teach or inspire. Our children were the result of pursuing the Money Train. And now they are parents and they don't know what excellence is.

The Baby Boomers were pushed by the Silent Generation to be excellent. We knew that no one could do it but us, no one would take care of us, and we not only could do it but we had to do it if it would get done. We neglected to teach our children this concept. "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

Today, our children are the result of entitlements. They think that they are entitled to an excellent job simply because they hold a piece of paper that says they graduated an institution. Not that they can do the job, they only know that they have a degree. The children cannot adapt household items to accomplish their goals, they cannot reason out the science behind their toys, and they have not been taught that thinking is the ultimate educational tool. Our children do not think.

So now, our children and grand children are having to learn the lessons of the Great Depression that our parents taught us. And in the process, we are also having to teach our children what they do not learn in school because of "political correctness". In the drive to make children equal, the educators have succeeded...and our children cannot read, write effectively, or reason out a logic problem. They are experts at taking multiple choice tests, but cannot tell the difference between fact and fancy. They do not know how to use a dictionary, an encyclopedia, or any media that is not electronically generated.

The next time you get a chance, go to school with your kids and find out what they are learning. It will shock and dismay you, but remember that you also are part of the problem. Never reward mediocrity with praise. Excellence is worth pursuing.

George Santanya was right when he said that "Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it." The parents of the 1950's had Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the table saying "we will bury you" and they were at arms to educate their children. But Russia didn't do it, Japan did. Isn't it time that we took back our schools and start teaching our kids again?