Say Anything Blog

And just think: This is our next generation of voters.

Eh. The same percentage of this generation is equally stupid. The problem is that the media frenzy over elections pushes greater voter turnout and encourages our politicians—particularly Democrats—to appeal to the brainless ideologies of these 20-25%. We’ve always had stupid people, they just never used to care enough to vote.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

And I, personally, am blaming the public schools as well as the teachers unions and politicians who have valued teacher contracts over student well-being, and indoctrination over education.

Hey, we each offered equal levels of evidence!

Todd,

teachers unions and politicians who have valued teacher contracts over student well-being, and indoctrination over education.

Res ipsa loquitur…

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

Who is responsible for the education of the vast majority American students?  Public schools run by politicians, bureaucrats and unionized educators.

Who isn’t responsible for educating any kids?  Yankees outfielder Chad Curtis.

So I’m not sure what your point is, but congratulations on spelling your name right!

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Of course, the solution is to do what Republicans want to do and just do away with public education altogether and let everyone home school their kids. These “educated” kids can then be totally brainwashed with the disease of religious extremism, be totally ignorant and antagonistic toward science, socially challenged, and be a nice little Republican-voting zombie who marches off to their low wage shithole job every day, and go to their mega-church every Sunday and thank Jesus for their great life and blame liberals for everything that’s wrong in the world.

Woah dude. Your prejudiced rant reeks of elitist classism. I’m not even religious and I’m offended. You need some sensitivity training or something.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

Technically, Todd didn’t even spell his name right.  You’re supposed to capitalize the first letter of your name.  :^)

And I dispute the idea that kids are stupid today.  You should see ‘em rolling those condoms on bananas, cucumbers, and even rutabagas.  Plus, they know who plays for the Yankees, and I don’t.

But seriously, if we can blame the NEA, AFT, and DoED for the state of our schools, we must also blame ourselves for allowing them to have their way, and for failing to take action.

To draw a picture; a mother is in a meeting to discuss plans for “talented and gifted” students, and is appalled to find out that most prospective parents are simply demanding that the school district take care of the educational needs of their children.  This mother reminded many of these parents that if they wanted some opportunities to enhance their childrens’ education, they could take their children to any of about a dozen world class museums less than an hour away in Chicago, or state and national parks just ten minutes away.

Silence.  Not too many people wanted to know that opportunities--free ones--were there for the taking.

Oh, and “Socialist”; you would do well to educate yourself about homeschooling at http://www.hslda.org.  As things stand now, your bigotry is appalling.

I realize it’s popular to blame the school, and schools have done a lot wrong.

1. We’ve had a slavish devotion to “progressive” education in this country that places far too little emphasis on acquiring knowledge. The Idea of “banking” knowledge is openly mocked in ed school.

2. Educators tend to go from program to program trying to find a magic bullet to engage kids and accomplish learning painlessly. The only thing we refuse to try in America is to require that students behave themselves and do their work (The school I work at does require that, but not my previous school). Educators are like the fat person who keeps trying to find the magic diet, and dismisses the idea of eating less and exercising more.

Having said that, I think a lot of parents spoil their kids with too much entertainment and sugar, and not enough chores. If you have kids who can’t even drive to grandma’s without a DVD player full of cartoons, what are teachers supposed to do with a kid who has a 14.5 second attention span.

You want to see kids do better… How about pulling them away from the TV and video games every night for a family dinner, and actually talking to them? How about getting rid of the DVD players, ipods, and hand-held video games during the next family trip and require them to read or use their imagination?

It’s not all the school’s fault.

Of course, the solution is to do what Republicans want to do and just do away with public education altogether and let everyone home school their kids. These “educated” kids can then be totally brainwashed with the disease of religious extremism, be totally ignorant and antagonistic toward science, socially challenged, and be a nice little Republican-voting zombie who marches off to their low wage shithole job every day, and go to their mega-church every Sunday and thank Jesus for their great life and blame liberals for everything that’s wrong in the world.

I thought that liberals and Leftists were the enlightened ones who have transcended intolerance and hatred. If only Hillary or Barack would be so forthright regarding their plans…

I agree that government schools are the problem, but as my girlfriend reminds me over and over. “We are the government.” We have allowed politicians to take over the responsibility of eduating our children, which then crowds out the parental initiative to educate our children. It makes some sense when we think about it. If I’m paying all of this money in taxes for the government to educate my children, why should I have to teach them? Hence, attitudes of the parents in Bike Bubba’s post.
I’m not sure if we’ll ever be able to truly reform education. To do so would require that parents truly assume the full responsibilities of raising their children and considering that so many people enjoy the government taking care of them as if they are 12-year-olds, true grown-ups are becoming an endangered species.

true grown-ups are becoming an endangered species.

Sums it all up right there.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

Socialist - Of course, the solution is to do what Republicans want to do and just do away with public education altogether and let everyone home school their kids.

Get it out of the fed’s hands. Educating kids is a local affair.

Federalism - learn it and stop speaking for us.

These “educated” kids can then be totally brainwashed with the disease of religious extremism, be totally ignorant and antagonistic toward science, socially challenged...

Sounds like a modern day liberal environmentalist.

Hey, whose kid are we talking about anyways? Are these your kids?

silly likwid, kids belong to the state.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

Dumb Kids?  There are lots of reasons, starting with the ago of TV, when test scores first began to slide in the 1960’s. And yes, the NEA, given unconstitutional federal status by Jimmy Carter when he created the Department of Education, is to blame. So are working moms and dads who are too tired every day to even see what the kids are doing. And now there is the internet, iPods, cellphones, MTV, BET, video-games, and mandatory state testing, thanks to President Bush’s NCLB Act which prizes math and writing over all other subjects. Not to mention drugs, alcohol and greater sexual freedom.

Friends of mine who teach in private schools say that even their students are dumber and less interested. The only difference is, private schools don’t have to report how their kids are performing to anyone.

"Here lies, in honored glory, an American soldier, known but to God.”

THIS ELECTION IS ABOUT TWO THINGS: WINNING THE WAR ON TERRORISM AND SAVING THE SUPREME COURT.

Pparets, some of that make sense...but some of that also makes you sound like a geezer telling people to get off the lawn.

There is nothing wrong with television.  Or iPods.  Or video games.  I’d argue that, within certain reasonable limitations, these things can serve to enrich a child’s intelligence.  Video games can promote problem solving.  Music is almost always enriching.  And even television has its use.

My daughter and I watch things like the history channel, and “How Stuff Is Made” on the Discovery channel all the time.  She learns things.  Asks me questions.

You’re right about problems starting in the 1960’s, but I think most of the issues can be attributed to increased government control of education and selfish baby boomer parenting.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Rob, I could argue with you on the basis of studies that do find an inflection point in various factors--violence, school achievement, and so on--as TV was introduced to an area, but perhaps better simply to do a little experiment.

Turn off the TV for a while, and see what happens.  See what your response is to the idiot box after you haven’t watched for a while.

You may be surprised how much you hate it if you take a good break from it.  I know I was.

My take is that the science of interpretation is enhanced when one reads or listens--but something very interesting and debilitating often happens when one watches.

You’re 100% right that the damage would be less if we had more Shakespeare and less “American Idle.” We’ve got what we’ve got, though, no?

Bubba,

Actually, we don’t have cable in my house.  If we watch anything, we watch DVD’s or shows downloaded from the internet (Discovery and the History Channel are available through iTunes).

Sometimes weeks go by without or television being turned on, so I know what you’re talking about.  My point is that the television doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative thing.  If you park yourself in front of it for 5 hours a day watching Survivor then yes, your brain is probably rotting.  But if you use it to watch a show about how glass is made...or you learn something about the Japanese Empire, what’s so wrong with that?

Of course, I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with violent video games.  At least, not anything that’s any more wrong than a gruesome Poe story or a good game of war with your buddies outside.

Humans have been violent throughout history.  Kids have been playing violent-themed games with one another for centuries.

Video game violence really isn’t anything new.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I’n not going to defend the NEA, or curriculum that de-emphasizes knowledge.

But I think you guys are blaming teachers too much. Teacher’s today don’t have much choice about what to teach or how to teach it.

Most states have standards that are so broad that almost nothing can be taught to mastery.

If you compare Asian math education and American math education, you find that most Asian countries teach fewer subjects of math per year, but teach them to mastery. Our Educational-Bureaucratic-Complex (I just made that up) has determined that Amercican kids need to study about twice as many math subjects as their Asian counterparts, often more. The result is that a teacher may get one day to teach kids how to use proportions to solve a word problem, then have to move on to the next thing tomorrow.

The California math standards are so broad that it would take about 300 days of instruction to cover the standards for most grades. There’s only 180 school days in a year. Subtract 7 days fod high stakes testing, days before holidays when kids are tuned out, the last two weeks of school when they quit. And also subtract any time lost to student misbehavior. That doesn’t leave a lot of instruction time.

All this is compounded by the fact that more kids are coming to school with serious deficiencies. There are more kids who don’t speak English, more who’s parents can’t read and write, more still who missed several years schooling in their native countries. There are a lot of kids who come to school with no rules, boundaries and limitations (credit given to CM). How do you think those kids react when teachers are less animated than Dragonball Z characters?

We need to revise our standards, and teach students to mastery. And parents need to start preparing their kids to be learners. Part of that is making them do tasks at home that the kid finds boring, and not letting them be babysat by electronic media.

My younger brother appears to have been fired as a Kahleefornia teacher because he actually decided his sophomores needed to know basic arithmetic.  Silicon Valley no less--if you wonder why we’re not developing the next generation of engineers, there you go.

Math really isn’t that complicated.

But I think you guys are blaming teachers too much. Teacher’s today don’t have much choice about what to teach or how to teach it.

No, they don’t. They are dictated to by the board and their unions. They’re not blaming teachers, they’re blaming the board and the unions.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

Rob: 

My daughter and I watch..

Like so many other messes created by Jimmy Carter - Afghanistan and Iran, for example - we are now dealing with the intrusion of federal standards and federal money into what was once a state-funded, local school board controlled public school system in America.