American kids, dumber than dirt

[grrl]

>>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),

Sounds like bullshit to me. Scrambled for life?

 

[Bill Brasky]

Basically, the people he interacts with aren't as smart, in his opinion, so he generalizes the generation of an entire nation also isn't as smart. :thumbsdown:

False logic ftl.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: moshquerade
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

My last IQ test result: 143

All categories but one: Offscale high
Spatial Realization: Offscale low

I watched enormous amount of tv as a kid.

 

[IEC]

"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)."

Lucky? Nope. Wealthy? Sure as hell no. Foreign-born? Nope, born in SoCal. Private-schooled? Nope, went to eight different public schools for K-12. No TV? Are you kidding... Minimal junk food? Irrelevant... No video games? I played a lot...

So if this is to be believed, I had a 0.0001% chance of ending up at an elite university based on my background... I hope to God this is a satirical piece rather than fact.

Then again, most of my peers can't think of anything besides how to get wasted/get laid/earn the big bucks/pass midterms/etc. These are the supposedly smarter ones...

 

[adairusmc]

Originally posted by: LoKe

Originally posted by: BigJ
Shit, these days you tell people you didn't go to college and you're a blue collar worker, they look at you like you're an idiot.

I have to defend myself after telling anyone I even work with that I'm not in college, and that I don't plan on going either.

Same here. I even have the GI Bill and Vocational Rehab from the VA available to me (50% permanently disabled), and I am not going to give up making good money to go back to school. No way in hell.

 

[nsafreak]

This article seems to persist in popping up in some shape or form every few years and yet there are actually smart kids in this country of ours. Some of them far smarter than the ones that have come through in the past. Are we raising a generation of geniuses? No, but I would have to say that we seem to persistently underestimate the younger generation that comes before us. I think we can do better, that can be said of anything though, and frankly to do better I would have to say that the first thing to go would be the teachers unions. Sure there are some benefits to having one around but all too frequently they allow poor teachers to stay employed.

 

[Acanthus]

The public education system in the US is a mess.

Pretty much the only part of it that seems to work is getting the people in the school, and bodies there to teach.

Go any deeper into the details and it's all bad.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
My last IQ test result: 143

All categories but one: Offscale high
Spatial Realization: Offscale low

I watched enormous amount of tv as a kid.

I watched TV and played video games as a kid... my spatial realization is fine. I'm also considered smart, but very lazy .

 

[alkemyst]

you can find out looking at forums now and 10 years ago.

I plan a lot of this on the parents. It's mean for anyone to fail, not get picked, etc. Teaches nothing of real life and kids learn that is someone is doing nothing and getting the same treatment; why work for it?

It's also evident in the service industry today...10 years ago people actually worked some...now it's like you are an inconvenience to them.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Depends where you come from. Your article cites Oakland. Go figure. Where I come from it's all insane Asian kids with their parents pushing them to get into HYPS.

 

[drinkmorejava]

I love how the author takes two separate jabs at Christianity, when, if anything, it is declining in America. Apparently, somehow, the least religious generation in US history has the Church to blame for their stupidity.

 

[WildHorse]

moshquerade,

How many kids do you have?

Do you think the article fairly describes your kids' peers?

It does seem to me the kids stay emotionally immature longer than before (in my short lifetime).

The college "men" around my area (UCSB) generally seem strikingly childish, almost like pre-teens or early teens. I can't believe the college women go for them!

For one thing, for me deep concentration waw/is a key to success, and just about everything in the ordinary environment now is anti-concentration; especially the exaggerated emphasis on entertainment.

Young people mostly have no patience to read a few paragraphs and think about the meaning, as in your OP. They just want the junk-food Cliffs served up fast, so they don't have to do any work thinking. That sounds insulting but it does seem true.

 

[0roo0roo]

iq scores continue to increase
http://www.amazon.com/Everythi...Actually/dp/1573223077
Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter (Hardcover)
nostalgia blinds people to how truely lousy and mind numbingly stupid tv used to be. yes, even more so than today

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

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.

So basically he is saying he sucks as a teacher?

 

[Orsorum]

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: Gobadgrs
I think a lot of it is the parents not being involved, and from a school standpoint, the teachers union does keep a lot of god awful teachers employed too. Unfortunately, in this PC world we live in, our youngsters are coddled too much. Everyone is special, and when everyone is special, no one is. Some people need to fail in life. We need to weed out the ditchdiggers so the astronauts of the world can succeed.

yep i agree with you,

to quote batman

"Why do we fall, sir? So that we might better learn to pick ourselves up"


sadly today no one picks themself up and soon it seems no one will fall

Wasn't that Alfred that said that?

 

[NoShangriLa]

P&N ---------------------->

 

[NoShangriLa]

Originally posted by: moshquerade

Originally posted by: LoKe
Oh, and for the record, you can be smart without being literate.

How far would someone who is illiterate and yet "smart" get though?

My Aunt can't read/write but she ran a successful farm what have over 200 workers in the high season, and her yearly budget never out a penny. She had second grade education and was put to work at the age of 8 year old in a war torn country.

I would like to see the highly educated American government bean counters balance the budget for one year.

 

[pstylesss]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
So because the students in one teacher's school in Oakland are dumb, that means all kids in this generation are?

I'd tend to agree with kids being over-exposed to TV, phones, etc., but it remains to be seen how dumb they turn out. Probably no dumber than their parents.

Kids today are dumber than they used to be, there is no question. Everyone is being coddled, everyone is equal, and everything is handed to kids - that shouldn't be.

 

[tw1164]

Originally posted by: InflatableBuddha

Originally posted by: yllus
Editorial tripe.

The human race gets smarter, taller, faster and stronger with every generation. Only the ego of the generations that have come before hold to this "we're getting dumber" crap. Get over yourselves, people.

It's definitely a fearmongering piece. Having said that, I agree only partly with what you've said.

Collectively, the human race is smarter through each generation as the wealth of knowledge accumulates. We might be getting taller because of better health care (better nutrition?), but we are not getting stronger. Aren't a majority of Canadians and Americans either obese or overweight? People spend less time walking and being outside, and more time driving and having machines complete their difficult work for them.

We're not getting faster; the pace of life is getting faster. It's part of a theory called dromology, and it affects how we interpret life. We have no patience or analytical skills because those are less valued in the fast paced modern world. For instance:

Don't go to the library to get an answer - go to Google/Wikipedia.
Don't walk to the store - race there as fast as you can in your car.
Don't wait until you get home to call someone - do it now on your cellphone.
Don't think for yourself - turn on the TV and let the mass media form your opinions for you.

People are dumb because they're too impatient and busy to stop and think.

I've often wondered why the increases in worker productivity hasn't resulted in shorter work schedule.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: NoShangriLa

Originally posted by: moshquerade

Originally posted by: LoKe
Oh, and for the record, you can be smart without being literate.

How far would someone who is illiterate and yet "smart" get though?

My Aunt can't read/write but she ran a successful farm what have over 200 workers in the high season, and her yearly budget never out a penny. She had second grade education and was put to work at the age of 8 year old in a war torn country.

I would like to see the highly educated American government bean counters balance the budget for one year.

yeah the paper work on farm is about the same as a day in government.

I am doubting her budget was never off ever. If so she'd have major job options. Probably a good nostalgic story to share though.

 

[saxophonoia]

Originally posted by: BigJ
Hopefully that's a satirical article.

Not a single student knowing how to use a ruler? Unless he's teaching special ed kids or in the inner city, I doubt that's true.

Yep...that's when I stopped reading.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: scott
moshquerade,

How many kids do you have?

Do you think the article fairly describes your kids' peers?

It does seem to me the kids stay emotionally immature longer than before (in my short lifetime).

The college "men" around my area (UCSB) generally seem strikingly childish, almost like pre-teens or early teens. I can't believe the college women go for them!

For one thing, for me deep concentration waw/is a key to success, and just about everything in the ordinary environment now is anti-concentration; especially the exaggerated emphasis on entertainment.

Young people mostly have no patience to read a few paragraphs and think about the meaning, as in your OP. They just want the junk-food Cliffs served up fast, so they don't have to do any work thinking. That sounds insulting but it does seem true.

mosh does not have kids, shes a man hater

 

[Jeff7]

Carl Sagan saw a little of this, too. "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."

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)

I watched Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers, that sort of stuff, and I don't think I've been too badly scrambled.
Of course, that was before the MTV effect took over every single TV show. Now too many TV shows seem designed specifically for maximum brain cell death.


And remember, an uneducated populace is easier to control by a governing body. Some people would have a distinct interest in having a stupid population. George Carlin said that the government doesn't want a population of people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out just how badly they're getting f--ked by the system. They want obedient workers, that's it. (And I see now that 1prophet posted a link that probably includes this info.)
Just shut up, get to work, keep the money flowing to the top, and don't think about it. We'll do the thinking for you. Trust us. :evil:

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: conehead433
Dumber than our President?

Unpossible!

 

[imported_Truenofan]

I'm probably going to agree with what mosh has posted there. not all of it, but some of it. tv is dumbing people down. going to school less is doing the same thing. and then they also removed most of phys ed. so there goes physical fitness out the window. what we have now, is people who watch too much tv, don't do physical fitness in any way.
so they eat, work, do whatever recreational activities, watch tv, and thats it. how many hours do you some of you use to watch tv. i never watch tv anymore because its all false and someone elses point of view nowadays. i honestly do prefer sitting down and reading a book than watching tv or a movie. jeff7, i love george carlin but i don't think i would quote em for everything.(he is right on that honestly, and thats what i do love about em)