Why don't American kids learn basic stuff?

[charlou]

Somebody has to work at McDonald's.

And that's perhaps a more profound truth than you may have intended.

I give Robert_S credit for intending exactly that.

Re, the US education system, how's the 'No Child Left Behind' policy going, btw?

I don't really know how the No Child bill is going, But I did mean it that some schools are geared towards preparing children for menial labor.

What I said is actually a quote from a conversation between a friend who was facing felony charges and his father, a retired detective. This took place over a pitcher of beer around 2 in the afternoon.

I asked about the NCLB policy because I've heard that it's taken education down to the lowest common denominator level, and actually hampers progress for a large number of students. In other words, it fits right in with what I think your thoughts suggest about what state schools are really out to achieve: unquestioning, uniform fodder for industry.

[nellikin]

Re instilling a love of learning: apparently it can be done http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... smart-kids (funnily enough, I picked up this old mag in the lunchroom today and read this article - coincidence or is it goD guiding me?) .

Re reading to kids - I currently have to do nightly reading with my kids and they run 'aprtners in print' classes for adults (parents, guardians...) to teach young (kindy) kids how to read. They are running a 'premier's reading challenge' in our state and the kids have reading diaries, where they get awards for every 20 nights reading they've done. I suspect it does help motivate many kids/parents to read, but there are always going to be those who slip through the gaps...

[FBM]

Somebody has to work at McDonald's.

And that's perhaps a more profound truth than you may have intended.

I give Robert_S credit for intending exactly that.

Re, the US education system, how's the 'No Child Left Behind' policy going, btw?

After the wars he started kept dragging on and on, requiring more and more fresh recruits, Bush replaced it with the "No Child Left" policy.

[DRSB]

Somebody has to work at McDonald's.

And somebody has to vote Republican; better keep them god-believing and ignorant.
Not that I have not worked at places like McDonald's myself, not the worst you can do if you need a part-time temporary thing when you're young.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You cheated, Palestine actually IS the near East.

and I like the guy's answer a lot better than if he had said France or Germany.

In the US Israel is in the Middle East. Of course, we have TWO "Midwests", depending on where you're at. (The Great Plains states refer to themselves as the Midwest, and so do Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. Not confusing at all, really.)

[Svartalf]

Daddys too tired to read to kids, so he pops open another beer.

(I read 5 hitch hikers guide books to my son when he was 9 or 10)

If by that age he had to have them read to him, something is wonky.

[charlou]

Daddys too tired to read to kids, so he pops open another beer.

(I read 5 hitch hikers guide books to my son when he was 9 or 10)

If by that age he had to have them read to him, something is wonky.

Reading/listening is okay to enjoy engaging in together at any age, I'd think ... not unlike sharing a movie and discussing it together.

[Svartalf]

Dunno, as a kid, I'd have hated for somebody to try reading to me anymore, that would cut into my own reading time.

[Robert_S]

Somebody has to work at McDonald's.

And that's perhaps a more profound truth than you may have intended.

I give Robert_S credit for intending exactly that.

Re, the US education system, how's the 'No Child Left Behind' policy going, btw?

I don't really know how the No Child bill is going, But I did mean it that some schools are geared towards preparing children for menial labor.

What I said is actually a quote from a conversation between a friend who was facing felony charges and his father, a retired detective. This took place over a pitcher of beer around 2 in the afternoon.

I asked about the NCLB policy because I've heard that it's taken education down to the lowest common denominator level, and actually hampers progress for a large number of students. In other words, it fits right in with what I think your thoughts suggest about what state schools are really out to achieve: unquestioning, uniform fodder for industry.

Our schools were turning out crappy kids before W even thought of besmirching the reputations of Yale and Harvard.

[Audley Strange]

This is a thread that hits so many interesting targets, from the pursuit of " ignorance as cool" as a lifestyle through to keep them dumb to keep them working in shitty jobs. However I've been reading Chris Hedges Book "The Empire of Illusion" and he makes a compelling point that even high academia is becoming so increasingly narrow and specifically targeted towards a specific career path that outside the path chosen for them, many in academia and business are as idiotic as the hoi polloi they denigrate. That the design of these curricula are so restrictive that there is not room for challenging the perceived wisdom of the educational authorities nor an encouragement to teach critical thinking, that even though it is higher education they are learning essentially by rote.

I wonder though if this is actually deliberate or just convenient apathy in action.

[drl2]

The coming Palin/Bachmann presidency will fix our education system by putting it into the private hands of organizations which will properly stress bible studies over elitist pursuits like "math", "facts", and "critical thinking".

[FBM]

Our schools were turning out crappy kids before W even thought of besmirching the reputations of Yale and Harvard.

Yah! I resemble that remark!

[Seth]

Fewer than a quarter of American 12th-graders knew China was North Korea's ally during the Korean War, and only 35% of fourth-graders knew the purpose of the Declaration of Independence, according to national history-test scores released Tuesday.

It is absolutely NOT coincidental or the fault of parents that American children are not learning US history.

It is a carefully managed and deliberate plan by Fabian Socialists and Progressives at the NEA and teacher's unions who have been systematically and deliberately eliminating and revising American history for the last 100 years in order to inculcate, propagandize and indoctrinate our public school children with Marxist and Progressive propaganda in order to turn out legions of little Marxists.

It's part of the Frankfurt School's known, published agenda to use Marxism as a corrosive at the most basic level: our children.

Most significant is the deliberate elision or deliberate mischaracterization of the US Constitution and it's protections and guarantees, to the extent that Congress passed a law REQUIRING public schools to teach the Constitution ONE DAY A YEAR!

This is all part of an insidious and evil attempt to destroy the United States and the Constitution by its enemies on the left, both internally and externally, and it's very deliberate.

And many people at the NEA and in the teacher's unions need to be declared enemies of the United States and be arrested for treason and either imprisoned for life or executed because they are not only waging war on the United States and the Constitution, they are giving aid and comfort to our enemies.

This is, by the way, why home schooling is becoming an ever-more popular option, and it's also why the Marxists in California have tried to outlaw home schooling.

[Audley Strange]

So would you then consider the financial influence neo-conservatism thinking of using education as a means to promote a narrowly defined free market ideology and cutting anything it does not find beneficial to that counter revolutionary propaganda or equally an equally insidious indoctrination of children?

[tattuchu]

Not just kids, though kids seem shockingly ignorant these days. There's a middle aged woman at the bank I go to who works as a teller. Nice woman, don't get me wrong. Very personable. But she can't count! Takes her ten minutes counting out money every time I cash my check. She counts it out multiple times, using a calculator. And then she counts it out again
I paid a bill last week. I gave her two fifty dollar bills, and five twenties. Two hunert bucks. Simple, right? Not for her. I was in line for so long that I was late getting back to work from lunch