Posted on 10/22/2016 1:26:19 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Thomas Jefferson made the gloomy prediction that we can be ignorant or free, not both. Given how ignorant the country has become, our prospects are sinking.
If you're not acquainted with how bad things have gotten, there is a quick way to find out. YouTube has dozens of videos where people are asked easy questions, but they don't know the answers.
Jay Leno, former host of the Tonight Show, used to go "Jaywalking" and talk to Americans who didn't know what body of water is to the west of California. Another person, asked who won the Civil War, answered: "Germany?"
Fox News now sends reporter Jesse Watters out on the streets to ascertain what average Americans know. Not much, apparently. One young woman, when asked who we fought against in World War II, answered: "The South?"
Mark Dice, a media analyst who conducts man-in-the-street interviews, concluded that "Americans don't know why we celebrate the Fourth of July," the name of one of his videos.
Please, if you're not familiar with how ignorant the country has become, watch some of these easy-to-find videos. For complementary articles, go to Google and enter: Americans don't know much.
The trend toward dumbing-down goes back almost a century. John Dewey and his Progressive educators didn't want too much emphasis on memorization, isolated facts, names, and dates – all the stuff that academic education had always doted on.
Bizarre as it sounds, Americans can now reach college and not know who the first president was, what country we fought against in the Revolutionary War, what 7×8 is, or where Spain is on a map.
The Education Establishment assures us that factoids are not important. These days, we are told, students should spend their time learning 21st century skills, collaboration, digital literacies, etc. All information is available on the Internet, so why should anybody know any particular fact?
The claim that a person who knows nothing can engage in Critical Thinking is a curious fantasy preached by our professional educators. In reality, we first learn facts A, B and C. Then we can play them off against each other. That's when we experience insights and sparks of creativity.
The point is, as Americans know less and less, their minds begin to resemble an empty house. What sort of work can you do there? What kind of thoughts can you have there? What sort of life can you live there?
Which brings us back to Thomas Jefferson. If you are ignorant, you will be oblivious to everything going on around you. At some point you won't appreciate the blessings you have and you won't know how to defend them. So you inevitably become a slave, according to Jefferson.
This dumbing-down process is not an accident. It's the operational doctrine of public schools in the US. The Education Establishment has interlocking sophistries in defense of teaching less. We are told that some information is obsolete or irrelevant; some information is too difficult; some information is not multicultural. In general, we are told that teachers should not teach anymore, students must teach themselves (this is called Constructivism).
Even sadder, many schools undermine not just the goal of gaining knowledge, but the discipline and work required to do so. If children don't try hard, if they don't turn in their homework, if they're sloppy and hardly bother, teachers make excuses for them. (My local schools have waged a long debate about whether 50 should be the lowest grade a student can get on a test or paper.)
The doctrine of self-esteem says any approach that makes any child feel bad must be avoided. Think about that. If your child can spell Mississippi and my child can't, my child will feel bad. That cannot be allowed. Therefore, your child must not be taught to spell Mississippi.
Everyone, individually and as a society, should resist these trends. Make sure all children learn to read in first grade, and that there are books and maps in every house. Ignore the self-appointed experts. Facts are fun. Knowledge is power. The brain is designed to learn information and is happiest when doing so. I believe that schools could teach far more than they do, and at less cost.
If the schools won't teach, every adult should teach, using the Internet, books, magazines, television, museums, and movies.
Our schools have become comfortable with a culture of empty-headedness. We need to go in the opposite direction.
(This article was first published in VEER, Norfolk, Va., a classy publication but print only. This is its first appearance on the Internet. For a broader statement of the main thesis, see "The Crusade Against Knowledge.")
Have actually met someone who didn’t know which side won the American civil war.
C’mon. Everyone knows all we need to do is give our educators a little more money. More money and more power and more control.
That’s how and why Hillary furnished her place
Well, that plus the sofa she stole from the White House.
Which is a ridiculous, unfounded assertion. Has there ever been any objective study done to verify that? Or is it, like "diversity is strength" and "all cultures are equal" just supposed to be axiomatic?
It is time we start to challenge these absurdities by demanding not just eye-rolling "Everybody knows THAT" defenses, but actual statistical evidence. And watch how fast this nonsense falls apart.
It was over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
(I wonder how many current college students could watch that scene without understanding that line.)
For the sake of entertainment questions are asked to many people which are then edited and put into order showing that everybody they ask is stupid. That’s the reality of YouTube videos late night film clips et cetera. That said, I have known some fairly dim and supposedly educated people, or shall I say, people who had gone through elementary, middle, and high school, and who attained a diploma yet were without any knowledge whatsoever.
I am sure we all have, we probably just never got actual confirmation.
“What is good and what is not good?
Do we need to ask others to know these things?”
You receive training to make a living.
You receive an education to become a good citizen.
Beng a good citizen used to be important.
Now, we have a group of people who make their living by taking advantage of others.
We don’t educate people to make them good citizens.
We educate people to make them obedient.
We educate people to make them easier to take advantage of.
It is cruel. It is demeaning. It is evil.
Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and the other brave men and women who sacrificed for our liberty and individual freedoms understood real oppression, and they thought they had preserved it for us--their posterity!.
They warned, however, of what would happen if we did not pass on those ideas.
Their worst fears are here in the form of a "Progressive" candidate who is determined to continue the "change" envisioned and implemented by the current president.
“Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.” ― John Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife
“Or is it, like “diversity is strength” and “all cultures are equal”
We all know dat cuz we know what BALKANIZATION is. /sarc
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When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, many people said that the Japanese aviators could not possibly be that good, so they must be using German pilots.
It took a few more Japanese victories to convince them.
One of Podesta’s emails mentioned that the Democrats wanted an unknowing and compliant electorate.
Mr Jefferson based that prediction on having a free press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right to bear arms, a FEDERAL SYSTEM and a judiciary that would enforce the US Constitution even if no one else would! It took the takers about 140 years, but once the FDR Court started disregarding the US Constitution, it has all been down hill!
In terms of ignorance, try these tests of basic citizenship/history against an elite group, like Ivy League GRADUATES! You get the same BLANK STARE! All of those basic knowledge classes that they used to teach, like Western Civilization? Gone with the politically correct wind!
Would it be too much, honestly, to require the FACULTY of EVERY PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL (including administrators) to pass the US Citizenship Exam required of all naturalization applicants?
The answer, of course, is that such would be totally unfair, because it would expose the state of our non-education system!
A pretty young clerk, about 25 y.o., was helping me in a boutique in Dallas. I commented that she bore a striking resemblance to Jackie Kennedy.
She indicated bewilderment, didn’t have a clue who I was talking about.
I casually asked her where she grew up and went to school.
Dallas, she said.
I then mentioned that Jackie Kennedy was a First Lady, wife of JFK, who’d been assassinated in Dallas. In fact, just a few streets over from the boutique. She then revealed that “President John F. Kennedy” was also an unfamiliar name to her.
I explained his brains were blown out, bits landed in Jackie’s lap, and it was captured on video.
Her eyes got big as saucers. “Really? When was this?”
All of it was news to her. I told her to google it.
Year ‘round school....yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket.
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