Posted on 10/03/2010 7:23:17 PM PDT by Immerito
NEW YORK — Second-graders who can’t tie shoes or zip jackets. Four-year-olds in Pull-Ups diapers. Five-year-olds in strollers. Teens and preteens befuddled by can openers and ice-cube trays. College kids who have never done laundry, taken a bus alone or addressed an envelope.
Are we raising a generation of nincompoops? And do we have only ourselves to blame? Or are some of these things simply the result of kids growing up with push-button technology in an era when mechanical devices are gradually being replaced by electronics?
Susan Maushart, a mother of three, says her teenage daughter "literally does not know how to use a can opener. Most cans come with pull-tops these days. I see her reaching for a can that requires a can opener, and her shoulders slump and she goes for something else."
Teenagers are so accustomed to either throwing their clothes on the floor or hanging them on hooks that Maushart says her "kids actually struggle with the mechanics of a clothes hanger."
Many kids never learn to do ordinary household tasks. They have no chores. Take-out and drive-through meals have replaced home cooking. And busy families who can afford it often outsource house-cleaning and lawn care.
(Excerpt) Read more at thechronicleherald.ca ...
Poor communication and vocabulary are a huge problem. People are unable to properly express themselves or be understood. Think of the implications.
It’s EVIL.
What’s that?
I'm convinced that the part of the brain that tells us how to read an analog watch (or reaching back farther, a sundial) also tells us how to learn trigonometry.
“We still have Trick or Treaters on our street.”
Count yourself lucky. I always looked forward to the crumb crunchers coming to the door on Halloween but now, that’s just a memory thanks to the overly protective parents in my small neighborhood. Guess I’ll just use the existing candy in my house in case of unexpected ankle biters.
“How hard is it to figure out?”
Have you ever been in a restaurant when there’s a computer glitch and the equipment to scan your credit card doesn’t work? Faced with using the old credit card machine (most/all restaurants have one), the staff is completely helpless.
Still don’t know what it is,m one with hands on it or one with numbers on it.
Public schools struggle to teach simple reading and math. And history class might as well be renamed “speculative fiction class”.
If you want your kid to know how to do laundry you better teach em yourself. Otherwise they will ruin all their clothes. School teach em about mortgages? If you thought THIS housing crisis was bad.....
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