Dumbing Down...

I too have always appreciated Leonard Pitts writing.

Commentary: The dumbing down of America | McClatchy

Sad commentary--Leonard Pitts is one of my favorite writers.

Thanks for sharing the column.

Mama died a few days after I turned 17.

She taught school is rural south Georgia and in those days teachers could challenge students who doubted evolution.

She had a college classmate whose high school biology text had the chapters on evolution surgically removed (Tennessee).

I often wonder what my deeply religious, intelligent, principaled, Republican mother would think about the direction of our country.

We are in trouble. Wish the populace would wake up and see it.

Our stupidity is reflected in who we see as our current cultural heroes--whether famous or not so... Growing up, mine were JFK, and astronaut John Glenn, today, it seems to be Sarah Palin and her other famous made-for-TV twin, Snooky, of the Jersey Shore...

Glad I grew up when I did.

Those of us in higher education have been shaken up by the dumbing down in higher ed as documented in the new book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. It is a hot topic among those in my profession.

According to this data on Wikipedia, our population is not being dumbed down, it's being smartened up. 38% as of 2009 with a college level education compared to around 7% in 1960. Now granted some of those degrees are in Greek Mythology 😀, but still, the trend is great to see.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States

Academically Adrift basically argues that some college degrees might not be of value. So statistics on the number of college graduates is not necessarily proof of not dumbing down.

Papa Bear O'reilly used to be a school teacher. Do you think he might have been a positive influence?;-)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1SkpUqYj0&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube - How the sun get there? Where does it go at night?[/ame]

In Catholic school, even the nuns hated Bill O'Reilly.

Papa Bear O'reilly used to be a school teacher. Do you think he might have been a positive influence?;-)

YouTube - How the sun get there? Where does it go at night?

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:clap:

?Tide comes in, tide goes out. Sun comes up, sun goes down - never a miscommunication.? - Papa Bear

"Thank you, Bill. You are like Thomas Aquinas--in that your understanding of the universe is also from the 13th century." - Colbert


.

Colbert CRAKZ me up!! I'm talkin' tears pouring down my face, wet pahnties, and rain in the desert:rofl:

Colbert CRAKZ me up!! I'm talkin' tears pouring down my face, wet pahnties, and rain in the desert:rofl:

Even Dad did a spit take when he viewed it!

In Catholic school, even the nuns hated Bill O'Reilly.

:lolabove:

Thanks for sharing the column.

Mama died a few days after I turned 17.

She taught school is rural south Georgia and in those days teachers could challenge students who doubted evolution.

She had a college classmate whose high school biology text had the chapters on evolution surgically removed (Tennessee).

I often wonder what my deeply religious, intelligent, principaled, Republican mother would think about the direction of our country.

Buz, she raised a good son and I'm sure her students all remember her as a good teacher. She is probably looking down on us, wondering what on earth has happened on earth...sometimes (especially in education and hero worship, it seems we are heading for a cliff)

Our stupidity is reflected in who we see as our current cultural heroes--whether famous or not so... Growing up, mine were JFK, and astronaut John Glenn, today, it seems to be Sarah Palin and her other famous made-for-TV twin, Snooky, of the Jersey Shore...

Glad I grew up when I did.

Me too. When I think about how our country was when we were going to the moon and serving in the peace corps, I am amazed it has changed so much.
Even the protests are no fun anymore....:idontno:

Multi tasking

Partial transcript excerpt from last night's PBS/Frontline episode addressing brain power & multi-tasking; a study related to the effects of constant social media connectivity done at Stanford Univ. Blue highlights are mine

And frankly, we're seeing this across the world, from the least developed countries to the most developed countries. Multitasking is one of the most dominant trends in the use of media, so we could be essentially dumbing down the world.
That's a terrifying thought.
It's very scary. And it's one of the reasons we're so excited about this research and why so many other people are getting excited.
People never bothered to look at what we call chronic multitaskers. What they would do is they'd make people do five things at once and say: "Ha ha! They're not as good as if they do one thing at a time." Not a big shock, I think. What we decided to do is ask the question, what's happening if you're doing this all the time, even when you're not multitasking? So if we take a multitasker and say, "Now just focus on this," can they? As a professor and as a teacher, we think a lot about how do you teach kids who can't pay attention or are distracted by irrelevancy or don't keep their memory neatly organized? It's a scary, scary thought.
And, in fact, you already hear professors and others talking about changes in the way kids write, so that instead of writing an essay, they write in paragraphs, because what happens is, they write a paragraph, and they say, "Oh, now I'll look at Facebook for a while." Or they write a paragraph and say, "Oh, chance to play poker," or whatever other activity they want, or to do all of these at once.
So what we're seeing is less of a notion of a big idea carried through and much more little bursts and snippets. And we see that across media, across film, across, in Web sites, this idea of just do a little bit and then you can run away.
We were at MIT, and we were interviewing students and professors. And the professors, by and large, were complaining that their students were losing focus because they were on their laptops during class, and the kids just all insisted that they were really able to manage all that media and still pay attention to what was important in class -- pick and choose, as they put it. Does that sound familiar to you?
It's extremely familiar. ... And the truth is, virtually all multitaskers think they are brilliant at multitasking. And one of the big new items here, and one of the big discoveries is, you know what? You're really lousy at it. And even though I'm at the university and tell my students this, they say: "Oh, yeah, yeah. But not me! I can handle it. I can manage all these," which is, of course, a normal human impulse. So it's actually very scary. ...
So who are these kids that you picked [for your study] to come in here today?
We picked the kids at Stanford who are multitasking a whole lot. So on a college campus, most kids are doing two things at once, maybe three things at once. These are kids who are doing five, six or more things at once, all the time.
So they're the kids who are texting while talking with people, while working on their papers, while chatting on multiple sessions. They're the kids who are playing multiple games on their screen while they're doing Facebook, while they're talking, while they're doing all these other things. So these are the extreme kids, the kids who are at the very, very high end of that. ...
And do these kids think they're pretty good at it?
Yeah. They all seem to think they're really good at it. In fact, what's ironic is when we talk with people who multitask all the time, those who don't -- even though our research suggests the ones who don't would actually be better at it -- they're the ones who are sure they're really bad at it. And the ones who do it all the time and are sure they are great at it are really bad at it. So it's a real question: What's going on?

Buz, she raised a good son and I'm sure her students all remember her as a good teacher. She is probably looking down on us, wondering what on earth has happened on earth...sometimes (especially in education and hero worship, it seems we are heading for a cliff)

Yes, you are absolutely right about Buz's upbringing. However, just because some do not agree with your politics, lifestyle or attitudes does not mean the country is doomed to failure. Their opinions and attitudes, as are mine, are determined, by their upbring, education and experiences and because of that, their perception of where the country should be going is different than yours. I, having been brought up by a very strict father and Free Mason, have a very different perception of the United States and what makes it tick than those of your persuasion. To say that I think what some of what you desire is heading us toward that cliff you refer to, is wrong would be an understatement. My Dad would look down on this earth and have exactly the opposite thoughts on where we are heading as you do, as would I. That is what is great about America. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of where we are and where we are going. That is eveyone's right and we should cherish, protect it and allow it to be expressed freely by all.

I saw a similar program - and basically it isn't that people are truly multi-tasking, it is that they are jumping back and forth between different things.

More mistakes, shorter attention spans, and less comprehension.

Yes, you are absolutely right about Buz's upbringing. However, just because some do not agree with your politics, lifestyle or attitudes does not mean the country is doomed to failure. Their opinions and attitudes, as are mine, are determined, by their upbring, education and experiences and because of that, their perception of where the country should be going is different than yours. I, having been brought up by a very strict father and Free Mason, have a very different perception of the United States and what makes it tick than those of your persuasion. To say that I think what some of what you desire is heading us toward that cliff you refer to, is wrong would be an understatement. My Dad would look down on this earth and have exactly the opposite thoughts on where we are heading as you do, as would I. That is what is great about America. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of where we are and where we are going. That is eveyone's right and we should cherish, protect it and allow it to be expressed freely by all.

Andy, I don't think I have ever tried to deny your right to your opinion...😀or anyone's else either...I actually think we are more alike than we are different... and the mix of similar and different is what makes the world a more interesting place. Please give me the benefit of not reading more into my words than are there and I will do the same for you.

If you have a question about what I might mean by something I post, I will be happy to try to explain myself better.