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[damnedifIknow]

This message was self-deleted by its author (damnedifIknow) on Tue Mar 11, 2014, 10:13 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[AgingAmerican]

1. Stupid people vote Republican

nt

[damnedifIknow]

3. I so agree

That troubles me the way our school system is going.

[MindMover]

2. this has been happening for a long time...

[hfojvt]

4. I think I just got dumber

by trying to listen to this woman babbling her conspiracy theory.

So we are being dumbed down since the 1890s.

So let's look at some of my great-grandparents, living in the 1940s. The 1940 census lists "highest grade of school completed"

So for my ancestors I get

10th grade
6th grade
4th grade
6th grade
8th grade (on my mom's side only one of my great grandparents lived until 1940)

then my grandparents

8th grade
college graduate (my grandmother rocks!)
7th grade
8th grade

And I am supposed to believe we are being dumbed down?

The dirty secret of my life is that I wasted a whole bunch of time - seven years - going to college and getting two degrees. And other than the one year (when, ironically enough, I was a college instructor) I never once used, or needed ANY of that education for ANY of the jobs I have had. I could have done all of them, even the decent paying job as "mathematician" for the USAF - with an eighth grade education.

[damnedifIknow]

10. Facebook is a great example

What people talk about on there is mind numbing. "Wow Terry he didn't propose to anyone on the Bachelor."

[Victor_c3]

11. I don't think that is "dumbing down", I think the masses have always been like that

and they have always been wrapped up in mindless drivel. Facebook and youtube comments just make it more apparent.

[reddread]

12. it is the end result

not the process.
we used to have a bit of culture.
literate and educated.
look at what has happened to the entertainment complex.
they used to make provocative movies.
now they make military propaganda.
we need that budget in case of alien invasion, giant asteroids and zombies.
etc etc etc

[Bluenorthwest]

16. They used to make John Wayne goes to war films. You call 12 Years a Slave 'miliatary

propaganda'? How about Dallas Buyer's Club? My view of cinema then and now is the opposite of yours. Sounds like film today is too 'urban' for you....

[reddread]

19. I met John Wayne

and they dont make movies like they used to.

[Orrex]

21. Thank goodness, because his True Grit is almost unwatchably cartoonish.

[SomethingFishy]

23. Shit all of his movies... My dad loved John Wayne

but I couldn't watch any of it.

The Cohen Bros remake of True Grit was way better...

[Orrex]

25. I agree completely (nt)

[Bluenorthwest]

27. John Wayne was a local, his kid went to school with me. His films were reactionary

and pro war. As were a huge amount of films during the time you claim was some golden era of intellectual cinema.

[reddread]

33. those would have to be your words

enjoy that campsite on the banks of denial.
I really cant help you with your problem.

[Bluenorthwest]

37. Why are you being rude? I don't agree with you that films 'used to be provocative' and are

now 'military propaganda'. I knew John Wayne a bit when I was a kid, sorry I still think he was a right wing twit who made many jingoistic films.

[SomethingFishy]

22. There are plenty of decent and provocative movies

We are in an explosion of good film talent. The indie is more prevalent than ever. With the advent of digital and cheap cameras you will see even more talent.
Every major studio now has an "indie" imprint, and directors who were known for small indie films are now making blockbusters for studios while the smaller companies are bringing in new talent.

As a matter of fact even the big commercial movies have been showing a bit more intelligence lately. My kids demanded I see the Lego Movie. Was this toy based movie nothing but a giant commercial aimed at kids? It sure could have been, instead it was clever, fun, smart and didn't talk down to it's audience. And it's base message of "be creative and think for yourself" was right on the money.

No, sorry, the film industry is actually in better shape than it has been in a long time.

[hfojvt]

15. Do you think THAT was different 30 years ago?

That people got together to discuss Sartre or something? Or they were having in depth discussions of the Treaty of Ghent at the water cooler?

[FSogol]

13. Education ISN'T job training.

If you think getting 2 degrees was a waste of time, I really feel sad for you.

[hfojvt]

14. really?

So people in America do NOT goto college and get degrees for the very purpose of being able to get high paying and high status jobs?

That was my problem as an undergraduate. I just wanted to learn things, I wasn't thinking practical.

Oh, but yeah, there's supposed to be some great spiritual purpose or something to have taken a class 30 years ago in advanced differential equations?

I guess it could be worse though. Instead of mopping floors, I could be working for the military industrial complex and using my knowledge of differential equations to help kill people.

But by quitting my job at the USAF, I slowed the military industrial complex down about as much as I would slow down a tank by laying down in front of it. The only end result was that I threw myself from median income down into the bottom quintile.

[unblock]

29. an education is to open your mind, broaden your horizons, learn how to think,

learn how to research, etc.

job training is a happy by-product of all of that, although if you all you want is job training there are other ways to get that.

i mean, why would a college offer courses in philosophy, for instance, which one could argue is nearly useless in terms of job training?


then again, in my current job, i'm utilizing things from courses i took 30 years ago that i never would have expected to be professionally useful. heck the art class even proved useful as we just hung some artwork in our renovated office space!

[hfojvt]

38. none of those are really the result

of a course in advanced differential equations or quantum physics

open your mind? nope
broaden your horizons? nope
learn how to think? highly doubtful
learn how to research? ha, as if.

You need college to learn how to research? If I remember, I did a research paper in 10th grade english.

I could have gotten my horizons broadened by joining the army at age 18, then I could be collecting a pension right now instead of busting my butt moving tables and chairs.

[unblock]

39. wow, sorry you didn't get much out of your education. the rest of us do, for the most part.

or, maybe it's just that you're failing to appreciate how your education did, in fact, provide you with those things.

yeah, i, too, did a research paper in 10th grade. i also did research toward a phd. very, very different things, not the same techniques at all.

college certainly did all those things for me.


in any event, you get out of college what you put in. if you don't challenge yourself, take advanced courses and/or courses outside your comfort zone, and then don't try to do your best, then, sure, you can get through four years without getting much out of it.

to me, though, that's one of the biggest differences between college and high school. high school you do because you have to. college you do because you want to. so you try to get as much out of it as possible.

[hfojvt]

40. what you got from your education

which you think is so awesome

is a JOB where you work in an office and get input over what artwork gets put there.

What I got, is a job emptying trash in that office where I get paid less in a month than that stupid artwork probably cost.

So, yeah, excuse the hell out of me if I don't see all that much value in the ability to remember a course in differential equations while I empty the fucking trash.

But hey, it's my fault for not putting enough in to my college experience.

I mean, it took 180 credits to get a degree, and I took 266 credits and then went to graduate school and took 47 more.

And graduate school I did because I couldn't find a JOB, ANY job with my fucking BA (in math) after I foolishly quit my job with the MIC.

You do it because you want to? No, you do it because a whole bunch of liars tell you that it's valuable.

[unblock]

42. most of my career was as a computer programmer, based largely on skills i learned before college.

yes, i got quite a lot out of my education, but a job was not really among them. back then, plenty of computer consultants and programmers didn't have college degrees. quite a few even dropped out of college to work full time.

in any event, a college education is not strictly job training and a college degree is not a first-class ticket to a cushy job. there are other factors, including how the stupid economy is doing and where you live and dumb luck and skin color and connections and so on.

[hfojvt]

43. and yet

If I had gotten a degree in computer programming, or taken a few classes in cobol, then I too, could have a much better job.

And I still think the vast majority of students are in college, NOT to "broaden their mind" but to "get a better paying, higher status job."

And I have been in the job market, such as it is, since 1986. So the "stupid economy" does not seem to be a big factor. Supposedly it was doing great in 1998 and 1999, and there I was, working as a factory temp, unable to find a real job, in spite of my worthless, useless degrees.

[Le Taz Hot]

5. I've posited this same theory right here on DU

several times and, basically, get laughed out of the room for it each time. I don't care, of course, because I know I'm right. I see the results in a student population that can't tell the difference between "to," "too," and "two." They have no idea how to form a critical, much less independent thought. (Enter Faux Nooze.) The dumbing down of American education was DELIBERATE. Why? Because the activism of the Boomers scared the shit out of them and it was important that education become all about training worker bees for production (example, teaching to the test, i.e., production) and not about training academics. Academics ask questions. Academics are critical thinkers who reach Level 5 (or 4, depending upon which scale you're using) on the Cognitive Rigor Scale. They KNOW when they're being manipulated. What we "teach" now is how to produce more for the 1% for lower wages and how to be consumers (you don't need to know HOW to add and subtract, just PURCHASE a calculator).

[PCIntern]

7. Yes. Exactly.

'Grade Completed' has nothing to do with anything. I taught dental students, completing the 20th Grade technically, who academically did not know their asses from holes in the ground. All some of them could do was take multiple choice science tests well. That was their skillset. Intellectual taxidermy and a load of books on the back of an ass.

[woo me with science]

8. I agree.

And the attempt is only escalating.

[SomethingFishy]

24. George Carlin nailed it the best...

"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying ­ lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else."

"But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

"You know what they want? Obedient workers ­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."

"This country is finished."

RIP George, we miss you!

[Auggie]

31. +1

[reddread]

6. It is easily seen. easily.

pick up an old newspaper from ANY part of the US thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years old.
Hardly matters where or when.
read any article.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. Yeah, pining away for the bigoted past. Here is a great article about LGBT issues then.

“Inquiry by Senate on Perverts asked – Hill and Wherry Study Hears There are 3,500 Deviates in Government agencies”
http://mass499.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/the-1950s-homosexuals-enter-the-news-arena/

Read any article, hardly matters where or when.

[reddread]

20. boy are you barking up the wrong trees. n/t

[Bluenorthwest]

26. I offered you facts. You offered of the past as a superior time. I offered up another

point of view. I think it is you who is promoting a time that does not deserve the praise you heap upon it. Unless you were male, straight and white, those days sucked and so did the journalism that allowed discrimination and prejudice to flourish.

[LisaLynne]

9. An Informed Public is neccessary for a democracy to function ...

so of course those running things behind the scenes want us all as dumb and uneducated as possible.

[damnedifIknow]

18. Not good

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-25/truly-exceptional-and-dumber-ever-verbal-sat-scores-plunge-fresh-record-low

[X_Digger]

28. I don't necessarily disagree, but I had to comment on that graph..

A maximum score on the SAT verbal is 800, so the difference between the end points are between 525'ish and let's say 496?

That's a 29 point drop out of 800, or just over three and a half percent.

Not quite the dramatic drop when you don't focus on such a small scale, is it?

[damnedifIknow]

30. It's the downward trend in score that worries me

What if this continues unchecked? "Welcome to Costco, I love you."

[X_Digger]

32. At the current pace of 3.5% over 40 years?

Well, hyperbole is nice, but not very indicative of reality.

[damnedifIknow]

34. Down is down

Anyway you look at it isn't refreshing. I'd feel much more at ease if that trend was upward.

[alp227]

35. Beware of the source, even though the interviewee's point is valid:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/We_Are_Change

The movement was founded by Luke Rudkowski, an arrogant attention seeking crank armed with a video camera ready to ridicule the American sheeple over their lack of New World Order knowledge, as he knows the truth. We Are Change was initiated by Rudkowski in New York, and now has chapters in cities all over the world, including Los Angeles, Sydney, London, and many others.[1]

Furthermore on the subject of 'change', the group's founder Luke Rudkowski openly denies anthropogenic climate change[2] and his group does not in any way attempt to educate the public on the potentially disastrous consequences of global warming. That doesn't matter, Luke knows the truth, and we must listen to him! Disregard the scientists and rational thinkers! They're just New World Order pawns!

Also, the women interviewed in this video is a former Reagan administration official. According to the video description, she is definitely not on our side:

The former US Department of Education Senior Policy Advisor suggests that the our educational system is not based upon children learning. Is the Carnegie foundation instrumental in developing a socialist-collectivist style educational system that is detrimental to our youth? Are the elites impacting the development of the general population through our school systems?

Why was this kind of anti-progressive crap allowed to stand by a 2-4 jury vote? (Full disclosure, I did alert this.) Sheesh, not even a seven-person jury would solve this! One juror wrote, "I think hiding this would constitute unnecessary censorship. No action." Another "leave it alone" juror, "meh".

[UglyGreed]

36. yup and there's

We are change's ties to Alex Jones and the libertarian movement.

[damnedifIknow]

41. Attack the source and ignore the message

Why? I don't care if this came from Mars just listen to what she has to say will ya? The woman goes after Reagan in this video and not one mention of a Democrat.