What has caused the anti intellectualism in our American Culture? (public schools, grade)

[Franklyn]

Originally Posted by stan4

..........Kids just seem less capable and much less self-sufficient these days. They have little to no responsibility and they appear to be insanely coddled. That has to translate to how they grow into adulthood............

You've made an extremely good point. As parents we want things to be better for our kids so we do things differently - not really understanding what it was in our own upbringings that developed our characters. No wonder our kids today seem less mature psychologically even though they physically develop their bodies earlier. Thanks for the insight.

[stepka]

Originally Posted by stan4

There's something different (and possibly wrong) that we're doing with kids these days. 100 years ago, it was a given that a 7 year old child could and would get up at 5am and help with milking, feeding cattle, and other various farming duties. By the time you're ten, you're in charge of your younger siblings. These days, you can barely get the same-aged kid to sit in a car and go to the grocery store without food, games, and a dvd player on hand.

Kids just seem less capable and much less self-sufficient these days. They have little to no responsibility and they appear to be insanely coddled. That has to translate to how they grow into adulthood.

Creating school programs to try to mitigate the effects of how kids are raised at home may or may not have any effect in the long run. They don't seem to be, anyway.

That may soon change, given the current economy.

[Old Gringo]

Originally Posted by New2Oro

Hahaha. Ironically, I work with rocket scientists.

So, they're the dummies!

[Old Gringo]

Originally Posted by Franklyn

I read your post as a general defense of the country's education system, and I considered it to be "over-reaching". In my experience there is too much empirical evidence that points to there being some [but not total] truth to the societal conclusions with which you seem to disagree. Btw, most college/university profs aren't stupid, so much, but too many seem biased and closed-minded - which forms an "educational" dichotomy.

I wasn't defending the current state of education, which could use vast improvement.

I was attacking this right-wing kooky notion that education = bad and ignorance = good.

I bow to your better knowledge of your communty's radio coverage and its limitations. Where I live there are about 30 AM and 80 FM stations available, so I apologize for assuming differently for you.

Hey, I wish we had some decent talk radio around here. It's just one ranting, angry, middle-aged bozo after another. And they all seem to take notes from one another.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by bigdave01

Great post, and it is partially true. Honestly, I don't know if America has ever been an intellectual place. The agressors and jocks have always been the popular ones. What were these kids doing in the 50s and 60s that made them so much smarter? Keep in mind I am only 17, but from what my dad tells me, things really weren't all that different when he was younger. I have taken many more advanced classes than either of my parents, and they are always stating I know so much more than they did when they were kids. I still know much more than than about politics.(Ron Paul)
Keep in mind they are both college grads and have well-paying jobs.
Every generation thinks the current one is terrible, and that the future is so bleak.

I am significantly older than you, bigdave01, and I agree. My high school in the mid-sixites was hardly an intellectual place. There were no AP classes then, only a few honors classes, and football reigned supreme. (Joe Namath graduated there a few years before me, and it was a large high school, not some little farm-town place where there weren't enough students for advanced classes.) Most of the kids who went to college went to low-ranked state colleges, and most didn't go to college at all.

Originally Posted by hnsq

It is not relative. Lets look at a few Presidential Inaugural Addresses. I would hold that the president's speeches cater to the american people, and in turn, reflect the intellectual capabilities of all of us.

Here is the first part of John Adams Address, from 1797

"When it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets and armies they must determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions which would certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country. Relying, however, on the purity of their intentions, the justice of their cause, and the integrity and intelligence of the people, under an overruling Providence which had so signally protected this country from the first, the representatives of this nation, then consisting of little more than half its present number, not only broke to pieces the chains which were forging and the rod of iron that was lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched into an ocean of uncertainty."

you can see he spoke as an essay is written, it is spoken in an intellectual tone.

Lets look at the start of Clinton and Bush's first addersses

Clinton:
My fellow citizens:
Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal.
This ceremony is held in the depth of winter. But, by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force the spring.
A spring reborn in the world's oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America.
When our founders boldly declared America's independence to the world and our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America, to endure, would have to change.
Not change for change's sake, but change to preserve America's ideals—life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Though we march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless.


and Bush:
President Clinton, distinguished guests and my fellow citizens, the peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country. With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.
As I begin, I thank President Clinton for his service to our nation.
And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace.
I am honored and humbled to stand here, where so many of America’s leaders have come before me, and so many will follow.
We have a place, all of us, in a long story—a story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer.


In modern times, the language is simpler, the sentences shorter, essentially, the speeches are less intellectual. New2Oro, I think you are looking at intellectualism as the amount of knowledge someone has. That isn't what I mean. Intellectualism is how someone looks at the world. We can't say we are more intellectual now than 200 years ago just because we have more advanced technology. The question is do we want to be entertained, or do we want to learn? Is school just job training, or is it to gain knowledge?

The Lincoln-Douglass debates gave both Lincoln and Douglass three hours to speak, with an hour break in between. There were seven of these. Everyone came to watch these. It was their 'entertainment'. In fairs of the time, there were debates. Two people would get on a stage and debate much like a modern presidential debate (but with no moderator). This would take a couple of hours, and everyone watched. Somehow I don't think that would go over so well at a modern day fair, or amusement park. Would we really sit through 42 hours of debates in modern times? The common person did 150 years ago... How many people today can't even sit through a 90 minute debate, much less one that takes six hours?

I am just as much at fault as anyone else, I am not claiming to be above all of this, but I do see a major shift away from intellectual thought among mainstream culture. It is not relative.

However, in John Adams' and even Abraham Lincoldn's day, the audience for such intellectualism was much smaller. The average person didn't even graduate from high school, let alone attend college.

Originally Posted by hnsq

I have a feeling all of the surgeons we have were studying instead of playing video games... last I heard you have to work pretty hard to get into med school

To get in, but not so much to get out.

Originally Posted by stan4

There's something different (and possibly wrong) that we're doing with kids these days. 100 years ago, it was a given that a 7 year old child could and would get up at 5am and help with milking, feeding cattle, and other various farming duties. By the time you're ten, you're in charge of your younger siblings. These days, you can barely get the same-aged kid to sit in a car and go to the grocery store without food, games, and a dvd player on hand.

Kids just seem less capable and much less self-sufficient these days. They have little to no responsibility and they appear to be insanely coddled. That has to translate to how they grow into adulthood.

Creating school programs to try to mitigate the effects of how kids are raised at home may or may not have any effect in the long run. They don't seem to be, anyway.

See my first quote from bigdave01. I really don't think kids were any more advanced 100 years ago. We are no longer an agrarian society like we were then. And most did not graduate from high school; many didn't even graduate from 8th grade!

[NVplumber]

There seems to be a tendency for this issue to become political. "right wing" Leftwing" finger pointing run amok. It's simple really..Turn off the TV, get out and DO things as a family, encourage your kids to read and question, Never offer your views as undisputed fact and never let any one elses views be presented that way either...get the young ones to THINK! There are vast resources out there for them to use....get them using them. It's not the fault of education system if we allow said system to raise our kids for us. WE are the parents and our kids are going to be a reflection of us at the end of the day.

[Franklyn]

Originally Posted by Old Gringo

.........I was attacking this right-wing kooky notion that education = bad and ignorance = good.

OK. Those must be different right-wingers than my type, then, because that particular idea is sick. Many right-wingers I know are home schoolers simply because they want their kids to have a better, more thorough and complete education. Its not a small sacrifice to make, but its one they believe in. But I'm sure there are others, just like you say.

Originally Posted by Old Gringo

.Hey, I wish we had some decent talk radio around here. It's just one ranting, angry, middle-aged bozo after another. And they all seem to take notes from one another.

This might be a weird suggestion but have you ever thought of taking SSL classes?

[zman0]

Originally Posted by Old Gringo

Hey, I wish we had some decent talk radio around here. It's just one ranting, angry, middle-aged bozo after another. And they all seem to take notes from one another.

I didn't know that Air America was still broadcasting. I suppose there's a few markets where people still listen to that tripe.

I think a lot of it, as has been described above, is the fact that we're telling kids one thing, and showing them something else. We say that scientific thought is a good idea, and that scientific laws should be challenged, but then they see arguments on television suggesting blind adherance to one side or the other.

Then we tell kids about how education is important to success, and then they see football or basketball players who barely finish high school (and in rare cases, college) getting multi-million dollar contracts, and playing one weekend a week.

Shows like "My Super Sweet 16" don't show the hard work and long hours that Mom or Dad puts in to earn the money to buy "Princess's" Lexus.

Television has made kids "results oriented" instead of "goal oriented." They see what they want, but not the hard work it takes to get there. They don't see the hundreds of kids who bet their education on getting a basketball scholarship, they see the one kid who made it.

[tkhk3746]

Wow! I am an educator, "Southdown", and I've never given children false impressions about their achievements or lack there of.

I've never told a child they are doing a great job when they're not. It's plausable that many educators give students positve encouragement for the proverbial "attempt"...but just aren't grasping a particular concept....Depending upon the particular subject being taught, ie: pre-algebra concepts in 4th grade, many students' maturity levels or comprehension of abstract concepts aren't developed enough...but unless a child is tested or proven to have a disability, a lot of practice for such concept, will eventually be comprehended as they mature.

Much of the problem I have witnessed, in the past 10 years of teaching, is a huge contradiction and conflict of what is taught and accepted in the home environment and what is expected and taught in the educational environment. It can be, in many instances difficult for teachers to merge the two environments without parents' respect for the education process. Simply stated: If an education isn't a priority (for whatever reason) in a home environment, you will not see a prioritization of it with students in the classroom.

Certain things can be done to correct that, but in many instances assistance from parents isn't there.

[60-minutes-II]

Well, I believe the only real intellectuals in any society are the scientists. Not those like Noam Chomsky or Plato, or Hunter S. Thompson.
Also, many HS put students into remembering what an intellectuals quote was and not how hard they worked. Some people are naturally born smart so they can excel in the academics that matter, like the math and sciences. MAth and sciences are the only thing important. But our society loves people who do not understand the math and sciences.