American kids, dumber than dirt.

Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history.


By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, October 24, 2007

I have this ongoing discussion with a longtime reader who also just so happens to be a longtime Oakland high school teacher, a wonderful guy who's seen generations of teens come and generations go and who has a delightful poetic sensibility and quirky outlook on his life and his family and his beloved teaching career.


And he often writes to me in response to something I might've written about the youth of today, anything where I comment on the various nefarious factors shaping their minds and their perspectives and whether or not, say, EMFs and junk food and cell phones are melting their brains and what can be done and just how bad it might all be.
His response: It is not bad at all. It's absolutely horrifying.
My friend often summarizes for me what he sees, firsthand, every day and every month, year in and year out, in his classroom. He speaks not merely of the sad decline in overall intellectual acumen among students over the years, not merely of the astonishing spread of lazy slackerhood, or the fact that cell phones and iPods and excess TV exposure are, absolutely and without reservation, short-circuiting the minds of the upcoming generations. Of this, he says, there is zero doubt.
Nor does he speak merely of the notion that kids these days are overprotected and wussified and don't spend enough time outdoors and don't get any real exercise and therefore can't, say, identify basic plants, or handle a tool, or build, well, anything at all. Again, these things are a given. Widely reported, tragically ignored, nothing new.
No, my friend takes it all a full step - or rather, leap - further. It is not merely a sad slide. It is not just a general dumbing down. It is far uglier than that.
We are, as far as urban public education is concerned, essentially at rock bottom. We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait.
It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking - and nearly hopeless - dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.
Now, you may think he's merely a curmudgeon, a tired old teacher who stopped caring long ago. Not true. Teaching is his life. He says he loves his students, loves education and learning and watching young minds awaken. Problem is, he is seeing much less of it. It's a bit like the melting of the polar ice caps. Sure, there's been alarmist data about it for years, but until you see it for yourself, the deep visceral dread doesn't really hit home.
He cites studies, reports, hard data, from the appalling effects of television on child brain development (i.e.; any TV exposure before 6 years old and your kid's basic cognitive wiring and spatial perceptions are pretty much scrambled for life), to the fact that, because of all the insidious mandatory testing teachers are now forced to incorporate into the curriculum, of the 182 school days in a year, there are 110 when such testing is going on somewhere at Oakland High. As one of his colleagues put it, "It's like weighing a calf twice a day, but never feeding it."
But most of all, he simply observes his students, year to year, noting all the obvious evidence of teens' decreasing abilities when confronted with even the most basic intellectual tasks, from understanding simple history to working through moderately complex ideas to even (in a couple recent examples that particularly distressed him) being able to define the words "agriculture," or even "democracy." Not a single student could do it.
It gets worse. My friend cites the fact that, of the 6,000 high school students he estimates he's taught over the span of his career, only a small fraction now make it to his grade with a functioning understanding of written English. They do not know how to form a sentence. They cannot write an intelligible paragraph. Recently, after giving an assignment that required drawing lines, he realized that not a single student actually knew how to use a ruler.
It is, in short, nothing less than a tidal wave of dumb, with once-passionate, increasingly exasperated teachers like my friend nearly powerless to stop it. The worst part: It's not the kids' fault. They're merely the victims of a horribly failed educational system.
Then our discussion often turns to the meat of it, the bigger picture, the ugly and unavoidable truism about the lack of need among the government and the power elite in this nation to create a truly effective educational system, one that actually generates intelligent, thoughtful, articulate citizens.
Hell, why should they? After all, the dumber the populace, the easier it is to rule and control and launch unwinnable wars and pass laws telling them that sex is bad and TV is good and God knows all, so just pipe down and eat your Taco Bell Double-Supremo Burrito and be glad we don't arrest you for posting dirty pictures on your cute little blog.
This is about when I try to offer counterevidence, a bit of optimism. For one thing, I've argued generational relativity in this space before, suggesting maybe kids are no scarier or dumber or more dangerous than they've ever been, and that maybe some of the problem is merely the same old awkward generation gap, with every current generation absolutely convinced the subsequent one is terrifically stupid and malicious and will be the end of society as a whole. Just the way it always seems.
I also point out how, despite all the evidence of total public-education meltdown, I keep being surprised, keep hearing from/about teens and youth movements and actions that impress the hell out of me. Damn kids made the Internet what it is today, fer chrissakes. Revolutionized media. Broke all the rules. Still are.
Hell, some of the best designers, writers, artists, poets, chefs, and so on that I meet are in their early to mid-20s. And the nation's top universities are still managing, despite a factory-churning mentality, to crank out young minds of astonishing ability and acumen. How did these kids do it? How did they escape the horrible public school system? How did they avoid the great dumbing down of America? Did they never see a TV show until they hit puberty? Were they all born and raised elsewhere, in India and Asia and Russia? Did they all go to Waldorf or Montessori and eat whole-grain breads and play with firecrackers and take long walks in wild nature? Are these kids flukes? Exceptions? Just lucky?
My friend would say, well, yes, that's precisely what most of them are. Lucky, wealthy, foreign-born, private-schooled ... and increasingly rare. Most affluent parents in America - and many more who aren't - now put their kids in private schools from day one, and the smart ones give their kids no TV and minimal junk food and no video games. (Of course, this in no way guarantees a smart, attuned kid, but compared to the odds of success in the public school system, it sure seems to help). This covers about, what, 3 percent of the populace?
As for the rest, well, the dystopian evidence seems overwhelming indeed, to the point where it might be no stretch at all to say the biggest threat facing America is perhaps not global warming, not perpetual warmongering, not garbage food or low-level radiation or way too much Lindsay Lohan, but a populace far too ignorant to know how to properly manage any of it, much less change it all for the better. What, too fatalistic? Don't worry. Soon enough, no one will know what the word even means.

 

Well said. I see it too. Just look around you. It's everywhere. Today's youth are going through life like they are on autopilot and have no sensibility to know they are the way they are. They have a PROFOUND sense of entitlement that blows my mind. They expect to be rewarded for the slightest thing. I'm only 30, but I can see a difference in 20 something's. I live near an Ivy League school and frequent the local watering wholes that are also frequented by students. I swear this generation are the DUMBEST smart kids ever. They have no sense of self or any common sense for that matter. They are Lemmings looking for a cliff to jump off. Hopefully they'll do us all a favor and make that jump before they are tasked with actually taking responsibility for something important like working the register at McDonalds or running the country. These kids make George W. look like Einstein. I'm moving to France.

 

Say all you want about the education system, which is failing, it's true. Say what you will about evangelical christians, however, I would prefer those than the secular progressive. Bottom line is the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It all begins and ends with the parents.

 

You can't really blame the parents anymore, this isn't the 1950's. Both parents have to work about 8-12 hours a day just to afford their mortgage, car payments, food, clothing etc. The parents don't have time to be involved anymore. It's just not possible.

Makes you think twice about staying in the states, as I'd love to move out of this place I just don't know where there are as many jobs with decent pay, it's like we're all trapped with a bunch of stupid rats.

 

So people should just have children and hope that the state takes care of all aspects of their lives? Where is the personal responsibility that is supposed to accompany our personal freedoms? Why such a strong desire for many to be a parent without the financial security to raise the child? Perhaps one of the main reasons that we are dumbing down is that people with the least means to raise children are procreating the most.

How come you say there are many jobs with decent pay in the U.S.? If the pay was decent, why would a family need two wage earners?

Don't get me wrong - I believe it will get much harder for the average American to maintain a prosperous standard of living and it is definitely more difficult to make ends meet for the masses than it was several decades ago. I just don't understand how parents aren't responsible for their personal choices.

 

You are right the wrong people are getting together and popping out kids like crazy, it suck but what can we do about it?

I think the reason why we need two wage earners is because of inflation, and the dollar carries no value I think it just hit a low of $.78, and then there are many single people that can't afford an education with at least a bachelor's degree.
I haven't seen many jobs worth taking, for people with associates degrees, and AS is about as usefull as a high school diploma. Then add in all the highly educated competition coming in from other countries, most of them don't even have to pay to go to a University.
The options are running out for Americans.

So you can't put the blame on the parents entirely, government funding for schools has dropped to almost nothing while the war in Iraq sucks up the cash like a sponge. What's more important, getting that oil or education for our future leaders. Though I really don't understand why the USA doesn't make it mandatory for every kid out of high school to do a mandatory 2 years in the military. Some of these little ****** need a good *** kicking. Most other countries force their youth to do such activities so they can gain some personal skills and strength.

 

It's the parents.

 

Don't forget big homes, cable TV, kid's cell phones, eating out, honkin SUV's, Crossfires (opps, did I say that! LOL)

 

All I'm going to say is I agree that my generation and younger are on another planet... believing they should get things that aren’t deserved.

I won't even comment on the education system.

 

Maxwell, I must say that some of the dumbest, most rediculous comments I've ever read have been written in some of these forums. Having said that, I would have to rank your statement up near the top of the list, if not number one.

To say that parents are not to blame because they just don't have time anymore is about the biggest abdication of responsibility I've ever heard of. Granted, there are many more outside influences today than there's ever been, but that's where the parent part of parenting comes in.

You don't just have children because it's the thing to do and then let everyone else raise them for you. Once you have a child you've just made a commitment that binds you until that child is on his or her own, and maybe even longer. You don't toss them aside because you're bored with them or because you're "too busy". I've never seen so much selfishness as there is today. "It's all about me" should be tattooed on everyones forehead.

If you truly believe what you said, then don't have children. Otherwise, they'll be just like the ones you're complaining about.

As for moving out of the country, you won't know unless you try.