Here's what I find stupid .. people voting for candidates simply because of their race or gender ... women lining up for Hillary who have no idea what she stands for, simply to have a woman in the White House ... Blacks voting for Obama, just to have a black man in the White House ... The one benefit of the seemingly interminable campaign season is that you have plenty of time to find out what these people actually STAND FOR ... that should be your only basis for voting ... what does the candidate believe, and are his or her beliefs backed up by past actions? Hillary and Obama may SAY they support the 2nd Amendment, but we all know they don't ... education is more than reading and writing ... get educated on the choices you have (pathetic as they may be) and then vote based on what you're learned ...
Just how stupid are we?
- Thread starter Tibu
- Start date
Even those with the drive to succeed must rely on the one college standby that "insures" that most pass the class; the Bell Curve. I challenge anyone to recall any college class that emphasized the above and did not implement such a device. There are exceptions of course. What does that say about the state of our universities? The institutions of higher learning must contend with tens of millions of "high school graduates" who posses the "academic records" for admission but lack in the basics of academic skill. Hell, the vast majority of these graduates cannot even formulate any level of critical thought. Basically, college professors and instructors have to contend with students that simply do not know how to think.
Curiosity yields evolution...satiety yields extinction.
I went to "one of the best" public schools in my area and I think the school took too much credit for the quality of its students. The dumb students never got smarter and the high achievers would have done the same anywhere. I became a good reader because my parents taught me to read and encouraged me doing so, not because of anything the schools did or didn't do.
I have friends who have taught in rough schools and the thing they have all been struck the almost complete lack of parental involvement.
I have friends who have taught in rough schools and the thing they have all been struck the almost complete lack of parental involvement.
Rich Miranda
New member
Pretty darn, unfortunately.
We're too caught up with Obama Girl and how Britney's coochie is shaved and why Denise Richards wants Charlie Sheen's sperm frozen and.......
LightningJoe
New member
Oh, I didn't say they were doing a good job of it. But I can't see any other objective for the public school focus. Can these kids fix cars, lay bricks, run a milling machine?
Some kids need to be prepared to study abstract things in college. We need some engineers, lawyers, and doctors. We even need a few historians and philosophers.
But most kids aren't in the upper tail of the IQ distribution. They need a trade. Unless they're going to be hotel maids and convenience store clerks.
Northern Sod Breaker
New member
Being a recent graduate ('06) I have to chime in. The public school system spends to much time teaching from the books and not enough time teaching from real world practise. With perhaps the exception of a few subjects nothing is ever exactly as the textbook teaches. And even with those subjects that are from textbooks, Textbooks become outdated so fast and how many schools have the resources to completely update their textbooks every 2 years. When I was in Elementry some of the textbooks issued were 10-15 years old. The other problem is that kids are not being taught how to think. They believe something just because the teacher and/or textbook tells them it is. They lack the ability to read a text book and ask, "Is this realy accurate?" I personaly have bought textbooks for my own collection and paid close to $100 a book and found typos. Just like my 1960 edition of World Book encyclopedia (pg230-pg231) that says a cow has 32 teeth. (If anyone wants to challenge me on this they can gladly come out here. I'll open a cows mouth and you can count them yourself. If you did count them yourself you'd find 8.) It also says chew their cud with thier molars. Cattle have no molars. here's the point if a well known dictionary can be verifiably wrong, then so can textbooks. When you add political motivation to the picture. You are walking a fine line betwen brainwashing.
When all of the above has set in, I conclude by saying there will always be those who seek their own benefit and will use dirty tatics to accomplish them.
When all of the above has set in, I conclude by saying there will always be those who seek their own benefit and will use dirty tatics to accomplish them.
One more Group To Blame
We have left out the teachers unions. In what other occupation can you be virtually guaranteed lifetime emploment after a couple of years of probation? How many jobs are out there with regulations that make it almost impossible to fire incompetent employees?
Look how teachers are rewarded too. Raises are aquired by time on the job and taking some college courses. A super educator that works their rear off doesn't get a dime more money just for doing a good job. Most schools can't give financial incentives for creativity to great teachers.
In the medical field the better doctors drive better cars. One reason is that the better a doctor is, the more he will be paid. Good lawyers live in fancier homes then poor lawyers because their paychecks reflect their competence.
Teacher union fight merit raises tooth and nail. They also fight for the rights of lazy and lousy teachers.
Our public school system is more broken then many of you think,
We have left out the teachers unions. In what other occupation can you be virtually guaranteed lifetime emploment after a couple of years of probation? How many jobs are out there with regulations that make it almost impossible to fire incompetent employees?
Look how teachers are rewarded too. Raises are aquired by time on the job and taking some college courses. A super educator that works their rear off doesn't get a dime more money just for doing a good job. Most schools can't give financial incentives for creativity to great teachers.
In the medical field the better doctors drive better cars. One reason is that the better a doctor is, the more he will be paid. Good lawyers live in fancier homes then poor lawyers because their paychecks reflect their competence.
Teacher union fight merit raises tooth and nail. They also fight for the rights of lazy and lousy teachers.
Our public school system is more broken then many of you think,
LightningJoe
New member
There are at least four components to academic failure in the US (not in any particular order):
1] The schools - wide variation here
2] The parents - some are useless
3] The prevailing culture - some cultures don't value formal education
4] The kids - some kids aren't very smart
A wise man has said it's easier to change the sail than the wind. The schools aren't able to handle different kinds of kids from different cultures. A decent suburban public school does an OK job of teaching a white kid with an IQ of 115+. The rest are using the same formula for kids with different needs (i.e. they're trying to change the wind instead of the sail). And this won't change. Every parent wants his kid to grow up to be a guy who wears a tie and pulls down $300K. Not going to happen, but you can't tell them that.
1] The schools - wide variation here
2] The parents - some are useless
3] The prevailing culture - some cultures don't value formal education
4] The kids - some kids aren't very smart
A wise man has said it's easier to change the sail than the wind. The schools aren't able to handle different kinds of kids from different cultures. A decent suburban public school does an OK job of teaching a white kid with an IQ of 115+. The rest are using the same formula for kids with different needs (i.e. they're trying to change the wind instead of the sail). And this won't change. Every parent wants his kid to grow up to be a guy who wears a tie and pulls down $300K. Not going to happen, but you can't tell them that.
Double Naught Spy
New member
What an interesting question, especially given that it shows ignorance. To be stupid is to have a lack of intellectual acuity. However, what the book is talking about is ignorance, a lack of education or knowledge.
You just have to love a book title critical of Americans for their ignorance of the political system when the author is ignorant of the proper terminology of the language that he is using.
Maybe he went to public school as well?
True Stories, Really!
The following three scenarios are from real life, nothing is made up.
You have an elementary school teacher in fourth grade at the local public elementary school. She gives every student an "A" in every subject. The fifth grade teachers have to deal with irate parents when those teachers give marks that reflect the kids actual skills and abilities. What should be done with this teacher?
In another public school a few miles away is a reading specialist. Her job is to identify struggling readers and offer them extra help. She spends all day, every day in her office. Teachers and students never see her all year. The students with reading problems get zero help from her. What should be done with this teacher?
In the same city is a public high schoool. One of the math teachers follows the same routing every day. He hands the kids a worksheet, sits at his desk, opens the paper and sips his coffee. He would be oblivious to a riot should one erupt in his class. What should be done with this teacher?
If you had any common sense you would say that these teachers should be fired. But here is the hitch. If they are tenured, you would have a better chance getting a date with Jessica Alba then the school district has in terminating these teachers. The paperwork and man-hours involved in firing a teacher is over whelming. It takes an administrator most of his working hours for a year to do it. Then at the end of the process the union will jump on the teacher's side, regardless how lousy they are, and fight it tooth and nail. If one "T" wasn't crossed or one "i" dotted, the teacher stays.
Lets say that a hospital has an anesthesiologist that keeps killing patients because he forgets to give them oxygen, he is gone! Lets say there is a pilot that keeps landing on the wrong runway, he is terminated. If a police officer keeps shooting the wrong people, he is shown the front door.
Yes, public school problems are many. One of the serious ones is the rules that are set up that force districts to keep bad apples and doesn't allow them reward stars.
The following three scenarios are from real life, nothing is made up.
You have an elementary school teacher in fourth grade at the local public elementary school. She gives every student an "A" in every subject. The fifth grade teachers have to deal with irate parents when those teachers give marks that reflect the kids actual skills and abilities. What should be done with this teacher?
In another public school a few miles away is a reading specialist. Her job is to identify struggling readers and offer them extra help. She spends all day, every day in her office. Teachers and students never see her all year. The students with reading problems get zero help from her. What should be done with this teacher?
In the same city is a public high schoool. One of the math teachers follows the same routing every day. He hands the kids a worksheet, sits at his desk, opens the paper and sips his coffee. He would be oblivious to a riot should one erupt in his class. What should be done with this teacher?
If you had any common sense you would say that these teachers should be fired. But here is the hitch. If they are tenured, you would have a better chance getting a date with Jessica Alba then the school district has in terminating these teachers. The paperwork and man-hours involved in firing a teacher is over whelming. It takes an administrator most of his working hours for a year to do it. Then at the end of the process the union will jump on the teacher's side, regardless how lousy they are, and fight it tooth and nail. If one "T" wasn't crossed or one "i" dotted, the teacher stays.
Lets say that a hospital has an anesthesiologist that keeps killing patients because he forgets to give them oxygen, he is gone! Lets say there is a pilot that keeps landing on the wrong runway, he is terminated. If a police officer keeps shooting the wrong people, he is shown the front door.
Yes, public school problems are many. One of the serious ones is the rules that are set up that force districts to keep bad apples and doesn't allow them reward stars.
Dog Confetti
New member
Team America
I think a lot of you may be missing the point brought up by the original poster by focusing on our edcation system...There are many people in this country, of all ages, coming from many backgrounds (rich or poor, good and bad parents) with different degrees of education (from none to PhD's...a trade or technical degree has nothing to do with being well informed) who are WILLFULLY IGNORANT...who choose not to be informed on what is going on around them. They have made individual decision, consiously or not, to ignore what goes on in this country and in the world...they make uninformed decisions based on gut feelings, moral codes, and ideology...they willfully choose to ignore facts or lines of reason which do not conform to their world view.
Coming back to the original question in this thread...A democracy has a poor future when the bulk of its citizens are as infomed and multi-dimensional as a character from "Team America"
I think a lot of you may be missing the point brought up by the original poster by focusing on our edcation system...There are many people in this country, of all ages, coming from many backgrounds (rich or poor, good and bad parents) with different degrees of education (from none to PhD's...a trade or technical degree has nothing to do with being well informed) who are WILLFULLY IGNORANT...who choose not to be informed on what is going on around them. They have made individual decision, consiously or not, to ignore what goes on in this country and in the world...they make uninformed decisions based on gut feelings, moral codes, and ideology...they willfully choose to ignore facts or lines of reason which do not conform to their world view.
Coming back to the original question in this thread...A democracy has a poor future when the bulk of its citizens are as infomed and multi-dimensional as a character from "Team America"
Double Naught Spy
New member
Yes, and you missed the point that the book and OP referred to those people ignorantly was being stupid, not ignorant. How ironic they confused that categorization.
LightningJoe
New member
Well, the real answers there are hard and politically incorrect, so it's just easier to watch TV and believe in Leftism. We all know the problem: racist, carbon-producing, warmongering white men. We all know the solution: income redistribution and big government. So, why worry?
Proof
Florida has 130,000 teachers. Last year, 23 of them were fired, that is less then .02 percent. Anyone here want to argue that all the rest were simply too good to be fired. Rather, read this article.
http://schoolmatch.com/audit/jacksonville/articles/teach1.htm
After reading it, tell me our public school system ain't broke.
Florida has 130,000 teachers. Last year, 23 of them were fired, that is less then .02 percent. Anyone here want to argue that all the rest were simply too good to be fired. Rather, read this article.
http://schoolmatch.com/audit/jacksonville/articles/teach1.htm
After reading it, tell me our public school system ain't broke.
Northern Sod Breaker
New member
Oh come on now. These stories about bad teachers is just propganda spread by home school proponents. The public school system is perfect and there is no need for an alternitive that might undermind the efforts of the public school system in making perfect citisens who will obey every order given to them, and believe everything they hear on TV.
MeekAndMild
New member
I can't speak for everyone here but I'm pretty stupid. After 24 years of formal education I can't figure out how to lay at home and suck on the Big Social Security Teat. So I get up every morning and go to work.
