I'm not an alarmist but...
Something has come to my attention: the complete and total ignorance of the generation coming up behind us. Have any of you actually talked to a kid between the ages of 20 and 27 lately, give or take a couple years? It's apalling; the lack of life skills, knowledge of history, and understanding of literature they have. And don't even get started about their life philosophies...it will kill your soul to know how totally inept they are.
I'm sure our parents and our grandparents thought the same of us but goddamn these kids coming up today are so ill equipped to manage this world. Did you realize that under NCLB that they are only required to read one Shakespearean play and that it is usually Romeo and Juliet? No histories like Richard II or Henry V or even Henry VIII. No comedies like Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, or As You Like It. No distinction in the fact that Romeo & Juliet was a tragedy akin to Macbeth, King Lear, or Antony & Cleopatra. No instruction of the relationship between the last mentioned tragedy and Julius Caesar.
They receive no instruction in ancient languages, instead forced to learn an invader's tongue just to get by in fast food restaurant jobs; no understanding of the Romance languages or what they mean to the Western world. They receive no instruction in Greek or Latin. Their educations in Spanish abandon the classical, proper Spanish in favor of the bastardized Spanglish of the Texas border.
They do not read the ancient epics of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Odysseus. Aneas is completely foreign to their ears and the words of Herodatus, Polybius, and Tacitus may as well never have been written. Aquinas and Francis of Assisi are nothing more than antiquated names mentioned in passing in the dust jackets of the books overlooked by today's instructors.
Aristotle, Plato and Socrates are reserved as specialties in education...not required of every student but held back for only those who seek out educations in philosophy by choice. Pythagoras "was that triangle guy" and Copernicus "was that astronomy guy who made 'that model'" according to recent college grads I spoke with tonight. And, get this: 'Galileo had his head chopped off for believing the Earth wasn't the center of the universe', according to the astrophysicist among them. Really? That urban legend is considered fact with a young man who has a degree in astronomy? WTF?
Dante, Milton or Goethe? Forget about it. The name of Faustus was completely unknown to a recent graduate of the humanitarian arts program at USC. The name "Beatrice" had as much importance to his mind as the name of the woman who plays Flo on the Progressive commercials: zero except as a novelty piece of trivia that might grant an edge in a match of Jeopardy.
These are things we had contact with coming out of middle school; these were things we were equipped with when we were confronted with current events in high school. And by "we", I mean the 30+ crowd. We understood that the Star Spangled Banner was written in response to the bombardment of Fort McHenry at the onset of the War of 1812 and not as "a battle hymn of the Continental Army of George Washington" (as was related to me by my own boyfriend tonight while we watched the fireworks over LA). We knew that the history of Europe and the colonization of the New World was one intertwined with the evolution of and resistance against the Roman Catholic Church; the move to enlightenment and the constant struggle to extricate the politics of nations from the spiritual direction of Rome. We knew, by heart, the 95 Theses of Martin Luther, tacked on the wall of The Caslte Church and what it meant to the schism between Protestants and Catholics. We were versed in the philosophies of self reliance passed down from Thoreau to Emerson. It was impressed on us that sacrifices were made morally, politically, and socially to help defeat the Nazi threat and defeat Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo during WW2. Oh, by the way, the Serbian Black Hand of WWI, assassin of Archduke Francis Ferdinand...totally unknown to the three kids I talked to today. The words of Roosevelt about "a big stick" and Kennedy about what we should "ask" and "ask not"...they were as familiar to us as the verses of the Pledge.
Not today's kids. What went wrong? Where did their educations break down and fail them? How the hell did they make it through without reading "All Quiet on the Western Front"? Why did the basic academic skill of demonstrating a geometric proof get discarded? The art of properly addressing and writing both personal and business letters is absent in today's young adults and I want to know why.
The degradation of the educations of our up and coming citizens today frightens me. A whole generation of people who have no understanding of how we got here are about to become the driving force in voting on where we are going. God help us...I hope it's true that He watches over fools and children.
Something has come to my attention: the complete and total ignorance of the generation coming up behind us. Have any of you actually talked to a kid between the ages of 20 and 27 lately, give or take a couple years? It's apalling; the lack of life skills, knowledge of history, and understanding of literature they have. And don't even get started about their life philosophies...it will kill your soul to know how totally inept they are.
I'm sure our parents and our grandparents thought the same of us but goddamn these kids coming up today are so ill equipped to manage this world. Did you realize that under NCLB that they are only required to read one Shakespearean play and that it is usually Romeo and Juliet? No histories like Richard II or Henry V or even Henry VIII. No comedies like Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, or As You Like It. No distinction in the fact that Romeo & Juliet was a tragedy akin to Macbeth, King Lear, or Antony & Cleopatra. No instruction of the relationship between the last mentioned tragedy and Julius Caesar.
They receive no instruction in ancient languages, instead forced to learn an invader's tongue just to get by in fast food restaurant jobs; no understanding of the Romance languages or what they mean to the Western world. They receive no instruction in Greek or Latin. Their educations in Spanish abandon the classical, proper Spanish in favor of the bastardized Spanglish of the Texas border.
They do not read the ancient epics of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Odysseus. Aneas is completely foreign to their ears and the words of Herodatus, Polybius, and Tacitus may as well never have been written. Aquinas and Francis of Assisi are nothing more than antiquated names mentioned in passing in the dust jackets of the books overlooked by today's instructors.
Aristotle, Plato and Socrates are reserved as specialties in education...not required of every student but held back for only those who seek out educations in philosophy by choice. Pythagoras "was that triangle guy" and Copernicus "was that astronomy guy who made 'that model'" according to recent college grads I spoke with tonight. And, get this: 'Galileo had his head chopped off for believing the Earth wasn't the center of the universe', according to the astrophysicist among them. Really? That urban legend is considered fact with a young man who has a degree in astronomy? WTF?
Dante, Milton or Goethe? Forget about it. The name of Faustus was completely unknown to a recent graduate of the humanitarian arts program at USC. The name "Beatrice" had as much importance to his mind as the name of the woman who plays Flo on the Progressive commercials: zero except as a novelty piece of trivia that might grant an edge in a match of Jeopardy.
These are things we had contact with coming out of middle school; these were things we were equipped with when we were confronted with current events in high school. And by "we", I mean the 30+ crowd. We understood that the Star Spangled Banner was written in response to the bombardment of Fort McHenry at the onset of the War of 1812 and not as "a battle hymn of the Continental Army of George Washington" (as was related to me by my own boyfriend tonight while we watched the fireworks over LA). We knew that the history of Europe and the colonization of the New World was one intertwined with the evolution of and resistance against the Roman Catholic Church; the move to enlightenment and the constant struggle to extricate the politics of nations from the spiritual direction of Rome. We knew, by heart, the 95 Theses of Martin Luther, tacked on the wall of The Caslte Church and what it meant to the schism between Protestants and Catholics. We were versed in the philosophies of self reliance passed down from Thoreau to Emerson. It was impressed on us that sacrifices were made morally, politically, and socially to help defeat the Nazi threat and defeat Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo during WW2. Oh, by the way, the Serbian Black Hand of WWI, assassin of Archduke Francis Ferdinand...totally unknown to the three kids I talked to today. The words of Roosevelt about "a big stick" and Kennedy about what we should "ask" and "ask not"...they were as familiar to us as the verses of the Pledge.
Not today's kids. What went wrong? Where did their educations break down and fail them? How the hell did they make it through without reading "All Quiet on the Western Front"? Why did the basic academic skill of demonstrating a geometric proof get discarded? The art of properly addressing and writing both personal and business letters is absent in today's young adults and I want to know why.
The degradation of the educations of our up and coming citizens today frightens me. A whole generation of people who have no understanding of how we got here are about to become the driving force in voting on where we are going. God help us...I hope it's true that He watches over fools and children.