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The alarming degree of ignorance of the average American.

M

Mr_DBater

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[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCoVaeYHzWA[/YOUTUBE] LOL
If only they spent less on pointless wars, in the wrong countrys, meddling in other people's business, they might have enough cash for a decent education system.

Being serious now. Isn't ignorance like this dangerous. Surely an ignorant electorate are more likely to elect an ignorant dangerous president. But then this isn't a matter for speculation. It's a fact !
 
The majority of American's are fairly ignorant - yes it is very dangerous. Ever seen Jay Walking with Jay Leno same thing.
Most ppl just don't care - explains much of the blind sheep mentality here.
 
Of course, anyone who seems to think spending more money is the cure is making an ignorant statement. The school districts with the highest expenditure per student don't have the best results.
 
Imagine. Those are average Americans.

Now imagine the fact that half of them are even worse.
 
Not to sound like a right wing pundit, but we really do have the liberal overhauling of America's schools to thank for that. Instead of focusing on the realities of what comprises a decent education, they have made it so that there is no discipline, every child has to feel good, and no stratifications within the academic hierarchy. It's ridiculous to see what our kids are being taught now...
 
jallman said:
Not to sound like a right wing pundit, but we really do have the liberal overhauling of America's schools to thank for that. Instead of focusing on the realities of what comprises a decent education, they have made it so that there is no discipline, every child has to feel good, and no stratifications within the academic hierarchy. It's ridiculous to see what our kids are being taught now...
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No argument on this at all.
 
Originally posted by jallman:
Not to sound like a right wing pundit, but we really do have the liberal overhauling of America's schools to thank for that. Instead of focusing on the realities of what comprises a decent education, they have made it so that there is no discipline, every child has to feel good, and no stratifications within the academic hierarchy. It's ridiculous to see what our kids are being taught now...
Click to expand...
You right wing pundit!
 
The ignorance of the average American is directly related to the complacency of today's parents.

Parents are the single greatest teacher a child will ever have, and even if a kid in his teens starts to rebel and hate their parents, those that have solid cores from great parents will evolve into higher thinking adults regardless of what happens.

Parenting is failing America. It really is. :(
 
I see for copyright reasons it's been removed from Youtube.
It's still on 'Break'. It's worrying and dangerous to think that throwbacks like these decided who have their hand of the trigger of the largest arsenal of weapons in the world. It explains how they chose the Bush chimp. An electorate like this lot are a dream for defense contracters and the politicians they sponsor. They've got these taxpayers right where they want them. :
Americans are stupid - BREAK.com
 
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Mr_DBater said:
If only they spent less on pointless wars, in the wrong countrys, meddling in other people's business, they might have enough cash for a decent education system.
Click to expand...

We already spend a ton of money on education, it's just being misused. There are more administrators than teachers on most campuses and they are being paid an obscene amount of money. Schools aren't teaching kids anything, they simply teach to the test so they get more money from the state, no one is taught how to think, just regurgitate information back and that's it. Education is largely a tool with a political agenda, it stopped being about educating kids and getting them ready to be productive members of society long, long ago.

We don't need to spend any more money on education, we just need to demand more of what we already have.
 
Ignoring the infintile parading about of our most concerned European on the thread and his "YouTube" wisdom to the world, our education system has always been well below what it should be. And every politician has used its "improvement" to grand stand on.

But in a culture as diverse as America, a lowering of the bar in some places was inevitable. We need to stop pandering to what individuals believe are their limitations in education and raise it. It makes no sense that our country holds most of the world's most prestiges universities and formal schools, yet we have complete dumbasses roaming the streets.
 
GySgt said:
Ignoring the infintile parading about of our most concerned European on the thread and his "YouTube" wisdom to the world, our education system has always been well below what it should be. And every politician has used its "improvement" to grand stand on.

But in a culture as diverse as America, a lowering of the bar in some places was inevitable. We need to stop pandering to what individuals believe are their limitations in education and raise it. It makes no sense that our country holds most of the world's most prestiges universities and formal schools, yet we have complete dumbasses roaming the streets.
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A-***in-men
 
I read in my local paper the other day that the WASL shows that what the kids need more of is science and math. Those are the two areas were our students are performing below average. Anyway on WED. I went on a field trip with the 4th graders. On the bus ride back to school one of the kids was complaining that we would be getting back early and school wouldn't let out for nearly an hour and a half. I asked him what they normally do the last hour of school. He said well normally we do science but this week we aren't doing science because we are learning about bullying all week. :shock: These are fourth graders. They need science. They don't need a week's worth of curriculum on "bullying." But apparently it's anti-bully week and so all the students are learning about the importance of not being a bully and thus science was cut for the week. Stupid $hit if you ask me, especially in light of the recent news article on how bad the kids are doing in science and math. But this is typical. At our school there are certain things we don't take away ever with zero exceptions. Those things are recess, PE, music, and art. So if a kid doesn't get his work done he can't be forced to sit out recess to finish it. Also if the powers that be come up with goofy $hit like "anti-bully" awareness week then something like reading, math, or science is cut to make room for that bull$hit. :roll: Americans are not stupid. It's just the school system is practically set up to be a failure.
 
A few points. Jay Leno asks questions guaranteed to get wrong answers. The younger generation doesn't see the need to know a lot of the stuff we older ones learned. And I tend to agree. I was an electronics tech most of my life. The stuff I had to learn to get into the school was pretty much your standard high school stuff. The stuff they taught me in tech school was about 80% useful in the long run. Some of it is only taught as a stepping stone to more useful knowledge. Some of it I never used again after school. Times change, and electronics repair is a dying profession. We only need a small fraction of techs that we used to need.
It is similar in other professions, they are dying out. New professions are created every few years. THAT is the weak point of public schools. They are stuck in the past and are not keeping up with the changes that are happening all around them.
Quick question, who gives a rats backside what a dangling participle is? I would love to see Jay asking that one.
 
UtahBill said:
Quick question, who gives a rats backside what a dangling participle is?
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Most people should. Proper communication, both written and spoken, is the backbone of getting ahead in the world. It might not be important to know what it's called, but knowing proper English is essential.

Today's high school seniors are graduating effectively illiterate. That's the point and the problem.
 
I got my verbal skills, writing skills, communications skills, etc. at the same school my siblings did. Somehow, though, they can't spell, punctuate, form proper sentences, or properly pronounce common words. Reason? Not the schools, that is for sure. It is reading. I did a ton of it, still do, and you can learn proper language skills without knowing the definitions of the terms. GED exams don't ask such things, they just give you the same thought expressed in several different ways and ask you to pick the one that uses the best grammar.
Yes, communicating is important, as is math, but a lot of things are crammed down our throats as essential knowledge that is not. We should all be able to read, write, express, compute, calculate, and so on in a manner that allows us to compete in the job market.
Ignorance is a variable. The more we learn, the less ignorant we are. I suggest that stupidity is a bigger issue. Stupid is when we know we are ignorant and don't care. That is an attidue issue. Our high school grads are not illiterate, except for the few that get "social" promotions. They are lacking in knowledge that is important, though, and they don't care. You cannot shame a lazy student for not knowing much if he is the star pupil in his class. He thinks he is the class genius! The subject most poorly taught in our high schools has to be history. It is so whtie washed, diluted, and sanitized that it has become a complete waste of time.
The curriculum must be updated to reflect modern times.
 
Mr_DBater said:
I see for copyright reasons it's been removed from Youtube.
It's still on 'Break'. It's worrying and dangerous to think that throwbacks like these decided who have their hand of the trigger of the largest arsenal of weapons in the world. It explains how they chose the Bush chimp. An electorate like this lot are a dream for defense contracters and the politicians they sponsor. They've got these taxpayers right where they want them. :
Americans are stupid - BREAK.com
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Funny video to be sure, but I'm also fairly sure that it has a lot of editing going on as well to give the audience what they were looking for. Try this one for example:
Women are dumb!
 
How come nobody ever interviews me when they are searching for this mythical beast called an "average American".

I wonder if it is because I hassle them too much about the methodology involved in their sampling techniques?
 
Come on Now ! We continue to pay lip service to the idea that if we only pay teachers more everything will improve. What Nonsense !!! I taught for a couple of years and it was a real experience. I saw teachers who had no idea of their subject. They took courses in that great Crib Course "Education". You take that when everythinjg else is just too hard. Then you go to work and they tell you to teach math or science or economics or government - and you ain't got a clue!! Who is responsible - The great American Teachers Unions - The greatest threat to our society since
the Plague !!! And what have these great unions done for teachers - Great Pay (Despite the left wing propaganda.), Work only 9 months a year - Lots and lots of great free vacation trips in the other three. And in the nine you work - holiday after holiday, Couple of weeks for Xmas, Couple of weeks for Easter, Spring Break and dozens of assorted "Teacher Days" when you do NOTHING. Pretty good - Then what have the unions and their teachers done for the students - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. And we wonder why our populations are trailing the WORLD - DUH !!!!!!!!!!
 
ballybofy said:
Come on Now ! We continue to pay lip service to the idea that if we only pay teachers more everything will improve. What Nonsense !!! I taught for a couple of years and it was a real experience. I saw teachers who had no idea of their subject. They took courses in that great Crib Course "Education". You take that when everythinjg else is just too hard. Then you go to work and they tell you to teach math or science or economics or government - and you ain't got a clue!! Who is responsible - The great American Teachers Unions - The greatest threat to our society since
the Plague !!! And what have these great unions done for teachers - Great Pay (Despite the left wing propaganda.), Work only 9 months a year - Lots and lots of great free vacation trips in the other three. And in the nine you work - holiday after holiday, Couple of weeks for Xmas, Couple of weeks for Easter, Spring Break and dozens of assorted "Teacher Days" when you do NOTHING. Pretty good - Then what have the unions and their teachers done for the students - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. And we wonder why our populations are trailing the WORLD - DUH !!!!!!!!!!
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You were a teacher? I find that hard to believe, and the way this post is written is one major tip off.

Secondly, more and more teachers have specialized degrees these days, in addition to their education credentials. Perhaps you're not aware, but in every state that I personally know someone who teaches there, those general education credentials are REQUIRED.

Work nine months a year? Not in a district where there's year round school. Three months' worth of vacation? Hardly. Even if they could afford it, most teachers worth a damn are preparing for the next school year. And those Teacher Workshop Days? Guess what? They really are going to workshops and doing work related things....they're not lounging around playing video games like their students undoubtedly are.

Oh, and great pay? That's a laugh. Brand new teachers make an average starting salary of around $30,000. The average teacher salary is around $44,000 (note that these figures are from 2002-2003, see CNN.com - Survey: Average teacher salary up slightly - Jul. 4, 2003) That's hardly "great", though it does depend upon where you live. I know that a salary like that would barely get you by in the city I live in.

Yeah.....finding it hard to believe that you were a teacher.
 
jallman said:
Not to sound like a right wing pundit, but we really do have the liberal overhauling of America's schools to thank for that. Instead of focusing on the realities of what comprises a decent education, they have made it so that there is no discipline, every child has to feel good, and no stratifications within the academic hierarchy. It's ridiculous to see what our kids are being taught now...
Click to expand...

______
You do know that our schools and colleges are NOT filled with only Libs teachers and professors right?
 
Sergeant Stinger1 said:
______
You do know that our schools and colleges are NOT filled with only Libs teachers and professors right?
Click to expand...

I always liked that "education is liberal brainwashing" argument, though; it implies that only liberals are educated, and all conservatives are unschooled backwoods bumpkins... hardly the tack i'd choose to take, were I a conservative... but an amusing one nevertheless, since I'm not. :)
 
Comparing annual salaries between a person who works year-round and one who doesn't is not logical.
 
ah ha = Thus speakath the voice of the Teachers Union. So, Stace, fess up - are you a teacher???? A member of a teachers Union ?? You quote 2002 salary figures - 5 Years old ??? That the best you can do? Seems to me I have heard those (2002) figures before. Could they be from a teachers union talking paper ?????? You say that in the VERY liberal 3 months off these poor souls are working their poor overworked minds to the bone preparing for the next year. I taught in a private school. Had about 5 preparations a day while my Public School counterparts were RESTRICTED to two (2).. Two Preparations for courses you have probably taught for years - Yea, that REALLY taxes the poor old brain. So, Again, fess up - Are you a teacher? If not I suggest you have simply fallen victum to the clap trap put out by the unions = If you are, then WHY CAN'T JOHNNY READ ????? Could you have something to do with it ??? Ooops, sorry if I hurt your self esteem - I know that's a no-no in modern "education"
 
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