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| Let’s face it: this country is (sadly) rife with less education and more idiocy. Just last week, the free daily, amNewYork, wrote of how one-quarter of our high school juniors and seniors “misidentified Adolf Hitler.” One of the most vile people this world has known is just another name (or some dude that got screwed over by Microsoft) to one out of every four American 17-year-olds. You might think that “schooled” adults with degrees and mortgages would fare much better, but a recent look at trends on Google showed that searches for “Assburgers Syndrome” peaked a day after Parenthood – a primetime drama with a married couple that has a son with Asperger’s – debuted on NBC. Depressing, isn’t it? | Here at the home office, we’re big baseball fans, and some of us are stats geeks. While such a tidbit may be uninteresting to most, it does serve to prove a point. You see, the objective analysis of baseball through statistical measures, or sabermetrics, isn’t something that is taught in school, or readily learned without some effort. We simply discovered an interest in the subject and “educated” ourselves. What is most disturbing about the average uneducated American is that he or she possesses a complete and utter disinterest in learning something on their own. It seems to us that people look at education not as an exercise in personal enrichment, but rather a chore, or a necessary evil to pass an exam. Sad, but true. | |||
| One saving grace about being surrounded by so many intellectually challenged people is the ability to be entertained at their expense. In this Google-centric world we live in today, one of the dumber questions one can ask begins with who, what, when or where. Why would we say that, you ask? Behold, a LMGTFY.com-generated link to illustrate exactly what we mean. And don’t even try to tell us that we’re underestimating the problem around here. Ever wondered what your kids are doing (or will be doing) on Facebook? The utter stupidity of our youth is beyond comprehension.
Not all stupidity comes from a lack of education. Take the new fiancé, who thought it would be a good idea to compare his betrothed to his ex while they were laying in bed together. Or the casual baseball fan who thinks that Joba Chamberlain is more valuable as a relief pitcher, despite being presented with countless statistics that portray the complete opposite. These scenarios are just your run of the mill stupidity. “Idiot” and “dumb-ass” are too broad of terms, however. We all know there are so many different kinds of muttonheads amongst us, and identifying them is probably one of the greatest ideas ever for a drinking game. You see, you have your bumbling imbeciles, the quasi illiterates and the simple ninnies, among others. In the end, none of our commentary matters very much, there always have been, and always will be, countless members of the Idiots Club among us. That said, maybe that’s not such a bad thing, especially since it makes us look smarter. |
Where does this mindset come from, though? With respect to the aforementioned amNewYork piece, we heard the following: “[Standardized testing] creates a completely f*cked situation, where you learn (to) memorize facts and singular concepts. No free thought or expression is encouraged,” says user blake1776 of Pasta Padre. So is it the education system itself that is to blame? Are teachers actually disallowed to facilitate the free thoughts of their students, therefore ignoring their “why’s” in favor of only what’s printed in the textbook?
As we proposed yesterday, what’s more troubling is the content of these textbooks. Officials on the Texas State Board of Education recently voted down (10-5) a proposal that would allow teachers to “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America.” This policy change has been widely criticized and derided across the nation, and with good reason. However, when you combine “redaction” with the nature of standardized testing, how, exactly, are children supposed to question the validity or application of what they’re being “taught?” Remind of you anywhere else, Comrade? The education system in this country cannot be fixed by money or by forcing one’s own political beliefs upon the curriculum (f*ck you, Texas). Instead, we should be fostering the development of the teacher-pupil-student relationship beyond the textbook, and mere memorization of “facts” and dates. Maybe if more emphasis was placed on logic and reason, our morons would be able pick Hitler out of a “bad-guy lineup.” |
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Tags: Baseball, Education, Hitler, Idiocy, Learning, Stats Geeks, Texas
A major thanks to “JG” for his contribution to this piece. We could not have done it without you.
I am a member of the Tea Bagging party and am appald by you’re criticizm! In this country we have a beauracracy and can teach how we the majority decide. And, btw, did you ever stop to think that the reason kids can’t identify Hitler now is that he probably changed his look. I saw Boy George on the television the other day and didn’t recognize HIM! Liberal elitist idiots! I shoot my morally superior guns at you (not real guns).
Much appreciated, Chairman.
Surely there were other idiots one might have portrayed besides ol’ Georgie? LOL… Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to point them out in some future piece
I’m all for improvements in education, but let’s be careful in tossing around statistics. It takes a few clicks to get down to the actual results. The sound bite ” one-quarter of our high school juniors and seniors “misidentified Adolf Hitler.”, comes from asking “True or false: Adolf Hitler was the Chancellor of Germany during the Second World War.” and finding that 23% said “false”. Now, they might have thought that he was the “president” or the “dictator” or that it was World War I, or that he was second baseman for the Mets. We don’t know. My guess is that most of the 23% thought it might be a trick question, or didn’t know what a “Chancellor” was, but did know the role that Hitler played.
We don’t know the answer to this this because the “survey” wasn’t real educational or sociological research, but a bit of work done by a group advocating a “common core” of knowledge to be taught in schools. We don’t know the context the question was presented in, and they weren’t interested in digging deeper into what the kids really knew because the short version served their purposes.
Again, I’m certainly interested in movements to improve education (it’s been my life for 32 years), and I might even agree with Common Core, but I think we (myself included) can be too easily fired up by faulty data.