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Subject:Re: The Dumbing Down of America From:Andrew Plato <intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 22 Jun 2001 09:51:33 -0700 (PDT)
"Dan Emory" wrote...
> This is the 5-hour eighth-grade final exam from 1895
> (well-before Ritalin) given by the public school in the small farm town
of
> Salina, Kansas. It was taken from the
> original document on file at the Smoky Valley
> Genealogical Society and Library in Salina,
> and reprinted in modern times by the Salina Journal.
>
> Presumably, the townspeople did not regard the
> test as onerously difficult for their children, and
> most of them must have passed it, else the 8th-grade
> teacher would have been ridden out of town on a rail.
> Certainly, there was no such thing as a non-literate
> high school graduate in Salina, Kansas in 1895.
>
> More than anything else, the test shows how far
> secondary education in this country has fallen
> in the past century. Notice the many essay-type
> questions, and the total absence of multiple-choice
> in the 45 questions.
A) This has what to do with technical writing?
B) If you notice, most of these questions center on utterly arbitrary
conventions of the time. "The 2 Epochs of American History." and the "9
Rules of Capitalization". I think education has moved beyond some of
these pointless and totally arbitrary conventions.
C) Every single generation since 9000BC has considered the next
generations dumb, incompetent, and destined for failure. I remember
reading an essay from 1961 where some guy said the dawn of the free-love
hippy crap would lead to the decline and failure of the US by 1980. Its
fantastically easy to point a finger at the generations behind you and say
"see how dumb they are." The truth is, those generations have different
skills and knowledge than you. I know 14 year old boys who can't identify
their own state on a map, but they can sling VB code better than most 45
year old programmers.
D) While America may indeed be dumbing down - what is the problem here? Am
I to assume that because America is getting dumber I should produce dumber
documents? Where are we going with this Dan?
As for education - I agree, we should be tougher on kids. We should have
standards and they should be high. But, the real problem is
A) Parents who don't give a rat's butt about their kid's education, or
B) Religious whack-jobs who want the schools to be a their personal temple
and as such bungle up any attempt to improve schools.
This is an interesting topic - but I dare say its not exactly a tech
writing topic.
Andrew Plato
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