At that age: blanket, hood of truck, bed of truck, door of truck, steering wheel of truck, bumper of truck, gun rack, any flat/semi-flat/not flat-at-all surface,... were sources of romantic thoughts when combined with the thought of the right young lady (i.e. any one that would talk to me).

Oh the opportunities I could've had if only I had be socially competant (sp?) ... and could spell.

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto (1992).

Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves But Can't Read, Write or Add by Charles J. Sykes (1995)

Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip Mining of American Culture By Katharine Washburn, John F. Thornton, John Ivan Simon (1996)

The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt (former Senior Policy Advisor in the US Department of Education) (1999)

The Feel-Good Curriculum: The Dumbing Down of America's Kids in the Name of Self-Esteem by Maureen Stout (2001)

If you read the original, you will remember your own compulsory public school education and keep saying to yourself, "Yes, that's right! That's the way it was! That's what they did!"

Sue

Are you me???

So sad, so true. Luckily, I'm a teacher at a college-prep high school, and there still is a lot of real-life common sense among the faculty.

Thanks for the link. I didn't know that the product of the US educational system i.e dumb Americans, were the result of a most monstrously conceived and dangerous international PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER./Soviet conspiracy to impurify the minds of American children. Gosh you learn something new everyday. The less educational pyschologists around the better in my view. Most psychologists I know have serious psychiatric problems. They just love their Skinner Boxes to much and harbour unhealthy thoughts about wanting to put everyone in one whilst in charge of the levers while wearing their white lab coats. These people created politcal correctness, the assassin of common sense. The author I suspect is one of these folks despite her protestations to be diametrically opposed.

BTW is Geography taught in schools in the US.

Hi BrianTexas,

I'm afraid I don't know to much about the levels of educational achievement within the US schooling system and the issues surrounding some perceived crisis within that system. Is there really a crisis in attainment levels or is this just nonsense put forward by some for nefarious ends.

I came across a term called New Math. Hmm New Math I thought, I was intrigued and delved a little deeper and came across this,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI

College students can't multiple 6 times 4 without a calculator!!

Is this true or just hype? I'm having a hard time believing this.

"BTW is Geography taught in schools in the US."

No, not really. Point to a few unlabeled states on a map of the U.S., and ask ten kids what they are. Then ask where France, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Kenya or India are.

They can't even really teach the kids to read, so how can they be teaching geography, history, or anything else?

The educational system in the U.S. ranks about 28th in the nations in the world. I thought there were only about 19 industrialized countries. Parents scream at the annual test score results, so they lower the requirements. That's the American solution.

Dr. Barbara Bateman of the U. of Oregon: "Near failure-proof methods for teaching all children to read are already available. Continued failure of schools to employ these programs is at best negligent and at worst malicious."

According to Rudolf Flesch, who wrote Why Johnny Can't Read, and much later, Why Johnny STILL Can’t Read, the following are the ten favorite alibis used by educators on why children in their schools can’t read:

1) Everything is Fine means that all the statistics on illiteracy & declining reading achievement are nothing but propaganda.

2) We Do Teach Phonics means they offer a window-dressing token form of phonics, saying that they use all methods combined. Most of them have never seen a good phonics book.

3) No One Method Is Best means that the phonics method, based on common sense & scientific research, won’t work, but look-&-say will.

4) English isn’t Phonetic means just because English is 97.4% phonetic, phonics won’t work.

5) Word Calling Isn’t Reading means just because a child can read a word doesn’t mean he knows what it means. And it’s true that just because he can read the word 'catastrophe' off a page, he probably won’t know what it means. But a look-&-say child won’t be able to read the word at all.

6) Your Child Isn’t Ready means if the look-&-say child can’t read yet, he may be ready by the time he’s twelve.

7) Your Child Is Disabled means that thousands of children from look-&-say classes have been incorrectly diagnosed as dyslexic, brain-damaged, learning disabled, etc. Taught with phonics, the “disability” disappears.

8) It’s the Parents’ Fault is never said out loud, but the meaning is unmistakable. Indifference, abuse, neglect, conflict all causes children not to be able to read.

9) Too Much TV is a handy scapegoat. Of course, since they’re not taught beyond the 1,500 words they’re taught at school, they can’t read anyway.

10) We Now Teach ALL Children means that some children, the dregs of society, aren’t capable of receiving an education; as “many of them have innumerable combinations of genetic factors and experiential backgrounds”. That word genetic is always racist. They’re poor, black, Chicano—the children of lowborn riffraff who are too dumb to learn how to read.

Question: do you think it's easier to control a population that is educated or not educated?

Americans tend not to think much of France, but any child there can read from any book by the time he's six years old. France says our educational system is 'mediocre'. Yes, it is.

We also have the second worst newborn death rate in the developed world, and the ones who don't die within 24 hrs of birth have an unusually high death rate due to accidents and injuries.

Sue

"...Then ask where France, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Kenya or India are..."

If you are from my generation, and want to feel really left out, ask a kid today to tell you ANYTHING about Vietnam...

OBG--or WW one or two..when Ken Burns was doing a preview
of the War program and said kids comming out of high school
thought it was the US and Germany V.S. the USSR i just thru
up may hands and turned off the "Boob Tube"--

Or, we watched Jay Leno one night, and he was at the back of the stand, where folks just graduating from one of the Souther Cal Universities were coming down right after receiving their sheepskins. He asked one graduate how many moons the earth has, and, after a long pause, she replied "...oh, it has been so long since I had that class".

That my friend, is the future of our nation...