Hey kid, why are you such a moron?
U.S. prof says his students are ignoramuses, and he has evidence to prove it
And Canadians have no reason to be smug. America probably leads the world in producing news and current events programming designed to make people stupid. But CBC TV, leveraging the power of $1 billion in annual taxpayer funding, seems to be doing doing everything it can to develop its competitive advantages in this area. George Strombolopolous is just the tip of the iceberg. One can’t help but get the sense that some of the best and most experienced reporters at the CBC — I think particularly of Brian Stewart — could never be hired by the network today, because they are too thoughtful, learned, careful… too adult. Wouldn’t make it past the interview.
But don’t take my word for it. Watch the movie and decide for yourself.
I have lived in many countries and changed schools in many places, one thing I tell you about the North American system is that they lack discipline.
Who the hell are the students to complain that the class is boring?!! Yes , I am pro creativity and democratic learning but common, it became something intrenched in the culture that everything should be FUN!
My peers at university thought goethe was a cheese.
How much of this can be attributed to the advent of the internet as an immediate reservoir of factual data? Give any of those kids a browser and they could get those answers for you within seconds. Much like cloud computing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
Scary.
Not knowing who Goethe is just means that you’ll probably suck at Trivial Pursuit. It doesn’t make you a moron.
Before blaming the media, did you think about the school system? The media shows the people what they want to see and everybody can chose from offers ranging from FOX to C-SPAN. Nowadays people also can use the internet to get all kind of information as well as knowledge, libraries are still everywhere.
But people need to learn to distinguish between junk and ken. This should be provided by parents and school. If the parents are already uneducated and confused that leaves only the schools. The real problem is that most Americans go 12 years to a public school and when finished, have never seen a world map or read a book from cover to the end, for sure they will not speak a foreign language. They are filled with a lot of drizzle with the quality of a fairy tale and some nice memories about growing up the conventional way.
Blaming tele is a futile waste of time, a diversion. Television programmes will get better if there will be people watching the improved ones. The answer is better funding for schools, better pay (and education and respect) for teachers and a culture of learning: hammer the truth into the people that only knowledge will get them anywhere in life.