Thursday, February 28, 2008

Follow-up on Dumb and Dumber

Follow up to my post on Feb 20th, "Are We Getting Dumber?"
(http://cocanuts.blogspot.com/2008/02/are-we-getting-dumber.html)

New research from a recent survery of 12,000 17 year-olds would indicate that we are getting dumber as a society, at least when it comes to history and literature.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/us/27history.html?em&ex=1204347600&en=6192259c03f6bb5b&ei=5087%0A

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080226/1a_bottomstrip26.art.htm

Not sure how to remedy this, because I don't think children will be increasing the amount of time they spend reading any time soon. Teachers are trying, and parents can try to step it up more, but I think it may be hard to convince the new generation that history and literature are worthwhile to learn, when they could go play Guitar Hero for hours on their PS3.

Speaking of dumb, check out this link to a "stupid criminal" tidbit that Jay Leno likes to run on his "Headlines" segments on Monday nights.

http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/headlines/H_3120/12.shtml

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That is really depressing. Part of the solution has to include treating teachers as the professionals they are with better pay and more respect. I'm sure controlling class sizes would help many teachers be more effective as well.

Likewise, we should be very selective about who becomes teachers and make it a competitive profession to enter. Obviously this will not solve the dumbification of our kids but it would help.

BTW: Guitar Hero is really fun (and addictive)