America the Ignorant
Note: This post also appears on the blog But I Can Hear You.
Recently I've been noticing some things at my school which seriously disturb me. You see, school is almost over and so the teachers are piling record amounts of work on us. (Not that I'm complaining, I'm just stating the fact that workload at school has increased sharply.) One of these end of the year papers involved a writing assignment in which we were to answer a simple question. Basically it went something like, "do people imitate others?" A few days ago we got the results back. My teacher talked for a while about the results and showed us some photocopies of essays that had received a very high score. The first essay contained the following mistakes.
-referred to Alexander Graham Bell as "Alexander Grand Bell"
-stated that Thomas Edison invented the telephone
-stated that the Mona Lisa was a painting of a man's face on one side and a woman's on the other.
-capitalized words such as inspiration and individual but not Christ or God.
What worries me is not that the student made these mistakes, but that the teachers decided to score his essay highly. My friend and I asked my teacher about it and he explained that the student rated highly because he used examples to support his argument."But the examples are wrong!" argued my friend. The teacher's response? Hey, at least they were there. Dear God, what kind of school am I in that ignorance is rewarded? Basically the school is saying is that as long as you use examples, who cares if you don't know what you're talking about? I call this phenomenon 'bullshot.' Shoot as much bull as you can out there and some of it will find its mark. Apparently it works. The second essay scared me even more. The examples of individuality, or lack thereof, the student gave were from the following sources.
-Disney/Pixar children's movie "The Incredibles"
-Adam Sandler movie "Big Daddy"
-NASCAR Drivers
This apparently ranked highly as well. While the teacher is praising this ridiculousness I'm wondering when Adam Sandler became a philosopher. When did "the Incredibles" replace Dante, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and Rand as sources for English essays? I think I know when. It was when teachers started worrying about hurting the students' feelings rather than doing their job. It was when schools turned into processing plants, passing students because they wanted to get them to the next grade rather than educate them. The people who wrote these essays are the voters of tomorrow, and they get all their information off of Disney and Adam Sandler. That scares me. I think that if schools are serious about educating us they should start by not tolerating such things. Essays need to be graded by quality, not quanity. Putting examples to support your argument is useless if you don't know what you're talking about. Put simply, "the Incredibles" as a source is simply that, not credible, and such ridiculousness cannot be rewarded if we are serious about educating America
posted by Anonymous @ 5:02 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Definitely not encouraging. Have you seen any of your classmates trying to locate places on a map lately?
Students have definetly gotten dumber. The other day we had a one question quiz type thing and the question was what year was the US founded. I and about 5 others got it right with 1776, but other people had 1876, 1492, and my favorite, independence day.
Definitely not encouraging. Have you seen any of your classmates trying to locate places on a map lately?
Oh yeah that's another huge one. Some people ddidn't know where Albania was during the WWI portion of history, but I can kind of understand that. However some people didn't know where Iraq was and that was a little scary.
Students have definetly gotten dumber. The other day we had a one question quiz type thing and the question was what year was the US founded. I and about 5 others got it right with 1776, but other people had 1876, 1492, and my favorite, independence day.
Okay well that's a little freaky. But hey what I am I surprised about? In my class no one knew what happened April 1775 when the question was posed. I'd think that even if you didn't know revelution history it'd be pretty obvious. One of the students didn't know whether Russia was still communist today. While I'm ranting anyway why don't I also mention that I am one of the two total in my class who say the Pledge of Allegiance. Intrest in this country and the world has been replaced with intrest in Hollywood. That's the whole problem.
"While I'm ranting anyway why don't I also mention that I am one of the two total in my class who say the Pledge of Allegiance."
I hear you there. I stand for the pledge too, and loving your country is nothing to be embarassed about, even if no one else stands.
Happily, everyone stands at my daughter's school for the Pledge of Allegiance, and with their hand over their hearts. Also, happily, during her graduation ceremony last night the Valedictorian gave thanks to God for living in the glorious United States of America where freedom rings! The UCLA is being completely ignored here, and I think it always will be. Yay!
Sorry to hear about that sort of thing, Dark. The teacher is not a "teacher" as I understand the word. This "teacher" has lost the right to that title and has joined the rank and file of "enablers." They should all be thrown out of our public schools on their ears and without pensions!
Luckily you are bright and havent fallen for this crapola. Good for you! :)
Blessings. Have a glorious Memorial Day Weekend.
Luckily you are bright and havent fallen for this crapola. Good for you! :)
Hey I love learning, whether the teacher cares or not. And I think that they do like seeing that in students. I just wish they'd do more to get more people to be like that rather than wait for it to come along. Happy Memorial Day to you too and everyone else. That's another thing we have to think about more often.
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