"Richard C. August" <raugust at ptd.net> wrote in message
news:rK3Y8.33351$Q43.1013368 at nnrp1.ptd.net...
> Dear Hope Munro Smith,
>> Mere books and uniforms do not account for the cost of SHEER STUPIDITY in
> the American Educational Systems.
>> My mother related this story to me last night. A gentleman she knows
> inquired of three teenage children on the streets of my hometown
concerning
> who bombed Pearl Harbor at the beginning of US involvement in World War 2.
> One teen answered that US Forces bombed our own base under friendly fire.
> Another answered that Usama bin Laden bombed Pearl Harbor, when he wasn't
> born until c. 1959, since he was 12 in a photo featuring his family in
> Sweden in 1971. Yet another answered most intelligently, that he didn't
> know.
And you're suggesting that adults do much better? This ignorance is
characteristic of most Americans, young and old. Other countries are pretty
bad too, but the topic is the US (so I'll ignore them).
> Never mind that our kids never learn real American History or Spelling, or
> that they learn revisionist standards from highly paid but untrained
> professors who earned their degrees from diploma mills and were promoted
by
> the Peter Principle. Our kids are rapidly becoming even more INCOMPETENT
> than are these professors, to the point that they can't even figure out
the
> numbers on a calculator, much less work a slide rule.
I find it amusing that in the US such a high value is placed on American
History. In fact, you apparently place it on the same level of importance
as Spelling.
A slide rule is archaic and useless. We don't teach children how to operate
a spinning wheel, either.
> Lastly, I was taking an evening walk last night, when I observed several
> teen girls rather provocatively dressed. Granted, it is summertime and
they
> need to dress to be cool. But to wear clothes only a prostitute would
wear
> would make one wonder where their brains really are. Can they read
clothing
> labels, or bottles of hair colourant? Is it any wonder our American
Schools
> are now wasting more money and talent with day care centers in our high
> schools whilst pregnant teenagers usurp our tax dollars ostensibly
obtaining
> an education when they've been told flat out they can earn more money on
> their backs than they can on their feet?
Yes, because exhibitionism is equivalent to a vacuous mind. Slutty outfit
does not equal slutty person. It's just that society is moving towards a
state of less clothing since most of the time clothing serves no purpose.
> Face it, Mrs. Smith, American Schools are a dungheap, and American
Children
> are its fodder. Billions of American dollars are wasted educating the
> uneducable MTV generation, who care nothing about the real world other
than
> watching "The Real World" on MTV. Talk to these kids, and find out how
> dumb, or how smart, they really are. "Beavis and Butthead" have met their
> progeny here.
The children are no stupider than the parents...
