
American kids, dumber than dirt - nickb
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/10/24/notes102407.DTL
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david927
I don't blame the educational system and I don't blame the parents or kids. I
blame human nature.

America is ending one the most successful runs of any nation in recorded
history. Cheap raw materials, incredibly cheap energy, vastly expanded
markets: it's a recipe for a cake walk -- and it was a cake walk. The problem
is, when you give successive generations great wealth without having to work
very hard for it, what happens? We don't have to look far for case studies.
It's so common in wealthy families that the expression is: the first
generation creates the wealth, the second builds upon it, and the third spends
it.

Unfortunately, we've borrowed our way well into a fourth generation. If these
kids were even slightly interested in learning, they could do so easily.
Libraries and any internet-capable computer are tremendous resources. The
teachers and books these kids are given are also quite good. But the culture
they live in discourages learning. It values fiscal superiority over hard
work. In fact, it glorifies those who get wealthy fast over those who work
their lifetimes for it. It gives feel-good advice, such as, "Go your own way;
break the rules; don't listen to others," which is only good advice once you
already know all the rules. Getting to know those rules, however, takes a lot
of hard work and time. In other words, we're a culture that values results,
not effort.

It's the curse of success. It's the third/fourth generation effect. It will
all correct itself naturally and there's not much we can do about it -- except
put our fingers in our ears and wait.

~~~
pg
_Cheap raw materials, incredibly cheap energy, vastly expanded markets: it's a
recipe for a cake walk -- and it was a cake walk._

Didn't work out that way in Russia, though, did it? Whereas Japan, which has
severely limited sources of energy and raw materials, has done very well.
Conclusion: culture matters more.

~~~
Alex3917
There is a model from organizational behavior saying that performance =
ability x motivation x opportunity. I wouldn't be surprised if something
similar plays out across societies.

~~~
david927
Thanks for bringing up that equation, Alex. When I said a "cake walk", Paul, I
was talking about the opportunity variable. And I absolutely agree with you
that culture drives the other two variables, which would otherwise be static
across large populations (ability in terms of education, not raw ability). But
that's my point. I'm blaming the culture. I'm saying that China and India and
many other "first generation" cultures have more motivation to learn than this
current "fourth generation" American culture, and that's driving their
abilities.

Don't get me wrong, America has a top 10% which is incredibly well-educated
and motivated. My concern, and I think the concern in the article, is not for
that 10% but instead for the other 90% who are leaving high school with
neither abilities nor the motivation to get them. Worse, the opportunities
which came so easily for their parents and grandparents are waning. This
leaves 90% of a generation about to face a situation where the performance
they can expect from their lives is: little times less times not much at all.

------
DanielBMarkham
Is it just me, or did none of the reasons for this decline have anything
directly to do with being an American?

All over the world, people want to do exactly what the guy complains about:
tune in, turn on, and drop out.

You can either view this as the beginning of the singularity or a sign that
we're all going to turn into mostly immobile blobs of flesh wired into a
continuously self-pleasuring electronic grid. Or perhaps both of those things
are the same thing. As far as me, I'm optimistic that changes in society and
technology will lead to great advances in human knowledge and science. I think
as some generations plug into the grid other generations in other cultures
will do all the heavy lifting. On the other hand, when it comes to difficult
things, like space exploration or politics, I'm not so optimistic. It's hard
to have a democracy when people don't know what "agriculture" is.

~~~
mynameishere
_hard to have a democracy when people don't know what "agriculture" is._

According to the journalist's source, when posed the stumper about definining
agriculture, "Not a single student could do it". I sometimes feel like I'm the
only adult who actually remembers being young, or remembers going to school.
Remember school: Often enough, a teacher (or professor) would stand up, clear
his throat, and grandiloquently ask,

 _Now, could somebody define the word "agriculture"?_.

Of course, everyone rolls his eyes, and nobody answers the stupid question.
NOBODY answers those questions--because you automatically become an idiot when
you do so:

 _I believe I know the answer, sir. Agriculture is the process of raising
edible plantlife on a large scale for purposes of trade and direct
consumption[1]_

Obviously, the journalist's methodology suggests that he himself is a
functional illiterate. NO--you don't ask your friend the cranky high school
teacher his opinion and then extrapolate it out to the world. Bad science. Bad
reporting.

People don't change that much, really. Evolution is slow. A stupid generation
(evidenced by IM-engendered spelling skills) can easily be followed by a smart
one. Genuine declines in intelligence are possible, but that has to do with
dysgenics, a subject which most San Francisco newspapers generally won't touch
on.

[1] I got this off the top of my head--I hope it's right.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I modded you up. Good point.

I didn't view it as science or reporting. I felt the guy was just trying to
write his weekly column. Such articles are typically mismashes of personal
stories, legend, observations, opinion, etc.

There is a bit of generational relativism going on (as far as opinion, not
science or fact.) Are we really worse off than those generations 100 years ago
that could live off the land? Probably not -- unless we need to start living
off the land again. Then it would suck. We're evolving into something. I think
it's interesting to speculate about what that might be.

------
mnemonicsloth
Summary:

American high schools are less effective than they could be because they
employ bitter old cranks that the students wisely ignore.

Also: "any TV exposure before 6 years old and your kid's basic cognitive
wiring and spatial perceptions are pretty much scrambled for life"

------
mdemare
The next generation can't even form a sentence? Why does that strike me as
hyperbole?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
What's hyperbole?

You no comment good.

------
gibsonf1
Don't blame the kids, blame the horrible public schools. The source for this
article is a public school teacher in Oakland, a school district infamous for
attempting to consider "Ebonics" as a language.

~~~
curi
let's blame the parents. if the schools suck, and they choose to send their
kids there, how are they not responsible?

~~~
gibsonf1
Unfortunately, parents don't get to choose which public school their child
goes to. (In San Francisco, there is a bizarre lottery with all sorts of
conditions attempting to give preference to minorities that puts kids all over
the city even if there is a school a block from their home.) The only choice
is public or private, and private is very expensive and for many is not an
option.

~~~
curi
Besides private school, they could live somewhere else, or homeschool. Or if
none of those will work, not have kids in the first place. None of these are
easy options, but if you think the public schools are awful places, it's not
reasonable to send kids to them.

~~~
rms
Why don't the kids have a responsibility to educate themselves?

~~~
curi
young kids have very little control over their lives. for example, they don't
get to choose if they want to go to school or not. as they get older and
become able to (and gain the legal right to), they certainly should take
responsibility for their own life and education.

------
cellis
There are a lot of dumb people that are millionaires. Perhaps measuring
intelligence is the wrong way to go about it: perhaps we measure intelligence
the wrong way.

~~~
jimbokun
"There are a lot of dumb people that are millionaires."

But are there a lot of dumb people who BECOME millionaires, without winning
the lottery?

~~~
dfranke
Maybe not _dumb_ , but plenty of below-average intelligence. Quoth PG:

> One of the most valuable things my father taught me is an old Yorkshire
> saying: where there's muck, there's brass. Meaning that unpleasant work
> pays. And more to the point here, vice versa. Work people like doesn't pay
> well, for reasons of supply and demand. The most extreme case is developing
> programming languages, which doesn't pay at all, because people like it so
> much they do it for free.

There are more reliable ways to get rich than the way that we go about it on
this forum. It's just that they're unpleasant enough that most people would
prefer to stay poor. Construction contracting is a good example.

------
theorique
Blame Canada!

------
brenda90210
They're measuring the wrong thing. These kids would totally kick previous
generations' collective asses at GTA and completing raid instances.

Ever watch your parents try to use MS Word or even a web browser? It's
painful. Kids today may not know how to use a ruler but they can use 3DS Max.
Let's see the Greatest Generation do _that_. Nonlinear video editing--? What's
that?!? Kids today do it all the time and post to YouTube.

This month's Scientific American Mind says: "A generation ago TV programs such
as _I Love Lucy_ , _Dragnet_ and _Starsky and Hutch_ required virtually no
concentration to follow. Beginning in 1981 with _Hill Street Blues_ , single-
episode dramas began to weave together as many as 10 threads into their
plotlines. The hit drama _24_ connects the lives of 20 or more characters,
each with a distinct story."

The subject of the article is massive IQ gains during the 20th century. "If
asked what dogs and rabbits have in common, a boy in 1900 would have said,
"You use dogs to hunt rabbits." A boy in 2007 would say, "They are both
mammals." It would never have occurred to someone a century ago to offer
something so trivial. Who cares that dogs and rabbits are both mammals? What
is important is what things are useful and under one's control." The context
is working on abstractions with no concrete referents. (Although the article
badly botches the proffered explanation of what a mammal _is_.)

~~~
jamesbritt
> Beginning in 1981 with Hill Street Blues, single-episode dramas began to
> weave together as many as 10 threads into their plotlines.

I've no references to quote, but I'm pretty sure soap operas have been doing
that many years earlier, perhaps even when on the radio.

It's also true of serialized novels published in magazines even before _that_.

