This REALLY Happened Today - Truly Shocking and Sad Situation
So today I had an appointment and found myself having to sit in a waiting room and there were two young girls sitting in front of me talking about how tall someone was. One of them turned to ask me, "Does five feet end at five feet?" I was a bit confused at first, but came to understand that she wanted to know if there was a length that extended beyond 5' before it got to 6'. I was already getting surprised and said, "What about 5 1/2'?" And she then asked, "So it ends at 5 1/2?" At that point I asked her what grade she was in and she said 10th. I don't think I could contain my shock and said, "Don't you know about inches or fractions?" She turned away from me and muttered to her friend that what I said was "so disrespectful".
I was shocked. Horrified really. Clearly neither of these 15 year old girls had learned anything in school and it just didn't seem that it mattered. All they felt was that I was one level below bullying them because I called them out on not knowing something a 1st or 2nd grader would know. Their thinking was that a length or distance of any kind existed only in increments of feet, which I don't think they knew is composed of 12 inches.
Holy Cow! Now I have the same question as @denmarkguy, Is it just ME or is this truly as rampant as it seems? I know that education systems like Common Core have done lots of damage in dumbing down our kids, and some states now, I believe are considering eliminating grading systems altogether, which plays into mediocrity. And possibly worse is that kids don't even know how to write anymore...form a sentence, spell or express themselves without mimicking the words or thoughts of others. Their own cognitive thoughts don't exist. How will these kids get through life when they will be trying fill out employment applications by using emojis? I knew it was bad, but this just shocked me. Is this the new normal? What can we do about it?
See you next time, @tacostate
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I also read @denmarkguy 's piece about getting dumber and I agree that we are, in general, dumber. As much as anything is the way teaching methods are changing to address the entire class at the same level to ensure everyone can pass on to the next level. Pressures to achieve high grade averages to ensure school funding, efforts to please parents who assume their "little darlings" are always right and never misbehave, influence from television that reduces attention spans to that of a grape...and on and on.
A few years ago, I had a bout 130 applications for a job I was trying to fill; one requiring a college degree. The position including writing procedures and descriptions of various work functions. The first few I read were so filled with spelling and syntax errors, I went through the entire stack looking for perfect English. I found 12 applications! From college graduates!
Yeah, we are getting dumber, but it's not a genetic problem; it's cultural. That is likely just as fatal to our technological civilization in the not-so long term.
Absolutely. There is something horribly wrong about how parents perceive their, as you say, "little darlings". They can do no wrong and there's not much accountability either as a parent or in the child himself. They can shrug it all off with a 'whatever', as if there are no consequences for anything, but what I think a lot of people will find out over time and after their selfies don't look so cute anymore is that the consequences will be very hard to handle. It's scary to think that this thinking and behavior is turning so many kids into little Socialists who think it will be a life where they will continued to be given everything with no effort all the way up to their deathbeds. Thanks for your insightful comment.