RE: This REALLY Happened Today - Truly Shocking and Sad Situation
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.