Do you believe in the dumbing down of America?

Question

And if you do, where do you lay the blame? Can you put them in order of importance?

Answer 1

Oh definitely. Evidence of the dumbing down of American society is rampant throughout Yahoo Answers, alone. The ability to spell and form a grammatically correct sentence, which forms the very foundation of an educated, intelligent person, is very rapidly becoming a lost art. Poor parenting, instilling a false sense of entitlement, and not holding people responsible for their actions by consistently bailing them out of trouble is largely to blame. Also a factor is the education systems, themselves. As curves are shifted to ensure that everyone passes, regardless of preformance, over time, this results in a lower overall intelligence level. Sad state of affairs.

Answer 2

I beleive this dumbing down is a global problem and not one occuring in the USA.

One of the big challenges is discipline at home and in schools. The USA leads the way and the rest of the world follows like a sheep. I dont beleive that children should not be smacked for something they did wrong. Im not talking about abuse here, im talking about a little guidence if required.

With freedom comes responsibility. People are not responsible with there freedom, and therefore abuse the system that was designed to protect them and allow them to be who they are.

The mind sets of the people. If you watch the news and you see all this violence, its always front page and top of mind. So if you want to protest against a war, do you go to the anitwar ralley or the pro peace ralley? The antiwar ralley will most likely get violent on the street, people will get angry etc because of the "war" in the ralley (top of mind) where as a peace ralley will stay peaceful? They are trying to achieve the same thing, the words have a profound impact on the outcome.

So make peace the front page of the news, no one would buy the news papers perhaps because its not sensational but peoples minds will calm... Money makes the World go......

People live in a dream world with entertainment, the lives of trophy wifes and big cars, with fancy house, the American dream, but life is not a dream, it is real, and watching TV or playing PC games will not change the world for the better. If anything it will polute and stunt your mind and thoughts. When people meet real people and they fall in love, one is not accepted beacause ones body isnt perfect, or one has gotten over, time to upgrade to a later model, throw away society. Unemotional and not very intelligent. Now whos in control of who? *smiles*

Everything you own in this life lands up owning you. Free.... Yeah right.... We are slaves to our own brainwashed minds.

Beat the system... Everything is a choice.

Heidi

Answer 3

I think that there are many contributing factors, 95% of which are local or societal problems.

As a society, we tend to devalue being intelligent. It's considered weird to actually get good grades in school; students are often afraid of becoming "nerds". This fear is perpetuated by the fact that smart people are always portrayed as not normal in popular media.

However, I think that most of it starts at home. Parents and school boards do not push kids hard enough. I graduated from a public high school a year ago, and I can honestly say that the only time that I actually had to think independently was in 2 classes. The rest tended to be plagued by bonus points and easy assignments. We had standardized tests every year (which I'm not in support of, but that's a different story), and for some reason an "approaching basic" knowledge of English was considered totally acceptable. We lower the bar and push kids through, and so teenagers can get away with being lazy. And anyone who has ever been or ever met a teenager KNOWS that we'll take the opportunity to be lazy if you give it to us.

Local school boards and legislatures could solve this problem by raising standards and making the learning environment less monotonous, but they won't for a few reasons. First, every parent wants to see little Johnny graduate high school, no matter if he learned anything or not. They'll gladly vote in people that will put up a facade of improving education, but really just make it easier to graduate without ever doing anything. Second, as people start to see our system failing to teach our children and watch the U.S. slip down the international rankings on education, they demand action in the wrong places. They tend to impose stricter rules that are nonetheless inefficient, such as uniforms. They don't address the problems we have and actually just make students less willing to listen to anything the school has to say.

If you really, truly want to boost education, the key is to push students, no matter what the public outcry is. Parents need to start taking responsibility for making sure that their kids do their homework and understand it, and that the habits for doing this start at an early age. They should constantly stress to their young children how important getting an education is and how life is NOT easy. You can't just breeze by doing the bare minimum of what people expect of you. It's not a problem the federal government needs to deal with; it's one the local and state governments need to deal with.

Answer 4

I believe that the U.S.A. has been dumbed down, yes.

I don't lay the blame on anyone or anything. It just happened.

The question is, "Are Americans ready to wake up?"

I'm not sure what the answer is. It wasn't "yes" last presidential election. Maybe it will be, but I'll probably have to wait before I make an opinion until the next election.

Answer 5

Oh yes I do...and I'm homeschooling because of it. They continue to graduate students who cannot pass the tests just to get them out of the system, while the schooling is sub-par. Many science classrooms sit empty due to lack of funding for the schools. Critical thinking is seldom, if ever, encouraged. Children got better educations 70 years ago when most of them didn't even go past the 8th grade!

Answer 6

lowered expectations - no child left behind - and the way to do that is to lower the bar so everyone can pass. People need to be pushed to achieve their potential - not settle for passing mediocrity.

the internet - especially Yahoo Answers - creates an environment of intellectual laziness

The role model of the president who is anti-intellectual

Answer 7

I place first importance on the culture of advertising as delivered through television. The mass of population is most valuable to the economic machine if they are incapable of reason, and willing to spend on the basis of ludicrous emotional pleas.

Answer 8

TV. Video Games. The media, in general.

Answer 9

Of course I do. It's a combination of teachers unions and school boards that promote curricula that aren't about the three R's. More of a politically driven curriculum.

Answer 10

Yes- Just take a look around you! I don't even need to explain.
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