We're turning our kids into idiots. I just read an article in some magazine about school being too tough on kids these days(think it was newsweek) and now people are trying to ban lots of things in school like dodge ball and recess because its "unfair" to some children. We're only hurting our kids by lowering the standards.

 

 

Our Kids Are Growing Mentally Soft

 

By Rob Woutat, Community Columnist

 

Anyone interested in education in this state should pay attention to a recent report from the League of Education Voters Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to improving Washington’s preschools, public schools, and colleges.

 

For every 100 ninth-grade students in Washington, the Foundation reports, only 71 will graduate from high school four years later, only 42 will immediately enter college, only 26 will still be enrolled in their second year, and only 18 will graduate with an associate’s degree within three years or a bachelor’s degree within six years.

 

By Rob Woutat, Community Columnist

 

Anyone interested in education in this state should pay attention to a recent report from the League of Education Voters Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to improving Washington’s preschools, public schools, and colleges.

 

For every 100 ninth-grade students in Washington, the Foundation reports, only 71 will graduate from high school four years later, only 42 will immediately enter college, only 26 will still be enrolled in their second year, and only 18 will graduate with an associate’s degree within three years or a bachelor’s degree within six years.

 

The report says that close to 50 percent of African American, Latino, and Native American high school graduates are enrolled in remedial courses. While Washington’s personal income is higher than the national average, our per-person spending on education is 46th out of 50 states for state and local K-12 revenue per $1,000 of personal income.

 

If you aren’t alarmed yet, consider these facts reported in "The World is Flat" by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman:

 

While the number of jobs requiring training in science and engineering is growing, the number of Americans training to be scientists and engineers is shrinking, and while 30 years ago we ranked third in the world in the number of American 18-to-24-year-olds receiving science degrees, we now rank 17th. In China, South Korea and Taiwan, the percentage of students earning bachelor’s degrees in science is 60, 33 and 41 respectively, in the U.S. it’s 5 percent, and an increasing percentage of those students are immigrants. The percentage of papers published by Americans in the top physics journal, Physical Review, has fallen from 61 percent to 29 percent. Of all the patents in the world, in the last 25 years America’s share has fallen from 60 percent to 52 percent while the percentage for Asian countries is steadily rising.

 

In our universities, a majority of our graduate students in the sciences are foreigners.

 

In short, while young people in India, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan have been dreaming of becoming scientists and engineers, too many young people in America dream of becoming rock stars, sports heroes, or other kinds of entertainers.

 

Writing about the current WASL controversy, Seattle PI columnist Susan Paynter quotes a teacher from Shorewood High School in Seattle who is worried that some of her students won’t pass the statewide test. "But they absolutely have something to contribute," she says. They’ve developed the skill of showing up and turning in work on time. They’re conscientious and try so hard."

 

Assuming the teacher has been quoted fairly, what we’re seeing in that squishy sentiment is part of the explanation for the grim picture portrayed in the statistics above. If all we expect of the young is that they show up, turn in work on time and try hard, that’s all we’ll get, and it isn’t enough.

 

Young people, many of them having grown physically soft (note the rate of obesity in America’s young), have grown mentally soft too, and they and some of their parents will grouse about schools’ higher expectations. Yet no knowledgeable person challenges the need for high standards or the benefits of instituting them, benefits which are shown, for example, in the significantly improved scores of Bremerton pre-kindergarten students in a test of initial sound fluency, the greatest single predictor of skill in reading. Their scores rose from 38 percent in 2002 to 58 percent in 2005. Across the state, the results of the higher standards are paying off.

 

As we’ve learned from European schools, the emphasis on standardized tests alone as a requirement for graduation produces people skilled in accumulating information but short on inventiveness and creative thinking, attributes that have always been more pronounced in young Americans than in their Asian and European counterparts. Fortunately Washington’s present graduation requirements, of which the WASL is a part, accommodate both aptitudes.

 

A passing score of 65 on any part of the WASL isn’t an unreasonable expectation, especially considering that a student can retake any part of the test as many as four times in order to pass. And the state Legislature is now considering proposals for alternative assessments for students who just don’t do well on standardized tests.

 

Under one proposal, a student who failed the math part of the WASL, for example, can still graduate if his math grades are above the average of those students who took the same math courses and did pass the WASL.

 

So students still have the incentive to work hard, and their parents and teachers still have the incentive to support them and to ensure their survival in the world’s economy.

 

Going squishy on them isn’t doing them a favor.

 

http://blogs.kitsapsun.com/kitsap/columns/archive/2006/03/our_kids_are _growing_mentally.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8maSr6UFHA

 

watch carlos mencia. he makes a good point about us lowering the standards. about 2:20 he starts to talk about lowering the standards.

True, your schools are going down the pan.

 

And with the huge growth of retardation (bad vaccines) who is going to fight against the global suppression in the future?

 

Not these kids, that's for sure.

bad vaccines as in accidents or on purpose?

Well....that's the thing.....the person actually giving the vaccine has no clue but putting mercury in vaccines at a Laboratory level is worrying.

 

Then trying to force kids to have them.

wow mrcool, i finally agree with you on something.

Yeah me too! Kids need to be toughened up otherwise they'll get a rude shock when they leave school!

U no tht aint tru! We r jus as good as u guyzz r!

U no tht aint tru! We r jus as good as u guyzz r!

 

:confused: Eh?

U no tht aint tru! We r jus as good as u guyzz r!

 

And your English skills prove just that.

sarcasm doesn't translate.

 

believe me, i'm an english major, i'd best not type like that!

And your English skills prove just that.

 

Haha...true :laugh3:

sarcasm doesn't translate.

 

believe me, i'm an english major, i'd best not type like that!

I could tell you were kidding! Sadly though, many students' English skills really ARE that bad...and I'm talking Uni students! I want through HELL in school...bullied like you wouldn't believe, and at the time it sucked, but when life throws me a curve-ball now, I can handle it. ANd at least back then, our standards of education were much higher. I've been saying it for years. The more we try to appeal to the lowest common denominator, the lower it's going to get!! Good thread, Nick!

I know, a lot of kids I know are grammatically horrendous. It frightens me how they misspell a lot of basic words (I'm a bit of a grammar nazi myself).

Not all kids can help it though. I know a lot of kids who try their hardest to spell but just can't manage it. We can't just blame them.

Not all kids can help it though. I know a lot of kids who try their hardest to spell but just can't manage it. We can't just blame them.

I don't think anyone's blaming the kids here. It's the ever-decreased education standards, coupled with a willingness to shunt them through, rather than take the extra time with a challenged student. And the US is spending less than ever on education these days...how can a kid hope for the education his parents had? It's tragic.

I slept through english so my grammer is not to good, nor is my spelling.

grammer...

 

you're right

I don't think anyone's blaming the kids here. It's the ever-decreased education standards' date=' coupled with a willingness to shunt them through, rather than take the extra time with a challenged student. And the US is spending less than ever on education these days...how can a kid hope for the education his parents had? It's tragic.[/quote']

 

That plus they keep lowering the standard and taking away things that "harm" the children, like dodge ball or recess or competition.. its sad.

grammar*

I slept through english so my grammer is not to good' date=' nor is my spelling.[/quote']

It's alot better than alot of ppl who are older than you. And although we don't always see eye to eye on the issues, you're not afraid to read up on and research the matters that you care about. That's not something I see encouraged in schools nowadays. Spitting out facts seems to be preferred over independant thinking. I'm not kissing up, it's just someting I respect in anyone.

That plus they keep lowering the standard and taking away things that "harm" the children' date=' like dodge ball or recess or competition.. its sad.[/quote']

UGH!! I HATED dodge-ball...until I discovered alcohol,lol. But I agree, we do pamper our kids way too much. WHen I was in the UK, I talked to alot of ppl who didn't pamper their kids like we do in N. America, and do you know what? The rate of illness there is much lower because they don't hide their children from every little chill in the air. Not only that, but 5-year-olds spoke on the level of alot of 10-year-olds here. We could learn alot from them.

 

Of course, I know Brits on the board will disagree, but that's what the thread is for!

What? To promote Transatlantic bickering?

It's alot better than alot of ppl who are older than you. And although we don't always see eye to eye on the issues' date=' you're not afraid to read up on and research the matters that you care about. That's not something I see encouraged in schools nowadays. Spitting out facts seems to be preferred over independant thinking. I'm not kissing up, it's just someting I respect in anyone.[/quote']

 

Thanks.

 

Look at Japan and Korea and even China now and you'll see alot of smart young people. We need a education system like theirs. The world is a very tough place, we need to teach kids how to be ready for it.

"All this starts at home, with the parents. Parents today find it easier to be friends with there kids than actually parenting which is not easy and it should not be. Fix the home mentality, than IMHO most of these other problems will fix themselves.

 

Kids should not be taught that second place is just as good as first, we should not give the same rewards to second and third places as first place receives. Doing this tells the child that no matter if he tries or not he will get what the person who's busted their ass gets. Kids need to know that failing or not coming in first is all right, it's a part of life, but if you have tried your best, that's what really matters. Again fix the problems in the home first."

 

I found this post on another forum.