I blame stupidity in the education system on too much interference from under educated but overly active parents, know-nothing state legislatures, idiot media, and school board interlopers with special narrow interests, anti-science, anti-history, anti-education, anti-critical thinking agendas.
My dad who was born in 1904 had to study such things as Latin, Greek, The Classics and Trigonometry as well as Calculus when he was in the 8th grade. I was floored when I saw his report card. As a part of the Silent Generation, I did study Latin all through school, but not until high school did I have other languages and advanced maths and sciences. One thing we don't seem to here much about from the kids today is studying something as simple as geography. This seems odd to me. I had my son study the Atlas and the Encyclopedia Brittanica on his own. At least he did have great science and history in his schools.
Great example of how true education has deteriorated since your dad's time. I thought I got an excellent public school education in the 50s and 60s, but we weren't ever required to take Latin much less Greek, and none of the maths were well taught. We did have excellent English and History and Geography was woven into those. I always loved geography. Used to study maps all the time. I was thrill when I got the chance to teach it one quarter in a business college.
This is so true and for many cultures it is and has always been a form of the plaque to their freedom and prosparidy.Many are realizing this now .
This thread is especially interesting at the time when the legislatures in several states are working with laws that PROHIBIT' certain things from being taught. We also recall that fairly recently some states had required that pages dealing with evolution were to be removed from biology textbooks. Another thing I watched during the last few decades as an adjunct professor (part time) for freshman composition classes. When I started during the 90s, the second semester was 'comp-lit,' or writing about literature. During the last few years the second semester “allowed” the prof to assign a short story or two, everything else had to be 'nonfiction.' Also, I'm told by my high school friends/teachers, that the old tradition of American Literature for HS juniors, and English Lit for seniors. The readings should be nonfiction. I sincerely believe that this is done because literature helps people think, and having our students do too much of that scares many of our politicians.
My bad. By 'non-fiction' I meant readings that were not literature at all, such as political pieces, economics, foreign policy, etc.
Seems to me if institutions want to teach non fiction on politics, econ, foreign affairs, etc they ought to do that in a class that's not called English Lit or American Lit. Maybe it could be titled Critical Currents or Critical Influences or something.
We had civics classes in school which taught us about government issues, etc. Came under the heading of history in the curriculum.
Real history seems to be history now and its a shame.I always liked history my favorite study in school.
The political involvement in our education system might backfire. I wonder how many high school students might have heard parents or other elders speak about things that must not be taught in schools? I recall as a senior in HS and my undergraduate days talking about books we weren't supposed to read, and books like 'Lady Chatterley's lover that couldn't be imported. We made it point to read those things. Now in this century there are many ways to read about Critical Race Theory other than in school. I know that if I were a late teen today I would certainly be read up on it. On another note, I wonder about the intelligence of us adults. We watch car dealers' commercials like “We can offer you x thousand cash back or yz months of interest free payments.” Apparently people are dense enough to fall for that.