Have you seen all the research that shows what's called the 'dumbing down of America'?

[Uncle Joe]

I have seen this, and it is very disappointing.
A friend of mine teaches in a college that offers many classes online. He in fact usually teaches at least one such course per semester. He records his lectures, then makes them available to his students through the college's online course website. He breaks down his lectures into TEN (10) minute segments, and he gets complaints from students that the lectures are just TOO LONG!

I think people have become astonishingly inattentive. That very often is because they are just plain lazy and selfish. When a grown man or woman, of college age, can not bear the horrid burden of listening to a professor speak for TEN consecutive minutes, that reveals a terrible condition of society. This particular professor is not even one of the boring slobs who teaches many college courses at many universities. I was never his student, but I know him personally, and I can not imagine that he would be anything other than a very interesting and lively speaker in class.

Part of the problem is simple grade inflation that goes on in many (most?) schools today, right from elementary school on up through the universities. I recall that about 15 years ago, a scandal became known about the inflated grades at Stanford University. The average GPA of undergraduates was 3.85 out of 4.0! That is just not even vaguely credible, and when it became public, Stanford took a lot of heat for it. Whether they have changed, I have no idea.

Too many parents demand that their children receive grades of "A". There are many high schools that actually issue grades higher than 100%, which I find truly asinine. Apparently the students can be declared to know not merely everything, but MORE THAN everything! They base the scores on "extra credit", and actually will issue grades higher than 100%. When schools tell a student that he or she is better than perfect, society is sure to suffer.

Grade inflation, issuing grades that are MUCH higher than students' actual performance, is sure to lead people to work less hard in general. I'm not saying that a slight increase in a student's grade is a problem, so long as that is in consideration of some specific classroom participation or other evidence of actual learning. I am saying that when "all students are above average", like in Garrison Keillor's fictional Lake Wobegon, then people are very likely actually to become less amazing than the historical average.

When the new communication network "Twitter" came about, I thought it was useless because of the use of only 140 or 160 characters per message, but of course it has become very popular. I think it reveals a serious flaw in human development that so many millions of people actually make a regular habit of sending and receiving messages that are so brief. That sort of communication is now regarded as truly substantial, which is preposterous.

I also think we can see a terrible decline in human thought and reason when we look at the atrocious grammar of many people. When I read questions or answers here on Yahoo from people who are supposed to be over 13 years old, many who claim to be college students or even professionals, and their grammar and style is like that of a kindergartner, I am amazed. Many posts here actually read as if they were the transcriptions of a 5 year-old who is falling asleep as he is talking.

Yes, I think society is declining intellectually. People talk about the huge gap between the rich and the poor, but the greater gap is between the ignorant and the educated. Tragically, a mere diploma or degree no longer even is a reliable indicator that a person actually is all that well educated.

In my opinion, the best single step would be to allow parents to choose public or private schools for their kids. All tax dollars that are reserved for education should be spent in the private or public schools that parents freely choose. That would radically change the quality of education, especially for kids in large cities, and it would lead to changes in people's self-assessments and long-term achievements.

I heard a radio report recently about the current generation's opinion about which generation in American history is the greatest. The majority of the current generation of those under 20 years of age identified themselves as members of the greatest generation in the history of America. The people who successfully revolted against England in the 1700's apparently weren't so great, relatively speaking, and neither were the folks who ended slavery, eradicated small pox and polio, defeated the NAZI's, or won the cold war.


Peace be with you.