Letters to the Editor
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What's the matter with education today?
Thank you for this article.
This article should be required reading for adults and school administrators.Our schools would do well to incorporate new technology and media into their lesson plans. It seems like the average child today is more interested in reading and writing providing it is done on a computer, which is essentially a toy to them. Using computers, ipods, facebook, etc. to aid in teaching lessons could actually make learning fun for kids. Shouldn't learning be fun?
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My internet
I'm a 69 y/o man who owns a small business.
Supposedly, I am of that generation which is often described as "afraid" of new technology.
I hear from other, older people that they actually are confused by new elements of the age in which we are living.
I have also experienced an attitude of some of the younger generations that we are ignorant of new technology and its uses, etc.
These attitudes are as ignorant as the attitude that, since someone is young, they are lacking in intelligence, knowledge, etc.
Since I can only speak with accuracy about my own experiences with "new technology" such as the internet and its uses, benefits, dangers and limits, I will say that it has been an irreplacable tool in my business.
I have used it in more ways than you could stay awake to read here.
Yes, there are some who ONLY use it as entertainment just as they use television.
These types of users are not always just the young.
If you are attentive and cognizant of the elements of peoples' posts such as grammar and/or spelling, you are usually able to ascertain the level of intelligence/knowledge of a particular poster.
I believe that the majority of this is derived from experiences in the real world rather than through the internet and/or the vastly inaccurate drivel of television.
So many are unable to see the difference between lack of knowledge and lack of intelligence.
To incorrectly use the word "dumb" which actually means the inability to speak, many see those without knowledge as "dumb".
This is not always correct.
While lack of knowledge is ignorance, it does not necessarily equate to lack of intelligence.
Lack of intelligence CAN and does usually equate to lack of knowledge/ignorance due to the inability to absorb and interpret said knowledge.
Also, ignorqance is NOT lack of intelligence. Rather it is lack of knowledge.
Have any of you actually taken the time to converse with and listen to someone of the young generation?
No matter their appearance, you'd be surprised at their typical level of intelligence.
Just as with the rest of us, their level of knowledge can ONLY be gained over time and experience.
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Wow talk about a spin job
I imagine her full-time job is working for the Bush Administration and writing speeches for the President to give telling us how wonderful the economy is.
While every generation laments the nature of its youth, there is a huge difference between this one and any other - the influence and effects of modern technology that makes "doing things yourself and thinking for yourself" UNnecessary.
Kids are writing - drivel.
Kids are communicating - nonsense.
Kids are shallow as a rule, but kids today are lacking in depth EVEN KIDS ADMIT IT.
Just ask them. Kids today are thirsty for something real.
That is something I doubt if this writer ever did. She evidently was too busy admiring the decay of our younger generation mistaking the odor she smelled for the ripening of a sweet, delicious fruit.
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Knowing how to look it up isn't enough...
You have to know stuff in order to even ask the right questions. Most of my students get symied in their research because they don't have enough general knowledge *in their heads* to get the significance of much of what they look at. As someone else already pointed out, they know plenty about specific iconic moments/people in history, but not about social and economic currents that might give them a way to think about those icons (or other events or people they might encounter in their research).
Sadly, that same pheonomenon is what makes it so obvious when they have plagiarized from a published source: the very markers of historical perspective and broad knowledge that are often absent in their own writing show up in stark contrast in plagiarized passages.
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Knowledge versus "learning"
Real knowledge is about perceptions. Teaching in China or anywhere in is about teaching how to learn, not "facts." By the time we learn something its out of date. But to learn how to learn is never out of date.
"You're the best teacher in Qingdao, but the students don't like you because they don't understand you." My response is that it's their job to understand me, not vice versa, I already undertand them. I cannot tolerate and will not tolerate the attitude "of give me patience Lord, and I want it now."
I have taught eight yesr olds to Phd's here and the only one who understood me insinctively was the eight year old as she who hadn't had time to adopt cultural blinders.
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Nothing's really changed
The world is simply changing, not for better or worse. Nowadays the way to be cultured and open to new ways of thinking is reading diverse blogs from around the world and participating in conversation with those you wouldn't normally meet otherwise. Its on the same level as people who in the past were marked by reading a lot of high literature, and I'd judge anyone who doesn't browse online much as being closed off to anything outside their bubble. The medium for spreading ideas and communication has changed.
However the good writers online are probably the same kids that study and write good essays in school. And the illiterate ones...well, they're just more on display with the internet. I question the sanity almost of people who write like: haaa ... well i hope u liked the party ... was f*ckin wild like!!!! hmmm another lol???xx
I don't think stuff like that really counts as voluntary reading/writing that makes us more learned.
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Nice Article
The only thing melting kids' brains is the insane level of indoctrinated discourse.
In most social situations, if one of those "dumb" internet-friendly kids starts asking serious questions about why our economic sanctions against Cuba are so important to spreading democracy, they'll be dismissed as "ignorant of history" or "radicalized by left-wing media."
The fact that society is willing to forbid the serious discussion of important facts destroys the minds of the youth.
It's not the fact that they amuse themselves with IMs in the absence of anything useful to do with their greatest resource.