PART 1 No, Young People Are Not Getting Dumber
by Jori Epstein
As I Google a fact I need for an AP Government assignment, CNN's bright red headeremerges - a familiar sight. The latest collegiate sports scandal jumps out at me, alongsidebreaking news about presidential candidates. Frequent 30-second bursts of news like thisthroughout the day leave me better-informed than I would be otherwise.Too often, adults complain that young people aren't as smart as they used to be. It's saidwe don't care about current events, politics or whatever else they wish us to care about. Yet thosesame adults, 10 minutes later, might beg one of us "ignorant" teens for help retrieving a lostWord document or searching the Internet.My generation isn't uninformed, nor are we uninterested in current events. Rather, we'redifferently informed and subscribing to different learning methods. Information media evolve.Hourlong radio or TV news programs captivate us less, it's true. Why should we spend 60precious minutes when we garner the basics in just a few minutes, even seconds?We embrace innovation. New outlets allow us time to check up on the world and stillcarry on with our daily lives. Newspapers, unfortunately, may be read less often, but that doesn'tmean news is read less often. In fact, with instantaneous and better coverage, our generationprobably is more informed than any young generation of the past.Still, I know that some young people are not keeping up, and we should examine why.Perhaps it's that increasing competition in the academic world demands so much of our attention,reducing our free time to spend on current events. Shakespeare and calculus are mandatory. Theevening news is optional.Would adults rather we take SAT/ACT prep courses to maximize standardized-testperformance and spend hours researching genetically modified organisms to understand theprocess at least enough to explain it in a paper? Or would they rather we be able to handicap theGOP primaries? I assure you, we won't argue - current events stimulate my interest much morethan derivatives and integrals. But I am told time and again that our ever-improving schoolcurriculum will benefit me later in life.Learning dominates our daily lives in one way or another, and we're more informed thanyou think.
.*Jori Epstein is a senior at Yavneh Academy of Dallas and a Student Voices volunteer columnist.
PART 2 Are Americans Getting Dumber?
by Ray Williams
Is the American populace getting dumber? So say critics who see this as part ofAmerica's current decline.Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason, says in an article in theWashington Post, "Dumbness, to paraphrase the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan,has been steadily defined downward for several decades, by a combination of heretoforeirresistible forces. These include the triumph of video culture over print culture (and byvideo, I mean every form of digital media, as well as older electronic ones); a disjunctionbetween Americans' rising level of formal education and their shaky grasp of basicgeography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with antiintellectualism."There has been a long tradition is anti-intellectualism in America, unlike most otherWestern countries. Richard Hofstadter, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his book,Anti-Intellectualism In American Life, describes how the vast underlying foundationsof anti-elite, anti-reason and anti-science Americans has been infused into the politicaland social fabric.Journalist Charles Pierce, author of Idiot America, wrote, "the rise of Idiot Americatoday represents--for profit mainly, but also and more ynically, for political advantagein the pursuit of power--the breakdown of a consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is agood. It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people whom we shouldtrust the least are the people who best know what they are talking about. In the newmedia age, everybody is a historian, or a preacher, or a scientist, or a sage. And ifeveryone is an expert than nobody is, and the worst thing you can be in a society whereeverybody is an expert is, well, an actual expert."Morris Berman in his book, the Twilight of American Culture argues for the need topreserve what was best in American culture, including all works of art and science. MarkBauerlein, in his book, The Dumbest Generation, reveals how a whole generation ofyouth (Gen Y) are being dumbed own by their aversion to reading anything of substance and their addiction to digital "crap" via social media.Is there evidence to support these critics?Here's some data:The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs commissioned a civic education poll amongpublic school students. A surprising 77% didn't know that George Washingtonwas the first President; couldn't name Thomas Jefferson as the author of theDeclaration of Independence, and only 2.8% of the students actually passed thecitizenship test. Along similar lines, the Goldwater Institute of Phoenix did thesame survey and only 3.5% of students passed the civics test.Fox News, the most watched news program in the U.S., has on numerous occasionsrecommended that school science classes be "fair and balanced," meaning by theteaching of biblically-inspired creationism alongside Darwin's' scientific theory ofevolution.According to the National Research Council report, only 28% of high school scienceteachers consistently follow the National Research Council guidelines on teachingevolution, and 13% of those teachers explicitly advocate creationism or"intelligent design."On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of American's thought Saddam Hussein was involvedin the 9/11 attacks; four years later, even though roof had been provided that hewas not, 34% still believe he was.18% of Americans still believe that the sun revolves around the earth, according to aGallup poll.According to another poll, the average American voter believes that U.S. foreign aidconsumes 24% of the Federal budget, when it is only 1%.The American Association of State Colleges and Universities report on educationshows that the U.S. ranks second among all nations in the proportion of thepopulation aged 35-64 with a college degree, but 19th in the percentage of those aged 25-34 with an associates or high school diploma, which means that for thefirst time, the educational attainment of young people will be lower than theirparents'.In a Newsweek poll, of U.S. citizens, 29% couldn't identify Joe Biden as the VicePresident, and 44% couldn't describe the Bill of Rights.In a 2009 survey of a number of European countries and the U.S. on internationalaffairs, a significant majority of Europeans could identify the Taliban, and justover 50% of Americans could, despite the heavy presence of the U.S. inAfghanistan.74% of Republicans in the U.S. Senate and 53% in the House of Representatives denythe validity of climate changes since despite the findings of the U.S.
NationalAcademy of Sciences and every other significant scientific organization in theworld.Researcher Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary analyzed 300,00Torrance Creativity Test scores of children and adults in the US. Kim foundcreativity and IQ scores rose steadily until 1990, and were in decline thereafter,and the most serious decline occurring for the youngest children.In 1966-67, approximately 1.4 million students who took the verbal portion of theS.A.T and a score of 700 or more was achieved by 33,000 students. In 1986-87over 1.8 million students took the test and a score of 700 or higher was attainedby fewer than 14,000.A new global study of educational systems in major nations ranks U.S. 15 year olds14th in the world in reading skills, 17th in science and 25th (below average) inmath.According the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 68% of publicschool children in the U.S. do not read proficiently by the time they finish thirdgrade. And the U.S. News & World reported that barely 50% of students areready for college level reading.Of the 21 countries participating in the Third International Mathematics and ScienceStudy, American high school seniors did better than only 2 countries--Cyprus andSouth Africa.According to the National Endowment for the Arts report in 1982, 82% of collegegraduates read novels or poems for pleasure; two decades later only 67% did. Andmore than 40% of Americans under 44 did not read a single book--fiction ornonfiction--over the course of a year. The proportion of 17 year olds who read nothing (unless required by school ) has doubled between 1984-2004.Renowned T.V. producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who has produced many successful T.V.shows, was once quoted as saying, "it is getting harder and harder tounderestimate the intelligence of the American public. It now averages well belowthe previous 6th grade level."Harvard University's Kiku Adatto found that between 1968 and 1988 the averagesound bite on the news for a presidential candidates-featuring the candidate's ownvoice-dropped from 42.3 seconds to 9.8 seconds. By 2000, according to anotherHarvard study, the bite was down to 7.8 seconds.One need only look at the social interactions of students in high schools to see thepredominant views of the well educated or intellectual. Well-educated and intellectualstudents are commonly referred to in public schools and the media as "nerds," "dweebs,""dorks," and "geeks," and are relentlessly harassed and even assaulted by the morepopular "jocks" for openly displaying any intellect. These attitudes are not reflected instudents in most European or Asian countries, whose educational levels have nowequaled and and will surpass that of the U.S.So whether the critics are accurate or overstating their case, and whether it reflects ahistorical tradition of anti-intellectualism in America, the results of educationalassessments and pronouncements by political leaders, gives many a legitimate cause forconcern, a concern that may seriously affect its economic and social future.
PART 3 America Is Getting Dumber and Less Creative
by Anthony BradleyThe New York Times reports on a study that found that young adults in the UnitedStates not only fare poorly in math and science compared with their internationalcompetitors - something we have known for years - but also now in literacy.More surprisingly, even middle-aged Americans - who, on paper, are among thebest-educated people of their generation anywhere in the world - are barely better thanmiddle-of-the-pack in skills. Arne Duncan, the education secretary, released a statementsaying that the findings "show our education system hasn't done enough to helpAmericans compete - or position our country to lead - in a global economy thatdemands increasingly higher skills." The study is the first based on new tests developedby the Organization for Economic Coperation and Development, a coalition comprisedmostly of developed nations, and administered in 2011 and 2012 to thousands of people,ages 16 to 65, by 23 countries.The great irony of this story is that the United States spends 7.3 percent of itsgross domestic product on education from pre-kindergarten through the university level- the fifth highest in the world - yet the results don't match the spending. What ishappening? Why are we spending more and more money on education and producing lessompetitive students? I offer the following thoughts:(1) Sometimes these international comparisons are not too helpful. The UnitedStates is often compared to smaller and more homogeneous countries. Streamlining forparticular results is much easier in these countries because of shared cultural mores bothinside the classroom and within the family unit. Those outside-of-school social normsand mores also contribute to student success and performance in the long run.(2) I agree with Andrew Coulson who said, with respect to improving America'seducation system, "Systematic progress only ccurs when producers have the freedomsand incentives to innovate and excel. Our public-school monopolies do not provide thosefreedoms and incentives, and so they stagnate while their costs inexorably rise." Asstructures where innovation and creativity is not encouraged, because local schooldistricts are held hostage to state and federal government encroachment, a culture ofediocrity develops that cares primarily about "getting by" and meeting minimalstandards. Mediocrity not only affects how schools operate, but also how teachers teachstudents.In schools where the goal is to meet the low expectations of state and federaleducation agencies, students will not be encouraged to be innovators, creators, risk takers,nd analysts. American students often just want to "get by," meeting minimal educationstandards without becoming inspired to excel in multiple disciplines.Unless school districts are freed up to raise a generation of risk-taking andcreative problem-solvers, American students will continue to lag behind other youngadults around the world. Yet if we focus on innovation, creativity, and liberty, we'll begetstudents who are innovative, creative, and free to make serious contributions to thecommon good.
PART 4 Technology is Dumbing Down our Society
by Didi Ceci, Bolton
imes have immeasurably changed since the '50s and '60s, but is it for better orfor worse? One of the major reasons for all the change in the world is the advances intechnology. It is actually quite amazing how far technology has come since 1950, withtechnology nowadays we have the world at our fingertips. It has changed the workplace,the way we learn, and it has taken over our lives.Technology has opened up many opportunities in the workplace. It provides uswith fast means of communication, it speeds up our work, makes us more efficient, andkeeps us organized. It also allows us to advertise businesses to a wider audience, andwork from home.The list of things technology has done for us can go on and on, but so can the listof the disadvantages of technology. It takes away jobs, it affects our social skills, and wehave become way too dependent on technology.What we learn and the way we learn it is also greatly affected by technology. In"the old days" a high school diploma was a great accomplishment, and qualified you for ajob. In this day and age the high school diploma jobs are considered low class. Educationis changing to adapt with the changing world.Unfortunately we have not only become too dependent on technology in theworkplace, we have in schools as well. On more than one occasion I've had a classcancelled due to a malfunctioning projector. It's not just colleges and universities,elementary schools are starting kids off on the wrong foot with calculators, and wherewould we be without spellcheck? Whatever happened to handwritten papers?"As the Internet becomes our primary source of information, it is affecting ourability to read books and other long narratives. This process of rewiring our brains carriesthe danger of flattening human experience even as it offers the benefits of knowledgeefficiency and immediacy," rote Nicholas Carr.
Our lives have been taken over. It is scary when I notice it in myself. I used to beable to do math in my head much quicker, love reading books, and have a longerattention span. Fewer kids play outside due to video games, and they bring their portablevideo games to the playground.People go into a panic mode if there is an hour-long power outage, or if theirphone battery dies, but maybe a long power outage is just what we need to rememberhow to do things for ourselves. We have lost our independence and intelligence.Technology provides us with shortcuts and easy way outs, so why not just takehem? It is wrong because it is basically dumbing us down and I fear for the intellect offuture generations to come. Our dreams are not unobtainable, but with the extra schoolingand qualifications we need for all this new technology, it will just take us longer to getthere.Instead of technology aiding us and improving our lives, we have become anaccessory to technology and it's a scary picture for the future.