American Education: How to Wreck a Dream

This is a great stuttering country with a few screws loose and a stupid attitude towards the most important feature of any enlightened civilization. There is nothing more important to us than the education of our children. It's education that pushes each generation beyond the last generation; it's education that maximizes the talents of children to make them productive and contributing adults; it's education that turns the sweet dreams of ten-year-old kids into marvelous adult realities.

So what do we do with this social force we call "education"?

This morning on the front page of the New York Times you will find a story about Reed College, a first-class little college in Oregon that is turning away one hundred outstanding-but-needy high school students from its freshman class to substitute one hundred students who can pay their way and thereby alleviate the college's dismal financial situation.

No money, no education. That's the American way, right? But then turn to the editorial page of the New York Times, same paper, same day, and you find a letter entitled "Luring the best students", the letter about visa processing delays for foreign students. The letter, from Debra Stewart, President of the Council of Graduate Students, says, "The world's intellectual talent plays an important role in strengthening the United States economy... To enhance American competitiveness we must continue to attract and retain the top brain power from around the globe..."

Neither Reed College nor Debra Stewart (nor even the New York Times) are at fault. They are not responsible for this comic fandango, this paradoxical conjunction that highlights the general stupidity of the American people. It's that general stupidity that caused Wall Street to crash its own financial system, and it's that same general stupidity that causes us to wail about the need for talented young foreigners to come here to study while at the same time (and out of the other side of our mouths) we are telling talented young Americans that if they don't have the money for it they will probably not be able to get a quality higher education.

It seems to me that the big players in this country, the moguls and tycoons and senators with yachts and suntans, the fat cats with bikini bunnies on their laps, need to find a way to ensure that every kid who has the talent for it gets a higher education. We need a strong and working system of full federal student aid so that colleges with small endowments do not need to turn away outstanding students who lack the money to pay their own way.

The consequence, if we don't do it, is that sooner or later the carnival tent falls down, the bunnies fall off the laps of the fat cats, and in a thousand years history will say, "Well, they conquered a continent and then fell on their faces outside the saloon."

Frankly, I'm not too optimistic that we will change. American general stupidity continues to support the crazy idea that both health care and education are fine if you have the money for it--despite the reality that this crazy idea is an excellent way to sabotage America's future.

I feel like an old dog barking in the wilderness. Down there in the valley there are ten-year-olds with dreams to be wrecked by this great stuttering country with stupid attitudes.

Comments

[vg30dedestroyed]

How do we keep the world from perishing from "lack of wonder"?

[vg30dedestroyed]

Another example is after getting into Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran I decided I would share my wonder with a friend. After about two minutes of discussing how a phantom occurs to begin with, they became bored and told me to stop or they would fall asleep. Upon hearing this I had an overwhelming sense of grief sweep over me as I realized that people in my age group don't care about anything unless its some intolerable reality show, or some pathetic shell of a person is on air searching for true love, or all the little niches of imperfection sewn into the american tapestry such as the fat kids at camp, or gays, or steroid junkies, just so much useless mind numbing trash. They don't care why the sun rises the same way everyday, or why the grass is green, or how an engine works, or how their game console works, or how their house became. As long as it is. Is there anything that can be done to prevent this epidemic from further spreading and destroying any shred of hope America might have? And what caused it to begin with?

[vg30dedestroyed]

On top of the ever pathetic education system and the factors that persuade the amount of money given to schools, there is another very, very, very deeply troubling problem. In fact this problem may be larger than the greed mongers strangling the educational financial system. People are becoming belligerently dumb. Maybe not necessarily a cut and clear below the i.q. benchmark deal, but, no one cares about anything anymore. No one has the capability to look at long term versus short term benefits and differentiate between the two. While I was in high school, a short time ago, we read Hamlet in my english class. My teacher was very enthusiastic about the entire ordeal, but one every one else was irritated. Classmates thought it was "stupid that we have to read such a long and boring book written in stupid english". No interest was shown for the stories complexity, or the fact that many parallels could be drawn form the book to present times. No one cared what a literary monument it is. And many purchased spark notes as an alternative to struggling through the book. How do we fix that?

[FaceReality2]

Professor, here's a topic for another article. The Holocaust Museum killer was allegedly a member of Mensa. Here are some samples of his writings:

http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2009/06/10/von_brunn/

Please discuss what it means to be a "genius" in light of this lunatic's ravings. Does he have a mental illness (paranoid schizophrenia comes to mind) that overcame his cognitive abilities, or what?

Some other "geniuses" with goofy ideas come to mind. Recall the genius who spent much of his life working as a bouncer in a bar, discussed in the recent book, "Outliers"? He is allegedly working on a mathematical proof for the existence of god.

[FaceReality2]

There's plenty of money to maintain over 700 military bases in 130 foreign countries, plenty of money to invade and occupy Iraq, plenty of money for multi-billion dollar "defense" projects (some of which the military doesn't even want), but there's just not enough money for healthcare and education for all our citizens.

Follow the money. Who cuts big checks for political campaigns? Defense contractors or college administrators?

When the empire finally falls and the country is bankrupted, I hope people realize where their money went.

[knowbot]

It seems to me that the big players in this country, the moguls and tycoons and senators with yachts and suntans, the fat cats with bikini bunnies on their laps, need to find a way to ensure that every kid ...

You're kidding, right? Aren't you pissed they didn't hire you?

They prefer their kind of "intelligence". It seems to be working quite well.

[plebeianswillrevolt]

some people should just go to trade school. or get low paying jobs and work, and read free library books like Lincoln. A .02 cent birth certificate of American citizenship does not guatantee me, the taxpayer, to fund a pack of unruly, lazy kids a $250,000 college vacation.

[FaceReality2]

The only way the U.S. can maintain its standard of living is through new ideas and development of new technologies. This is where jobs for the plebeians come from. Education is the best investment we can make.