News Flash: American teens ignorant of EVERYTHING!
The National Constitution Center did a survey back in 1998 which showed that 2.2% of kids knew that Rehnquist was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but 90% knew that Leonardo DiCaprio was the star of Titanic. At least they didn't blame the kids: "This poll tells us that we all must work to better understand our Constitution. Because kids learn most of all from the example set by adults around them." Don't you love that? "Kids are ignorant of calculus, and it's all the parents' fault for not teaching them calculus!" What are schools for, exactly?
But what is the most troubling implication of this poll, the one from which the NCC pollsters and the MSM shield their eyes with trembling hands, the one which they cannot admit even in the privacy of their own offices? I'll tell you. The poll took place in 1998, during the massive ad blitz in which the combined might of Hollywood and Madison Avenue worked to make sure that the stars of the biggest movie phenomenon since Star Wars were on the cover of every magazine, and fully ten percent of teenagers still didn't know who the star of Titanic was?
It's not that I think it's inherently important to know who movie stars are. It's just that I'm reminded of Dennis Miller's rant against hype. He said he knows who Matthew McConaghey is, who his girlfriend is, what kind of dog he owns, how he likes his eggs... but he doesn't want to know any of that. He doesn't even know how he knows it. He just does. So how do ten percent of teenagers escape knowing that Leonardo DiCaprio is the star of Titanic? What the hell does it take to reach these people?
Let's delve a little more deeply into the results, shall we?
36% of teenagers don't know that "The Club" is supposed to keep your car from getting stolen.
35% of teenagers don't know that you have to be at least 17 to get into an R-rated movie.
47% have never heard of David Letterman's Top Ten List.
42% don't know who Bill Gates is.
12.5% of teenagers couldn't answer the question, "What famous football player was found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife in 1995?" And the poll took place in 1998!
Fully 41% of teenagers- nearly half!- cannot even name the Three Stooges!
Clearly people walk around during the day insulated by a fuzzy layer of dreamworld, and physical reality penetrates their solipsistic haze only to a very, very limited degree. The NCC saw this, and shrank from it! Look at the version of the poll they gave to adults: all the questions about the Constitution are there, but not one question about pop culture, because they dreaded the lurking truth!
But what is the most troubling implication of this poll, the one from which the NCC pollsters and the MSM shield their eyes with trembling hands, the one which they cannot admit even in the privacy of their own offices? I'll tell you. The poll took place in 1998, during the massive ad blitz in which the combined might of Hollywood and Madison Avenue worked to make sure that the stars of the biggest movie phenomenon since Star Wars were on the cover of every magazine, and fully ten percent of teenagers still didn't know who the star of Titanic was?
It's not that I think it's inherently important to know who movie stars are. It's just that I'm reminded of Dennis Miller's rant against hype. He said he knows who Matthew McConaghey is, who his girlfriend is, what kind of dog he owns, how he likes his eggs... but he doesn't want to know any of that. He doesn't even know how he knows it. He just does. So how do ten percent of teenagers escape knowing that Leonardo DiCaprio is the star of Titanic? What the hell does it take to reach these people?
Let's delve a little more deeply into the results, shall we?
36% of teenagers don't know that "The Club" is supposed to keep your car from getting stolen.
35% of teenagers don't know that you have to be at least 17 to get into an R-rated movie.
47% have never heard of David Letterman's Top Ten List.
42% don't know who Bill Gates is.
12.5% of teenagers couldn't answer the question, "What famous football player was found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife in 1995?" And the poll took place in 1998!
Fully 41% of teenagers- nearly half!- cannot even name the Three Stooges!
Clearly people walk around during the day insulated by a fuzzy layer of dreamworld, and physical reality penetrates their solipsistic haze only to a very, very limited degree. The NCC saw this, and shrank from it! Look at the version of the poll they gave to adults: all the questions about the Constitution are there, but not one question about pop culture, because they dreaded the lurking truth!
posted by Wintermute at 7:22 AM
1 Comments:
I call it the dummerization of America. Actual education has been carefully and neatly removed from public school curricula. Our textbooks are vetted by school boards in Texas (A land known far and wide for its towering intellectual product from such vaunted ivory towers as Texas A&M), as it is the largest single market for textbooks and the margins on producing them are razor thin.
No one is complaining though. Textbooks are not nearly as critical to the education process as once thought. Rather than a useful tome of sagacious wisdom, they are more viable as book bag ballast. Students are now too busy molding their scholastic careers to perfectly fit themselves into the shopworn impression of the ideal Ivy League candidate to be troubled with such things as actually learning facts that are comprehensible within a larger context. Nay more, such facts may actually be an impediment to your bright future wherein fortunes vast are made the arcane secrets of the priesthood of Free Trade are internalized.
What use are critical thinking skills and an awareness of unseemly tendency of consequences to follow after action in this, the new global economy. This wonderful digital age where working people are made more "flexible" capital is "liberalized" and Olive Trees are driven into the ground beneath the wheels of a madly careening Lexus?
I would posit none at all.. And the faster we can all get on the stick with the president, the better. He'll lead us into a new golden age, where no child is left behind, unless by behind you mean abandoned in the ruins of a decaying and under-funded public school system, tended limply by barely paid "guest workers" who shuffle about the halls in a protein-deficient haze, push broom in hand. If that’s what you mean then well, maybe someone will be left behind after all
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