Just moving along looking for the answer. This time, I am going to look at our students.
Let's stay with the concept that it was better before. That means that we need to look at things that are now different from how they were years ago. Now, how are our students different? Some time ago I wrote a blog about the writings of John Locke on "how to raise children". His writings were from back in the 1700's. Before that Darwin was in charge and you know how he did things. You can even look far back to the Spartans and how they raised their children. I think that you know the stories about how the Spartans did not baby their children, but raised them in a tough and demanding environment. The idea was to raise strong children who could become strong warriors and deal with a tough cruel world. That does not sound too bad does it? Now let, look at how the student has changed.
I contend that the first big change came with the book by Dr. Spock on how to raise children. I wrote a prior blog on this subject too and I will give some high lights here. Spock was an urban Jew from New York City who attended Columbia University. He wrote his book before any of his own children or grandchildren had lived their full lives after having him and his wife as their parents. That means that he had little data on how his own child raising turned out. Further, with a sample of "one", how strong of a conclusion can one draw in an area that has so many independent variables? Not much!! The writings of Spock should carry about the same weight as those of Jewish psychologist Freud and we know now that 99% of his work in psychology has been discredited. The bottom line, is that Spock's book marks the change from spankings to "time outs". This is the birth place of our current population of "snow flakes" who can't handle the heat of the kitchen of a childhood growing up in the real world. It happened in the USA first so that is why our children are now the biggest "snow flakes" in the world.
Unlike the Spartans of old, our children can't compete on the playground or don't want to compete for fear of failure. Our school teachers who only have a short term view, accommodate their students with higher grades than the students deserve. This make both the student and their parent feel that they are much smarter than they actually are. Remember all the bumper stickers claiming that their child is on the honor roll?
Kids used to play games like baseball and other games all by themselves. They did not need the help of a parent or a paid coach. They were able to organize and do it all by themselves, but not any more. Games like dodge ball have been eliminated because it was felt that it encouraged aggression. The modern parents also demanded expensive facilities for the games and in many cases, uniforms. Rather than keeping score, everyone is a winner! It is common knowledge that we learn more from failure than we do from winning, so why have we tried so hard to eliminate failure? It does not make any sense.
Rather than spending time playing physical games, modern kids play mindless games with their thumbs on little electronic boxes where there is "zero" human contact or the real physical world. If it does involve human contact, it is by remote control where the child is not in the same room with their contact. 99% of the body to body communication that normally went on with physical contact was eliminated. How much was this 99% of communication worth? How has it changed the development of the child? What kind of relationship does one have with words printed on a computer screen?
Have you ever heard this one? "I don't need to know all that because I can look it up on my computer." It is true that you can now look up almost anything on your computer, but it is not the same as knowing it. How can a child judge the credibility of what a person is saying or what they read on the internet if they don't have some knowledge of the subject? I talk to people all the time about complex subjects and frequently have to reject what many say because my brain contains verified facts that contradict what the person has to say. How can a young person judge the credibility of a news article if they don't have any first hand factual knowledge of the subject? It is not possible and I contend it is the main reason that our children seem so gullible and vulnerable to the arguments from liberals. If one were only to look at efficiency, it is clear that it only takes a millisecond for a person with factual knowledge to know that they are being fed a line of bull shit compare to the time it would take a person to consult "Google" for the correct answer. That is if they were to even do the follow up. Are you starting to see how our children are getting easier to be mislead?
How about "curiosity"? Exactly what is that? Do you think that our children are more or less curious than they were in the past? If I have heard this once, I have heard it a thousand times coming from our kids today and that is, "Why do I need to know that?" If the kid needs a reason, there is something wrong with the kid. I feel that a normal kid has the attitude that the more one knows, the more they want to know. For most kids of old, they knew that there was a lot they did not know and they felt that it could caused them to be left out of much of life, Kids today think that they either know everything or that they don't need to know any more. When kids used to play in the woods, they were actually "exploring" or "searching". They did not know exactly what they were searching for, but it was fun and interesting to do. It fed their curiosity. Is curiosity now dead? If our kids do not get it back, I fear that things will continue to just get worse. Who caused it? Is exploring on TV or by computer too easy to be fun and challenging? That may be the problem. Us humans do not value things that are too easy to achieve. Maybe we need to make things more difficult for our children as advocated by John Locke and the Spartans!!
Let's stay with the concept that it was better before. That means that we need to look at things that are now different from how they were years ago. Now, how are our students different? Some time ago I wrote a blog about the writings of John Locke on "how to raise children". His writings were from back in the 1700's. Before that Darwin was in charge and you know how he did things. You can even look far back to the Spartans and how they raised their children. I think that you know the stories about how the Spartans did not baby their children, but raised them in a tough and demanding environment. The idea was to raise strong children who could become strong warriors and deal with a tough cruel world. That does not sound too bad does it? Now let, look at how the student has changed.
I contend that the first big change came with the book by Dr. Spock on how to raise children. I wrote a prior blog on this subject too and I will give some high lights here. Spock was an urban Jew from New York City who attended Columbia University. He wrote his book before any of his own children or grandchildren had lived their full lives after having him and his wife as their parents. That means that he had little data on how his own child raising turned out. Further, with a sample of "one", how strong of a conclusion can one draw in an area that has so many independent variables? Not much!! The writings of Spock should carry about the same weight as those of Jewish psychologist Freud and we know now that 99% of his work in psychology has been discredited. The bottom line, is that Spock's book marks the change from spankings to "time outs". This is the birth place of our current population of "snow flakes" who can't handle the heat of the kitchen of a childhood growing up in the real world. It happened in the USA first so that is why our children are now the biggest "snow flakes" in the world.
Unlike the Spartans of old, our children can't compete on the playground or don't want to compete for fear of failure. Our school teachers who only have a short term view, accommodate their students with higher grades than the students deserve. This make both the student and their parent feel that they are much smarter than they actually are. Remember all the bumper stickers claiming that their child is on the honor roll?
Kids used to play games like baseball and other games all by themselves. They did not need the help of a parent or a paid coach. They were able to organize and do it all by themselves, but not any more. Games like dodge ball have been eliminated because it was felt that it encouraged aggression. The modern parents also demanded expensive facilities for the games and in many cases, uniforms. Rather than keeping score, everyone is a winner! It is common knowledge that we learn more from failure than we do from winning, so why have we tried so hard to eliminate failure? It does not make any sense.
Rather than spending time playing physical games, modern kids play mindless games with their thumbs on little electronic boxes where there is "zero" human contact or the real physical world. If it does involve human contact, it is by remote control where the child is not in the same room with their contact. 99% of the body to body communication that normally went on with physical contact was eliminated. How much was this 99% of communication worth? How has it changed the development of the child? What kind of relationship does one have with words printed on a computer screen?
Have you ever heard this one? "I don't need to know all that because I can look it up on my computer." It is true that you can now look up almost anything on your computer, but it is not the same as knowing it. How can a child judge the credibility of what a person is saying or what they read on the internet if they don't have some knowledge of the subject? I talk to people all the time about complex subjects and frequently have to reject what many say because my brain contains verified facts that contradict what the person has to say. How can a young person judge the credibility of a news article if they don't have any first hand factual knowledge of the subject? It is not possible and I contend it is the main reason that our children seem so gullible and vulnerable to the arguments from liberals. If one were only to look at efficiency, it is clear that it only takes a millisecond for a person with factual knowledge to know that they are being fed a line of bull shit compare to the time it would take a person to consult "Google" for the correct answer. That is if they were to even do the follow up. Are you starting to see how our children are getting easier to be mislead?
How about "curiosity"? Exactly what is that? Do you think that our children are more or less curious than they were in the past? If I have heard this once, I have heard it a thousand times coming from our kids today and that is, "Why do I need to know that?" If the kid needs a reason, there is something wrong with the kid. I feel that a normal kid has the attitude that the more one knows, the more they want to know. For most kids of old, they knew that there was a lot they did not know and they felt that it could caused them to be left out of much of life, Kids today think that they either know everything or that they don't need to know any more. When kids used to play in the woods, they were actually "exploring" or "searching". They did not know exactly what they were searching for, but it was fun and interesting to do. It fed their curiosity. Is curiosity now dead? If our kids do not get it back, I fear that things will continue to just get worse. Who caused it? Is exploring on TV or by computer too easy to be fun and challenging? That may be the problem. Us humans do not value things that are too easy to achieve. Maybe we need to make things more difficult for our children as advocated by John Locke and the Spartans!!
