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  1. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    And if ignorant students won’t do it, how about those “teachers??

    Public education must be destroyed. If anything good comes out of COVID, I pray a major overhaul of education is it.

    • #1
  2. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Take a deep breath . . . relax . . . say to yourself, “Kids today can’t be this stupid.”

    Nevermind.  I just tried it, and it doesn’t work . . .

    • #2
  3. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Stad (View Comment):

    Take a deep breath . . . relax . . . say to yourself, “Kids today can’t be this stupid.”

    Nevermind. I just tried it, and it doesn’t work . . .

    It’s not stupidity.  They’re smart enough.  It’s ignorance.

    • #3
  4. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Can you imagine if CR had asked the “why” question? “Why did America fight for independence from Britain?” 

    “Because they wouldn’t give us free health care.” 

    “Because they wouldn’t mandate a $15/hour minimum wage.”

     

    • #4
  5. Stina Member
    Stina
    @CM

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Take a deep breath . . . relax . . . say to yourself, “Kids today can’t be this stupid.”

    Nevermind. I just tried it, and it doesn’t work . . .

    It’s not stupidity. They’re smart enough. It’s ignorance.

    Bred by our education system!

    • #5
  6. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Stina (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Take a deep breath . . . relax . . . say to yourself, “Kids today can’t be this stupid.”

    Nevermind. I just tried it, and it doesn’t work . . .

    It’s not stupidity. They’re smart enough. It’s ignorance.

    Bred by our education system!

    Intentionally!

    • #6
  7. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    An interview with Lou Dobbs:

    • #7
  8. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    An interview with Lou Dobbs:

    One of the few things I’ll defend Kamala on.  College kids are morons.

     

    • #8
  9. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Once years ago on Jay Leno when he was doing his “man on the street” thing, he asked a woman when the Civil War was, and she said “the 1920s?”  And she was a TEACHER.

    • #9
  10. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Excuse me while I bang my head against a wall. Any wall will do. 

    • #10
  11. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    An interview with Lou Dobbs:

    One of the few things I’ll defend Kamala on. College kids are morons.

     

    Yes, its the only point of agreement.

    I think picking Kamala for VP was a terrible thing for the democrat ticket, but in fairness she’s a unifying politician – everyone dislikes her.

    • #11
  12. MeandurΦ Member
    MeandurΦ
    @DeanMurphy

    I’m sorry to know I wasn’t born in the United  States since I was born before independence was declared in 1964.

    • #12
  13. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    I have to believe these are actors and actresses pretending to be this ignorant. 

    Two questions I’ve been wondering how people on Ricochet would answer: Which 12 events in U.S. history is it most important for badly educated people to learn about if they haven’t done that already ? Reading good biographies of which 30 people would help us most to learn and remember our history ?

    I ask  because I’m  thinking of learning about U.S. history sort of the way, prior to G.P.S., I used to learn the route to different destinations. 

    • #13
  14. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    MeandurΦ (View Comment):

    I’m sorry to know I wasn’t born in the United States since I was born before independence was declared in 1964.

    Haha! And I think we can all be grateful we did win our independence from France.

    • #14
  15. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Ansonia (View Comment):

    I have to believe these are actors and actresses pretending to be this ignorant.

    Two questions I’ve been wondering how people on Ricochet would answer: Which 12 events in U.S. history is it most important for badly educated people to learn about if they haven’t done that already ? Reading good biographies of which 30 people would help us most to learn and remember our history ?

    I ask because I’m thinking of learning about U.S. history sort of the way, prior to G.P.S., I used to learn the route to different destinations.

    -The Mayflower Compact
    -Federalist Papers
    -Declaration of Independence
    -Revolutionary War (actually the study of this would include the Federalist Papers an Decl.of Independence)
    -Civil War
    -WWI
    -WWII
    -Cold War
    -Moon Landing & Apollo etc
    -Vietnam and 1960s unrest
    -CARTER: Mariel Boat Lift and Iran Hostage Crisis and mortgage rates etc
    -Reagan Years and Détente etc

    …….
    Biographies
    Talleyrand
    George Washington
    Abe Lincoln
    Fredrick Douglass
    Harriet Tubman
    Pierre and Marie Curie

    lots more but I have to go now, but oh add the biography of the guy who invented Spandex haha. Shoulda won a Nobel Prize.

    • #15
  16. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re: 15

    All right, I’ll admit it: I don’t know who Talleyrand is. Will look him up before the night is over. Know that Pierre and Marie Curie had something to do with x-rays (I think.)

    What ? No Christopher Columbus under biographies ?

    It just occurred to me we that we need one other section besides Events and 30 famous people who greatly influenced something in this country. We need 10 stories of inventions that drastically changed thIs  country if not the world. Seven more besides Eli Whitney’s cotton gin,  the airplane and  the model T car .

    • #16
  17. J. D. Fitzpatrick Member
    J. D. Fitzpatrick
    @JDFitzpatrick

    I would like to know if these were the only ones he interviewed. It’s pretty easy to get clicks on a video by using selective editing. 

    Of course, as a private tutor, I don’t need convincing that kids learn nothing in school. But with millions of undereducated students in the country, it would be really easy to cherry pick evidence. 

    • #17
  18. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    J. D. Fitzpatrick (View Comment):

    I would like to know if these were the only ones he interviewed. It’s pretty easy to get clicks on a video by using selective editing.

    Of course, as a private tutor, I don’t need convincing that kids learn nothing in school. But with millions of undereducated students in the country, it would be really easy to cherry pick evidence.

    As a private tutor, how bad do you find it to be ?

    • #18
  19. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    J. D. Fitzpatrick (View Comment):

    I would like to know if these were the only ones he interviewed. It’s pretty easy to get clicks on a video by using selective editing.

    Of course, as a private tutor, I don’t need convincing that kids learn nothing in school. But with millions of undereducated students in the country, it would be really easy to cherry pick evidence.

    I would think with millions of maleducated students in the country, you wouldn’t have to do much cherry picking!

    • #19
  20. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    The civics teacher who purposefully avoids teaching civics in order to teach BLM and current events, and seems to have gaps in her knowledge herself, provides evidence for why so many young people are so invincibly ignorant. 

    • #20
  21. MeandurΦ Member
    MeandurΦ
    @DeanMurphy

    Ansonia (View Comment):

    Re: 15

    All right, I’ll admit it: I don’t know who Talleyrand is. Will look him up before the night is over. Know that Pierre and Marie Curie had something to do with x-rays (I think.)

    What ? No Christopher Columbus under biographies ?

    It just occurred to me we that we need one other section besides Events and 30 famous people who greatly influenced something in this country. We need 10 stories of inventions that drastically changed thIs country if not the world. Seven more besides Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, the airplane and the model T car .

    I really like Simon Winchester, his “The Men Who United The States” is really good.

    • #21
  22. Joseph Stanko Coolidge
    Joseph Stanko
    @JosephStanko

    Ansonia (View Comment):

    Re: 15

    All right, I’ll admit it: I don’t know who Talleyrand is. Will look him up before the night is over. Know that Pierre and Marie Curie had something to do with x-rays (I think.)

    What ? No Christopher Columbus under biographies ?

    It just occurred to me we that we need one other section besides Events and 30 famous people who greatly influenced something in this country. We need 10 stories of inventions that drastically changed thIs country if not the world. Seven more besides Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, the airplane and the model T car .

    I’d recommend The Wright Brothers by David McCullough, a classic story of American entrepreneurship.  Bicycle mechanics with a high school education invented the airplane!

    • #22
  23. Joseph Stanko Coolidge
    Joseph Stanko
    @JosephStanko

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Can you imagine if CR had asked the “why” question? “Why did America fight for independence from Britain?”

    “Because they wouldn’t give us free health care.”

    “Because they wouldn’t mandate a $15/hour minimum wage.”

     

    Unfortunately, it would probably be even worse than that: “because they didn’t want to pay their fair share of taxes and wanted to keep their slaves.”  Misinformation is more pernicious than mere ignorance.

    • #23
  24. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    The civics teacher who purposefully avoids teaching civics in order to teach BLM and current events, and seems to have gaps in her knowledge herself, provides evidence for why so many young people are so invincibly ignorant.

    Sure, but look at how much self-esteem they have! 

    • #24
  25. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Ansonia (View Comment):
    Two questions I’ve been wondering how people on Ricochet would answer: Which 12 events in U.S. history is it most important for badly educated people to learn about if they haven’t done that already ? Reading good biographies of which 30 people would help us most to learn and remember our history ?

    My mother was an avid reader of biographies (her birthday was Christmas eve, so one of her two gifts from me covering her birthday and Christmas was always a book) and I think it’s a great way to learn history. I bought her a biography of Abigail Adams that was one of her favorites, but I don’t see a familiar cover on Amazon and I don’t remember the author. 

    One of hers that I borrowed and read was John James Audubon: the Making of an American. I learned things about the frontier, about the first government-induced economic crisis, and much more about early American history. I don’t think you have to limit yourself to founders or figures in government to get a good picture of our history. 

    • #25
  26. J. D. Fitzpatrick Member
    J. D. Fitzpatrick
    @JDFitzpatrick

    Ansonia (View Comment):

    J. D. Fitzpatrick (View Comment):

    I would like to know if these were the only ones he interviewed. It’s pretty easy to get clicks on a video by using selective editing.

    Of course, as a private tutor, I don’t need convincing that kids learn nothing in school. But with millions of undereducated students in the country, it would be really easy to cherry pick evidence.

    As a private tutor, how bad do you find it to be ?

    Well, the middle school students generally can’t give the date of the Declaration either, and of course no one knows the dates of the Civil War. I teach lit and writing, which will fill up the whole 1-hour lesson for years on end, but occasionally I’ll tell students to learn the years of the Declaration, the Civil War, the two World Wars, and, 9/11. 

    One of my students reported that thanks to me, he was the only one in his high school history classroom who seemed to know the dates of WW1. But maybe there were others who were less willing to “spread themselves”, as Twain puts it. 

    Bottom line, my sample size is small and nonrepresentative of America, so I don’t try to extrapolate from it. Of course, we’ve all noticed plenty of statistics over the years showing that the ignorance is widespread. 

    • #26
  27. CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker
    @CarolJoy

    The young teacher in the green shirt was so proud of how her focus in educating the students in her history class has been current events, including her stressing that the nation’s history was racist and then letting them understand the righteous position of Black Lives Matter.

    • #27
  28. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Take a deep breath . . . relax . . . say to yourself, “Kids today can’t be this stupid.”

    Nevermind. I just tried it, and it doesn’t work . . .

    It’s not stupidity. They’re smart enough. It’s ignorance.

    Now that I think about it, a deep enough ignorance is indistinguishable from stupidity.

    • #28
  29. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker (View Comment):

    The young teacher in the green shirt was so proud of how her focus in educating the students in her history class has been current events, including her stressing that the nation’s history was racist and then letting them understand the righteous position of Black Lives Matter.

    Yes.  Honestly, when I first saw that, I thought she should be summarily fired.

    • #29
  30. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    CarolJoy, Thread Hijacker (View Comment):

    The young teacher in the green shirt was so proud of how her focus in educating the students in her history class has been current events, including her stressing that the nation’s history was racist and then letting them understand the righteous position of Black Lives Matter.

    That gave me to despair. 

    • #30
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