Stupidity-The Intentional Dumbing Down Of Modern Society
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Study: College Students Not Learning Much
(CBS/AP) Kids are often told that to make it life, they must go to college. They work hard to get there. Parents and kids drain savings or take out huge loans to pay for it all.
And what do kids end up learning? The answer: not much.
A study of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years.
Not much is asked of students, either. Half did not take a single course requiring 20 pages of writing during their prior semester, and one-third did not take a single course requiring even 40 pages of reading per week.
The findings are in a new book, "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," by sociologists Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia. An accompanying report argues against federal mandates holding schools accountable, a prospect long feared in American higher education.
"The great thing -- if you can call it that -- is that it's going to spark a dialogue and focus on the actual learning issue," said David Paris, president of the New Leadership Alliance for Student Learning and Accountability, which is pressing the cause in higher education. "What kind of intellectual growth are we seeing in college?"
The study, an unusually large-scale effort to track student learning over time, comes as the federal government, reformers and others argue that the U.S. must produce more college graduates to remain competitive globally. But if students aren't learning much, that calls into question whether boosting graduation rates will provide that edge.
"It's not the case that giving out more credentials is going to make the U.S. more economically competitive," Arum said in an interview. "It requires academic rigor ... You can't just get it through osmosis at these institutions."
The findings also will likely spark a debate over what helps and hurts students learn. To sum up, it's good to lead a monk's existence: Students who study alone and have heavier reading and writing loads do well.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-war-of-words-on-college-campuses/
(CBS/AP) Kids are often told that to make it life, they must go to college. They work hard to get there. Parents and kids drain savings or take out huge loans to pay for it all.
And what do kids end up learning? The answer: not much.
A study of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years.
Not much is asked of students, either. Half did not take a single course requiring 20 pages of writing during their prior semester, and one-third did not take a single course requiring even 40 pages of reading per week.
The findings are in a new book, "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," by sociologists Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia. An accompanying report argues against federal mandates holding schools accountable, a prospect long feared in American higher education.
"The great thing -- if you can call it that -- is that it's going to spark a dialogue and focus on the actual learning issue," said David Paris, president of the New Leadership Alliance for Student Learning and Accountability, which is pressing the cause in higher education. "What kind of intellectual growth are we seeing in college?"
The study, an unusually large-scale effort to track student learning over time, comes as the federal government, reformers and others argue that the U.S. must produce more college graduates to remain competitive globally. But if students aren't learning much, that calls into question whether boosting graduation rates will provide that edge.
"It's not the case that giving out more credentials is going to make the U.S. more economically competitive," Arum said in an interview. "It requires academic rigor ... You can't just get it through osmosis at these institutions."
The findings also will likely spark a debate over what helps and hurts students learn. To sum up, it's good to lead a monk's existence: Students who study alone and have heavier reading and writing loads do well.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-war-of-words-on-college-campuses/
how many people in the pro-transgender movement and the Gender Identity Movement heard of Dr John Money?
Look at high school class averages now..on my daughter’s report card, there are many courses where the class average is above 80. Back in the day, I recall averages in the 65-75 range. I don’t think it’s a sign of rising intelligence or higher learning, but one of lowering standards. My statement is somewhat anecdotal as I haven’t looked into any research on this, but it feels like schools teach to the lowest common denominator.
My s/o's daughters are in elementary school.
They know that the teachers won't fail them, so why bother making an effort.
I noticed this years ago from my nieces and nephews. The work is so dumbed down in elementary school it's amazing. Teachers can't fail students, classes have mentally challenged kids mixed in which dumbs down the class more, and because of computers, they don't teach writing anymore. They stress typing.
The funny thing is high school grade 13 OAC was taken out 20 years ago, so you would think with one less year until college and university the course material should be bit harder as things should condense a bit.
But in reality it seems the opposite. It's getting easier.
Lazy teachers look for more holidays, shorter hours and fewer kids in the room, lazy parents wanting their dumb ass kid to advance a grade when they shouldn't, and kids goofing off knowing they will automatically advance.
Makes no sense, but that's how it is. And the education system has no balls to improve things.
The funny thing is high school grade 13 OAC was taken out 20 years ago, so you would think with one less year until college and university the course material should be bit harder as things should condense a bit.
But in reality it seems the opposite. It's getting easier.
Lazy teachers look for more holidays, shorter hours and fewer kids in the room, lazy parents wanting their dumb ass kid to advance a grade when they shouldn't, and kids goofing off knowing they will automatically advance.
Makes no sense, but that's how it is. And the education system has no balls to improve things.
Wow.
No doubt high school marks weren't "in the 80s" in my days either. There were always some brainers who got great grades, but there is no way any of my classes had an avg of "above 80". To have that kind of avg, half the class would be around 90 and the other half around 70-75 so it blends out at let's say 82.
Tests are way too easy, or the tests are actually moderately difficult, but the teachers mark them too easy with freebie points everywhere.
This is insane to read. And no way can a class avg Be 80%. Like u guys are saying it has to be some idiotic “everyone is special” bell-curve, which absolutely should not be happening unless it’s some university class avg that Is a D, but needs a C.... to apply this type of bell-curve in high school and earlier will set extremely unrealistic expectations for kids and will only hurt them downstream in prepping for the real world .
Surely the dumbing down begins with the decision to buy your detergent in someone else's idea of a 'single-use' packet.
Powder and liquid are both less expensive than pods, according to their advertised per-wash amounts, and what you use can be readily adjusted to what your washer actually needs to do the job. In my house that amounts to between 30 and 50% more washerloads than claimed on the boxes and bottles.
The only thing not dumb about pods is the clever way manufacturers have used them to make consumers waste both money and product to increase their profits in an otherwise stable market.
Powder and liquid are both less expensive than pods, according to their advertised per-wash amounts, and what you use can be readily adjusted to what your washer actually needs to do the job. In my house that amounts to between 30 and 50% more washerloads than claimed on the boxes and bottles.
The only thing not dumb about pods is the clever way manufacturers have used them to make consumers waste both money and product to increase their profits in an otherwise stable market.
I find it ironic that CM should start a thread on stupidity, he's the prime example of it on this board.
says the one who constantly complain about my posts because he does not like them
Did you ever read the book Freakonimics? The library has it. It sold so well that the co-authors have published a follow up book and now have a pod cast. In the intro of the first book their publisher asked them what among all of the stories in the book, is the unifying theme? They said that after thinking it over the theme was that people respond to incentives.
So I put it to you that the Tide people will continue to produce these pods until there's no more money in it. And people will continue to buy them until it means more to them to save money than to take the time to measure the right amount each time they do laundry. Is this one way people are becoming more stupid? I think so. So in this case the incentive allows people to be lazy, and not figure out the correct measurement.
A long time ago a relative sent me (and everyone else in her contact list) a story about a high school class somewhere in the States (I think the article was fake, because it was missing a lot of specifics, but it still made the intended point), where the teacher explained that communism was great in theory, but it came up short in practice. The students liked the idea of all for one and one for all. So the teacher proposed that for the rest of the year he would give each student the class average, after tabulating all the marks. The students agreed. After the first test the students accustomed to getting high marks received the class average, as did the students who performed poorly. When it came time for the next test, the poor students were content to let the good students pick up the slack, but the good students were not happy with getting an average mark for above average performance, so they didn't study for the next test. So the class average went down, and continued to go down for all subsequent tests.
This reminds me of the earlier comment that teachers will not (can not?) assign a zero to any assignment.
Validation comes from mastering a skill, not someone telling you you're special.
Last time I had to get a new cell phone I went to the mall with all kinds of questions, and all of the twenty somethings looked up most of my questions on Google, then answered me. I could have done that myself. So, among other things, Google is making us stupid, but we think it's making us smarter because now we have the answers.
So, in short my answer to the main issue of this thread is yes.
Yes, I've read Freakonomics. A fun read with lots of interesting observations. I can't quarrel with your reasoning about how long Tide will continue to sell pods, but they were already making money selling the powders and the liquids that replaced them.
Trouble was their market was stable, and if their profit wasn't growing, how could their executives progress in their careers? Answer: Invent a new product. Must it be improved? Of course not, just new. New is enough to make sales, and pods are engineered to for consumers to waste them and buy more. "Brilliant Abercrombie, You're promoted!"
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Digression: I don't see what connection the pods have with the classroom experiment that only 'proved' no one likes to be taken advantage of by free-riders. What I saw was a cunning teacher rigging the game to pre-determine the outcome and then drawing a false conclusion from it.
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There is no connection, except to say that as a society I'd say we are getting dumber. The schools are playing to the lowest common denominator, and this is what happens when people aren't rewarded for their efforts, They no longer try to be smart. And if eating Tide pods is now a thing, I can only guess what the incentive can be. Since I've never done that, even without being recorded, my guess is that the incentive is getting more views than other people. WE'RE DOOMED PEOPLE, DOOMED!
Not cool. It's okay to insult his sources, question his motives and make fun of his MO/style, but direct attacks - no.
I think the info in most of C-Ms posts is false or even looney toon, but C-M is like most of my conspiracy theory buddies, they are a passionate bunch. Like the press that so many of them hate ....... conspiracy theorists act like investigative reporters and sometimes they are right!
If Insidious Von believes your posts are based on false information, doesn't it make sense he doesn't like them?
