Thursday, November 1, 2007

Sage Advice from Gary North

The cry to "save yourselves" continue. Gary North exorting people to get their kids out!!!!

The Best One-Shot Investment on Earth
by Gary North

...We are, as far as urban public education is concerned, essentially at rock bottom. We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait.

It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking – and nearly hopeless – dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.

But is his friend exaggerating? Is the situation really that bad? Here is first-hand evidence.

But most of all, he simply observes his students, year to year, noting all the obvious evidence of teens' decreasing abilities when confronted with even the most basic intellectual tasks, from understanding simple history to working through moderately complex ideas to even (in a couple recent examples that particularly distressed him) being able to define the words "agriculture," or even "democracy." Not a single student could do it.

It gets worse. My friend cites the fact that, of the 6,000 high school students he estimates he's taught over the span of his career, only a small fraction now make it to his grade with a functioning understanding of written English. They do not know how to form a sentence. They cannot write an intelligible paragraph. Recently, after giving an assignment that required drawing lines, he realized that not a single student actually knew how to use a ruler....

...Which is preferable?

A. Leave a large financial legacy to your children or grandchildren.

B. Make sure they share your worldview, which will cost you $200, plus keeping the mother at home to supervise.

C. Both of the above...

Read it All

No comments: