March 21, 2010
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Dumbing Down and Social Decay
Do Societies naturally decay?
Is there some kind of process by which Nations rise and fall through History?
Is part of this process a kind of "Dumbing Down" of the population?This set of questions is Socrates_Cafe's latest topic for discussion.
There is some evidence that there is a sort of "dumbing down" in modern America, in that the National Assessment of Educational Progress - here -reports that the current student generation will not have the same level of advanced education as their parents have. There are lots of anecdotal reports about students' poor performance and the neo-cons have taken this phrase as a sort of rallying cry.
C.T. Iserbyt, in her book The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America grumbles about the replacement of "solid teaching" with an attempt to "Socially integrate " students while enhancing their self images so that no one is allowed to fail and thus presumably attain their correct intellectual and social level. This results in a lowering of educational standards and teachers spending all their time on those students less likely to succeed while ignoring the brightest.
Teachers themselves are supposedly not trained to impart information - to teach - but rather to develop some kind of social consensus in their classes while "guiding" their students toward understanding in those subjects they find interesting. As a teacher for many years, one interested in educational techniques and philosophy; I fancy myself knowledgeable in this area.
There are basic problems with our educational system (both public and private) here in America. these problems range from the economic (We don't want to pay enough for our children's education) to confusion over what and how we want our children taught. Currently there seems to be no push to encourage teachers to teach. the era when most teachers actually imparted new information to their students and taught them how to use it seems to be only a dim memory - nowadays the idea is to "guide them to understanding" through the use of standardized texts and curricula with the primary focus on scoring well on standardized tests based on said rather simplistic and uninteresting curricula. Student motivation is often poor and the teacher has to spend even more time trying to get the class's attention. There is little incentive for a teacher to stay in teaching - a job often offering only minimal pay and few challenges for the intellectual.
Aside from problems with education, the "Dumbing Down" idea seems to have sprung from the idea that there is some evil conspiracy to make us more controllable, or that TV - the ubiquitous whipping boy - offers such simplistic trash that it actually warps our minds. Another school of thought suggests that it is due to the "mongrelization" brought about by the influx of undesirable foreigners bent on corrupting us - both mind and body.
The fact that virtually all Americans sprung from such stock seems to have eluded the critics.
Do cultures rise, decay, and fall according to some sort of social Darwinian evolution? There is no clear evidence other than the obvious fact that cultures do change as they are influenced by outside influence. Some cultures had little such - China and ancient Egypt for example - and lasted millennia with relatively little culture change. The U.S. on the other hand has always encouraged both change and universal education, and so has changed dramatically during the past couple of hundred years - and will continue to do so.
Are we "dumbing down"? Assuredly not. Are we undergoing rapid culture change? Absolutely.
