Becoming Dumb And Dumber

It was interesting that the more I researched how current researchers assessed the fall of empires and nations, very few noted the decline in education, which I found odd. One would think that such an obvious factor would be highlighted as much as the others, but this one got rather short shrift from those in higher education. Was it like ignoring the big elephant in the room, constantly dancing around the scant room left by avoiding the large grey pachyderm? Or were professors trying to hide the weaknesses in their methods and lifting up their slanted views of life while downplaying the essentials of reading, writing, and arithmetic? It would seem that any objective observer could see that dumbing down the next generation's standards of even knowing the basics of the building blocks of knowledge would catch up with them. Alas, if the goals are to ground children in one’s political and social view of what is important, rather than neutral and essential things like reading a book, being able to communicate orally and in writing, and the rudimentary ability to even add and subtract, the resulting product is exactly what we see today in America. Our youngest are learning more and more about less and less until we now see they are experts in nothing.

Blaming The Pandemic

When low test scores show us that something is wrong in the United States, rather than checking teaching methods and curriculum, we are making the two years of the pandemic as the proverbial boogeyman. A casual internet search of the low scores brought up pages and pages of articles accusing that tiny virus of stunting the education scores of countless students. Hear is how a study done by Harvard University explained things:

“Children have resumed learning, but largely at the same pace as before the pandemic. There’s no hurrying up teaching fractions or the Pythagorean theorem,” said CEPR (Center for Education Policy Research) faculty director Thomas Kane. “The hardest hit communities—like Richmond, VA, St. Louis, MO, and New Haven, CT, where students fell behind by more than 1.5 years in math—would have to teach 150 percent of a typical year’s worth of material for three years in a row—just to catch up. That is simply not going to happen without a major increase in instructional time. Any district that lost more than a year of learning should be required to revisit their recovery plans and add instructional time—summer school, extended school year, tutoring, etc.—so that students are made whole.”

But they are really missing a key component which is that the test scores were going down before the pandemic and that really is a big factor. Could it be that we weren’t teaching children well and spending time on grasping the basics?

Lower And Lower Test Scores

I tried finding research on testing scores and what I discovered overall is that rather than explain why America is ranked 14th in reading, math, and science in one ranking and 18th in another when we used to dominate such rankings, I found concerns for how much money was being spent on education and how few teachers there were per student. Money invested is not always a good barometer for value as most believe. What you are doing with that money is a better way to evaluate things. Are we building better buildings and facilities only to be prouder of that than the product we’re producing? How is time spent per student teaching them curricula that emphasizes things like gender issues or social issues compared to reading skills or math skills? And then there is teaching them less about history and government and more about racial divisions and liberal views on the environment, just to name a few. These students are getting an education, but what are they learning more about? When other nations actually spend time making sure their children can actually read, do math, and understand science, we’re indoctrinating them so they espouse a worldview that matches what those in power want to maintain their power.

Man On The Street Interviews

If there is one activity that sucks time from me, it is watching the seemingly endless short interviews of people asking others simple questions that they can’t answer correctly. A person poses a question of who our first president was and no one gets it right. Then they ask what the capital of America is and people are dumbfounded. Then they are asked where the Great Wall of China is and the same people say every country but China. But ask them who Taylor Swift is and they just begin giving you every song she ever sang and where she is playing at that moment. They can tell you all about every movie star’s current movie and who they are married to at the moment. Unfortunately, they will parrot every argument made to support abortion, homosexuality, and how bad America is on every social issue of the day and how we’ve been bad since our founding. They aren’t stupid when it comes to things that interest them. Their indoctrination started in grade school and was etched in stone when they went to college. They were told what to think as opposed to how to think on their own. If we are honest, all we have to do is look in our collective mirrors to diagnose the problem.

Past Presidents Warned Us

Of all the presidents of America, two tend to get top billing in any list of the greatest ones. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. One helped found the country, while the other kept it together when it could have been split in two. And Lincoln, who knew his Bible as well as any president before or since, would often dispense wisdom found in its pages whether he quoted from it or not. He opined a great deal on education and the education of our young people. Herewith are a few that address what we see in the younger generation and their thinking and behavior:

Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.

And then there is this quote:

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

But what if the teachers themselves don’t know how to behave? And what if they think you can merely teach knowledge without morality? But worse, what if you teach education that engenders immorality or a morality based on something other than the Ten Commandments? And here is another quote from a previous president, Theodore Roosevelt:

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

What we are seeing play out in our streets and on social media is a direct result of many generations being taught without morals or with immorality disguised as morality. When you can’t see the writings of Osama Bin Laden as the evil it is but instead see it as a revelation of righteous thinking and morality that justifies the killing of babies in their mother’s wombs and beating and killing elderly women, well you understand how Roosevelt’s quote is a revelation of the overall problem.

One Thing I Saw That Was Correct

It is a little hard to explain, but I will try. When a nation develops easier ways to do things, the basics behind them become lost to them. One example is that teacher that told their students to not use their calculators because then they wouldn’t learn how to do math without it. We live in an age when artificial intelligence can write our papers for school without students ever doing the research, knowing how to spell, or grasping the concepts behind their topic. And we’re getting to the point where we don’t even need to know how to drive our vehicles. Smart people are making things easier and easier for us, but we aren’t using the time that they do to free us to learn more or read more. Instead, we are using it to be entertained more or let others do the things we should be doing. In short, we stop growing, we stop learning. And that philosophy is becoming more and more prevalent earlier and earlier in life. Children are taught to let others do the thinking for them. They can develop on their own, but the challenges are few and far between. The ones who see how to game the systems will almost always take advantage of the ones who remain pieces on the chess board leaving a great divide of haves and have nots with precious little in the middle.

Bad Morals And Substandard Learning

A young person who is taught over and over again how bad America is will inherently turn on their country and vote accordingly. When the youth of our country are taught that violent protests are ok as long as the cause is good, you see exactly what we see now. When the sanctity of life is not taught then you see people who don’t value life unless that life agrees with them. Theodore Roosevelt words ring true today more than ever before. Where do we get morality from then? We get it from religion and we always have. In particular, we get it from the Ten Commandments which can be applied regardless of whether we are Christians or not. I’m not against learning how things work which leads to a productive nation, but the lack of basic morality can sink any ship. And societies break apart when life isn’t sacred. Even those outside of Christianity acknowledge why it must be taught. And in our schools, it isn’t a priority. When the schoolhouse was also the church, it wasn’t an issue. When students were taught reading by reading the Bible the children learned both. Now, that isn’t the case. In fact, when it isn’t learned from anywhere, the bad examples all around them will be their teacher.

The Benefits Of Learning Morality

Not every child needs to be able to calculate the value of pi to the 100th decimal to be a good person. Nor do they need to grasp the deepest philosophical terms found in Aristotle or Socrates. Instead, they need to grasp the basics of morality to be good citizens in a productive society. There are eight reasons to teach morality. One, it builds character. Then it teaches them how to tell right from wrong. It then teaches them to know good from bad. It then allows them to develop good behaviors. Lest we forget, learning good morals will help them resist the bad influences from their peers and it will help them cope with difficult situations. It can also boost their self-confidence by doing good things for others. That in turn will teach them to think of others when they do things. These are not an exhaustive listing of the benefits, but it’s a good overall view. Do these things need to be part of a school curriculum in a public school system that eschews religion? No, these are supposed to be taught in churches and in homes. But they are taught one way or another in schools if only by necessity. The golden rule is needed for learning to be effective on all levels and at all ages. And it needs to be in place all the way up the food chain as well. The corporate world needs to know morality to be successful as a dishonest CEO will almost certainly have dishonest employees.

Is America’s Future Generation A Lost Cause?

Without divine intervention, I think it is. The phrase “But God” is a pretty good answer to the question, though. God put a conscience inside of all of us for a reason and as long as that is fed and listened to on a daily basis, all the bad teaching can be overcome. And it’s never too late to change our individual and collective behaviors, but we do need to start sooner than later to reform ourselves. Rooting out bad information is a challenge in a rather narcissistic society that values clicks and likes over just about anything. Paul told Timothy that times like these would involve men being lovers of self as we see in this verse from 2 Timothy 3:2:

For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. (AMPC)

The antidote is rather simple and it is found in this prayer I found in an article from Rick Renner:

Father, I ask You to help me keep my heart free from materialism and to keep the Gospel as the greatest and highest priority in my life. I know that You want me to be blessed and to be financially and materially increased, but I don’t want to set my heart on riches and fall into the trap of this lost world in these last days. Help me stay focused on souls — what You love most — and to do my part to help establish Your covenant in every part of the earth. With the help of the Holy Spirit, I know I can maintain the godly balance You desire for my life regarding possessions and finances.