What are American children learning?

It seems the 'Land of the Free' might be an outdated slogan according to the nations youth. In a recent survey one third of American high school students questioned said that they thought constitutional guarantees of free speech went 'too far', and half felt that newspapers should not be able to publish stories without government approval.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4225013.stm

WTF!! The muzzling of the press by the government is a hallmark of totalitarian societies and somehow half these kids think that's what SHOULD be happening. What is going on here? Personally I'm chalking up another point to the theory that public education is just a scheme to mass produce sheeple who have internalized the idea that authority is not to be questioned.

Sounds like axing the budget on civics courses was, um, a mistake.

And that is precisely an example of why kids aren't allowed to vote.

Consider that most kids are raised with what they can and can't say, being disciplined for talking back to parents... it's only rebellious kids or ones with really good parents that will understand this at an earlier age.

I don't think this is an American alone problem... it'd be like if you polled them and asked if they wanted to lower the drinking age. Duh.

I've seen similar polls of other demographic groups about the same topic since 9/11 and the results are pretty much the same across the board. Take it with a huge grain of salt. People generally aren't all that bright. To understand why free speach is such a good idea you have to look ahead through a couple of layers of cause and effect... definitely farther than most people think things through (which is usually not much beyond "Ow, stove hot! Fire burn!" They'd probably have gotten a wildly different result just by changing the order of the questions they asked. Not that it makes it any less scary, but they know not what they say.

If the majority of people are really as foolish and shortsighted as you believe, and if public education cannot remedy this, then perhaps this government by the people for the people thing wasn't such a good idea after all.

I find school can teach social skills and academic studies, but not common sense or ideals.
If your child is smart, in high school or college he or she may get some good teachers that will encourage them to be free-thinkers.

But really, that sort of curiosity and confidence in one's beliefs and right to think them are something that needs to be tought by family from a young age.

Let's just say I think the notion of a star trek future where we've overcome human nature is a tad far fetched. I think our system of government is among the most rational, but a government of the people is made up of... er... the people. I'd imagine the current percentages in the human population of excellent critical thinkers and people only slightly more intelligent than dryer lint are comparable to the ratios at any other time in history.

I should add that on the scale between genius and dryer lint, I'd put myself somewhere around day old bread.

I think the kids should spend a lil less time watching the idiot box, and a little more time reading books.

... I'd suggest starting with two lovely lil novels I had to read in school : Animal Farm and 1984.

Then ask them if they feel the same way.

I work in the media, and I affectionately call it 'the ministry of truth' - it's a squallid field of overripe turds, thats for sure... but I'd *dread* to think what it would look like if everything had to pass through the hands of a political official.... I'd sooner have it pass through the digestive system of a cow.

Siggy.

Yay! Now I've found my new forum sig line!

lol Paolo. Help yourself

Please -- at the very least you're a toasted onion bagel with butter.

I like toasted bagels with garlic butter myself... oh, and pie.

I happen to be a toasted asiago bagel with creamcheese and chives.

Sounds good. I'll need to investigate.

I think that it is possible that our children are being slowly conditioned to think that control of their speech and opinions is the norm. They have become accustomed to having their right to express themselves curtailed from the moment they enter school.

My younger brother, whom I raised, was suspended from school three different times for doing no more than questioning a teacher's credibility on a particular issue under discussion in class. In one instance, in psychology class, he asked "Isn't psychology more of a philosophy than a science?" And rather than open a productive discussion on the issue, the teacher sent him to the office for insubordination and he was suspended for three days. In another instance, he questioned the math/science instructor on a mathematical theory and pointed out to him that he was incorrect. What happens... I get a call from the school, come pick him up and if you don't put him on Ritalin, he can't come back. Granted on the scale of genius and dryer lint my brother is wonder bread.

Nevertheless, unless the child fits into their nice little round pegs, it becomes an issue and rather than inspire learning and stimulate the child’s mind they would prefer to drug them into silence.

Now they are conditioning them to accept that they have no right to personal privacy. They do this when they weigh them and report their BMI on their report cards and when they hand them a little cup to pee in for a mandatory drug test. They do this when they search their person and their locker simply because they walk into the school. They let them know right up front that by virtue of being kids, they are not worthy of trust.

Frankly, I think it is appalling and as it continues, this country will see less and less genius and a lot more dryer lint.

Rose,

I agree with your statements. I took my child out of public school for some of those very reasons. If she dared to question anything (Except in Honors English) she was sent to the principal's office, suspended, or sent to Alternative school. Most of the classes in her grade were so far below her intelligence level that I felt she was wasting her time. I didn't raise my child to be a clone of everyone else. She will not pretend to be dumb to get along. I did put my child on Adderall when she was 8 and it turned her into a zombie. The teachers loved her. She had no personality. In the end I pulled her out of public school in her 10th grade year. I have homeschooled her for a year and she is scheduled to take the GED next month. She will then start college a year early.

Oh and my daughter was the only child from 14 to 22 that hangs around our house that could carry on a decent political discussion.

I agree with you Rose. I just don't see it as a kind of conspiracy. It's simply a matter of not very bright people teaching kids who have the potential to be very bright but aren't there yet. I don't see a man behind the curtain pulling the strings. I see simply mediocre teachers who are poorly trained and are paid such a pittance that you have to wonder why they're there at all. In my perfect world teaching would be the highest paid and most honored profession in the world. It would be the career that people would aspire to and only the very best and brightest could attain. That's a far cry from what we have now where the qualifications are laughable and the teachers union protects even the most inept.

I don't agree. I think that intelligence is actively being suppressed at the high end by the "education system" - what a phrase - and that seeps into the culture in general. Not to mention the litigious nature of society "blanding" everything.

But in addition to that, as regards the initial post, I think that authoritarianism is being subtly(or not so subtly), slowly ingrained into our culture by the Powers That Be.

Personally I think there are far more conspiracies than even paranoid folks believe. I know, because I've seen the way the street lights sometimes shut off when I walk, or drive under them.

If by "the powers that be" you mean the Christian church, I agree

While I agree to a point, I still have to blame the parents. My son is certainly a free-thinker, intelligent, curious and well read for his age. We encouraged these traits, unlike many parents.

All too often, dumb parents will instill a certain level of "dumbness" into thier children, or at least not encrourage them to be real thinkers.

Public schools can only do so much, and most teachers deal with a huge volume of kids. I think teachers should recieve better pay, but also be held to much higher standards. Many seem to just be passing the time, instead of taking an active and critical interest in educating, and making things lively and interesting.

The Powers That Be are what I call them because there are a lot of them. And they don't all "exist" in the sense most people would think of something existing. A lot of it is what Paul was probably referring to when he wrote "We fight not against flesh and blood, but against Powers and Principalities", or as my friend Autumn called it - "the Conspiracy with no Conspirators".

A lot of it is an artifact of prior Conspiracies and Powers. For instance, if authoritarianism grows in a certain society, that creates a selection filter so that only authoritarians get into positions of power... their mindset seeps out into the culture at large, and gets reflected back.

This is why, I think, Jefferson wanted a revolution every 2 generations or so. To prevent this kind of "Rule by Ghosts". For a specific instance, I think we are still ruled by the Ghosts of FDR and JP Morgan to a great extent today, even though they and their specific institutions may not rule directly.

The fundamentalist Christians, especially the Dominionists, are a big part of the P.T.B. in America these days. Their "don't ask questions, just do it" mentality is slipping into general use by authority figures everywhere.

Maybe not so much of a conspiracy as a mind set that is spiraling "into" control. (Though on a scale of 1 to 10 for spotting alleged conspiracies, I'm Mel Gibson),

It's sort of like when a brilliant person starts up a business - they are never the most productive ones to run it after their idea has been implemented.

Corporations have a lot to gain by a pacified, compliant work force that doesn’t object to being told what to do, think and how to live - up to and including - physical health and privacy.

While snuffing out critical and creative thinking is short sighted and NOT in their best interest, most corporations today are not looking that far ahead. For that matter, I don't think our government is either. In fact, eliminating critical and creative thinking actually serves their short term goals as it eliminates individual focus and increases productivity by repetition.

It's Henry Ford transmogrified into Frankencorp.

I think this is for structural reasons, because of what central banking has done to the economy... time horizons are a LOT shorter than they would be in equilibrium.
To be plain - money now is worth wayyy more than money later. Part of that is also that really old people run most of everything. And at the middle-bureaucratic levels, a lot of them believe in a soon-to-come apocalypse, though that may be an incidental means of shortening their time horizons so they go along with the game.