Posted on 03/06/2011 11:45:45 AM PST by Nachum
Okay, folks, place your bets. Was it clueless incompetence on a cosmic scale? Or, was it John Deweys collectivist wet dream turned Clockwork Orange?
One of these ways or the other, we became a country with 50,000,000 functional illiterates, people who can't read a cereal box, never mind instructions on a pill bottle when that exact skill might save a life. Prisons are full of people who can't read. The country's schools wallow in mediocrity. All thanks to educational malfeasance, decade after decade.
Illiteracy_in_AmericaJ'accuse! J'accuse! The so-called experts in charge of reading are derelict and destructive. Please, remove these parasites from our weary carcass.
Reading was always something that kids learned, almost automatically, in the first few years of schools. Kids learn the alphabet, then A is for Apple, then the sounds of the letters, and soon everyone is reading.
(Excerpt) Read more at rightsidenews.com ...
It cant add either.
My college-educated cousin went to jail for child support problems in a tussle with his ex-wife. He told me he was amazed that almost everyone in the jail was unable to read. This was in Iowa, the state with the highest literacy of all the 50 states! He said he tried to teach some of them as much as he could while there.
What America needs is a "Great Leap to the Past" which involves more self-reliance, less government intervention, lots of pain and suffering, and in the end makes this country more like it was 100 years ago.
Getting rid of government schools would be a good start.
50,000,000 illiterate adults in America.
Almost exclusively brought to you by the teachers’ unions, and the apathetic, crappy teachers the unions protect.
(Please don’t rant, I qualified the teachers the comment is referring to.)
“Okay, folks, place your bets. Was it clueless incompetence on a cosmic scale? Or, was it John Deweys collectivist wet dream turned Clockwork Orange? “
That’s easy. It’s Dewey’s fault.
He was one of the prime movers and shakers that wanted to move to universal gov’t schooling — not to improve the educational level of people in the country, but to indoctrinate children in how to be good citizens of gov’t. Back then the intelligentsia wanted a willing workforce to take factory jobs and make the robber barons rich and create more and more gov’t control over people’s lives. He visited the highly regimented Prussian school system and was in love with the prospect of bringing it to America. Two generations later his dream (our nightmare) has been realized.
It was his idea that this type of school system would eventually bring about ‘Social Utopia’.
The problem with gov’t schools is just that — they are gov’t schools. The current system does not line up with the ideals of a free country and can’t be fixed, it can only be replaced with something better.
“It is absurdly easy to teach a child to read with [phonics]. Most of the children in America could be taught to read in a few weeks or months at the age of five.”
It took me an average of 8 weeks for my kids to be able to read, all before age 4. But yes, you have to use phonics, and nothing else. In my case, I didn’t even use a program, I just wrote letters on a marker board and made the kids remember the sounds...then put the sounds together into words.
It is fast, easy, and practically free. The only reason 50,000,000 people cannot read is because we have people that simply don’t want them to read. That’s it.
They are too busy learning about Van Jones and social Indoctrination to learn about reading.
It was illegal to teach a slave to read because reading lead to knowledge and that lead to a desire for liberty.
That has not changed.
Can’t read, or won’t read? I’ve heard us described as “post-literate”. It seems to fit.
and an aside to umgud: Not polite, and probably racist to graphically imply that every young black man in the group fears responsibility and fatherhood. Is that your point, umgud? Are you a racist?
Was that baby Obama in Hawaii?
Cry me a river...
I can honestly say I have no memory of not being able to read. My parents figured out I could read when I was two and could read names on television without hearing them said.
“(Please don’t rant, I qualified the teachers the comment is referring to.)”
Why?? As someone quite brilliantly put it, where were the teachers that supported the (Wisconsin) governor demonstrating?
No where - no where to be found. They seem to have no problem with the lunatics running the system - or else they would organize and SPEAK UP.
No, they do not...in fact, there probably are not that many, as they elect their unions leaders (in fair elections) and have yet to find a SINGLE UNION LEADER who gives a rats ass about whether kids are learning anything.
So, if they are any good teachers out there, they HAVE A DUTY TO BE HEARD. And if they don’t feel it’s worth the effort, then they are simply enablers.
Did you forget Horace Mann? I always wondered why there were so many schools with that name, then I looked him up. It’s the Prussian educational system.
The ability top read has nothing to do with intelligence. There are many assh0les with PhD’s who are educated and know a lot of wrong and useless garbage and theories and are just as stupid as the day they were born.
,” where were the teachers that supported the (Wisconsin) governor demonstrating? “
With no evidence to back this up, may I hypothesize??
Perhaps they were in their classrooms, doing their FREAKIN’ JOBS!!!!
True, but it’s brought on even more by:
-Fatherlessness
-An anti-education attitude among those of a certain racial background who tend to live in larger urban areas
-An anti-education attitude among those of a lighter skinned racial background who stereotypically live in trailer parks
-Government social programs
_Did I mention fatherlessness?
I think this particular issue is tied expressly to ‘whole word’ vs. phonics teaching methods.
My girlfriend’s sister would get frustrated over his inability to read fluently that she would take the book from him and read aloud...in 8th grade. then she would figure his math problems, all the while screaming at him. It’s not only bad teachers but bad parents and a society too fixated on the “rights” of a child.
Not every young black man fears responsibility? No, but far too many. Is that your point? No, but stats look pretty poorly. Are you a racist? No.
I was very fortunate to learn to read phonetically. It gave me the confidence to tackle works far beyond my ability at various times, for example, Milton’s Paradise Lost while a fourth grader and the best short stories of the old Saturday Evening Post.
So did I go to a fancy new school? No. Three grades in one room, a big coal stove in the back and no indoor plumbing.
But I had a teacher that knew what she doing and how to do it.
This was the plan all along...
“I believe that..education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform”
“I believe that...it is the business of every one interested in education to insist upon the school as the primary and most effective instrument of social progress and reform...”
“I believe that...every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.”
“I believe that...when society once recognizes the possibilities in this direction, and the obligations which these possibilities impose, it is impossible to conceive of the resources of time, attention, and MONEY which will be put at the disposal of the educator.”
All of the above are from “Education Today” by John Dewey published in 1940. They were all originally published in 1897 as his “Pedagogic Creed”. He was also a signer of the “Humanist Manifesto 1” in 1933.
“The conditions of work, education, devotion, and play should be humanized. Alienating forces should be modified or eradicated...” From the “Humanist Manifesto 2” in 1973.
If you cannot read then you cannot learn on your own. If you cannot learn on your own then you are able to by “modified”. For those of us that can read and learn on our own...they want to “eradicate”...kinda sounds like Mao.
“Perhaps they were in their classrooms, doing their FREAKIN’ JOBS!!!!”
How about on weekends? Not a peep from these enablers.
“Prisons are full of people who can’t read.”
I don’t suppose any of the blame can be placed on the people who are in prison, or on their families, broken families, pop culture that glorifies criminals, thugs and racial hatred. We will never make all schools great schools, but all schools would be exponentially better if parents would accept the responsibility of educating their children. Parents put their kids in school when they are six or younger, and that’s the end of their responsibility.
Besides his really weird, not to mention wrong, statements about reading, he also stated that teaching penmanship should be ditched, since everyone would be using a typewriter. And bear in mind, he said this over 100 years ago.
FWIW.............Dewey not only taught at the University of Chicago, where he set up their private school ( the LAB SCHOOL, where Obama's children went to, until they all moved to D.C. ! ), but was a major deal at Columbia University's "Teacher's College",instilling his patently ridiculous ideas in all strata of future teachers.
Yes, John Dewey really is one of the founding fathers of not only dumbing down America, but destroying the minds and abilities of at least 4 generations of hapless children.
bttt
I’m sure some of the ones that but the Obamanation into power can read. But unfortunately that cannot think.
My sister taught her kids to read the same way. Both of them were reading at around age 3 or 4, like yours.
And with the youngest one the teacher had the nerve to criticize my sister for not teaching her son to read “using the proper methodology”. Sis shot back “he can read better than the rest of the class, go ahead and make an issue of it” and the teacher shut up.
He’s being transferred to a private Christian school at the end of this quarter.
Just a guess here, but the 'good' teachers have more than likely been thoroughly intimidated into silence by the union thugocracy.
If you've never personally endured such a thing, you have no idea how deadly serious these folks are. I was once a Teamster. I know.
Not polite, and probably racist to graphically imply that every young black man in the group fears responsibility and fatherhood.”
Correct - the fear of responsibility only applies in 70+% of cases nationally, while reaching much higher levels in liberal urban centers. Just the facts.
Same with me. At a young school age, I was reading much higher level books such as stuff for high school and some college.
Instead of Dick And Jane, I preferred JANE’s books and their equivalents that the public library had.
In the typical public skrool way I was punished for it for a few years up through middle school by being put in some kind of development class with people that were polar opposites with learning disabilities.
“He’s being transferred to a private Christian school at the end of this quarter.”
Yea, there’s really nothing to it. People have been reading for 5,000 years, and believe me, most of that time, there was not an army of ‘education experts’. This stuff is child’s play.
As to your ‘trouble maker’ nephew (LOL), just the reaction of the Blob (as Thomas Sowell calls them) to him makes it more than clear that success for her kids was simply not an objective of today’s teachers.
School choice doesn’t end the problem or restore family responsibility....only separating school and state will.
Even those who CAN read are pretty screwed up. Obozo is their poster boy.
“(…) the spread of secondary and latterly tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.” — P.B. Medawar
The ultimate portable skill now missing from a large segment of our population is the capability of CRITICAL THOUGHT! It goes a long way toward explaining our current mess (the violation of the laws of economics) and almost certainly explains Obama.
So many can’t read...sounds like a great opportunity to have a commercial “Look for the Union Label” Since they were educated in union run government schools.
“We will never make all schools great schools, but all schools would be exponentially better if parents would accept the responsibility of educating their children. Parents put their kids in school when they are six or younger, and that’s the end of their responsibility.”
You need to see “Waiting for Superman”. That will likely change your attitude about blaming parents for the failure of schools.
I used to work for a sort of technology company and some of those guys were good folks but had no reading or grammar skills at all.
Some of these guys went to a diploma mill for computers and did not know what RAM was, what it looked like, or even the types of slots it typicall fit in.
When the “test project” was closed down on me without nary a direct word and I left, it was reactivated and given to a couple of the poor guys that are propped up and supported by liberal mid-west managers.
“Just a guess here, but the ‘good’ teachers have more than likely been thoroughly intimidated into silence by the union thugocracy.”
No doubt that’s a big part...but at the expense of sending off generation after generation of illiterates?
There is a point where the good people have to rise up and stop this crap...and if they don’t, they shouldn’t be part of it.
I highly doubt that the 'good' teachers amount to anything like a majority. We're talking one here, another one there... I believe they're outnumbered, and in fear for their safety.
If they really want to fight back, they need to leave the group, and join with those outside the cess pool. You take your life in your hands, trying to fight this from within.
Uh, uh duh besides the 50,000,000 that can’t read we have a president who can’t read without a Teleprompter.
Same here. My parents said I just started reading a cereal box to them when I was 2 or 3. I remember seeing them holding my younger siblings on their laps and reading to them while underlining the words with their fingers, and none of my sibs needed to be 'taught' to read either, so I assume that's how I picked it up too.
That's called an EMP.
I'd kind of like to skip that part. Keep the decent technology functioning, just lose the fascist economic, political, and social structure which has been holding us back for the past century or so.
My, aren’t we PC...
You can blame liberalism and feminism and democrats for the increase in fatherlessness. The same ones pushing for more and more money for “schools” (teachers unions).
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