A couple of weeks ago I read an amusing column by Joe Soucheray in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. In it he wrote about how the educational system we’re pouring billions of dollars into is failing because it continues to crank out idiots who (among other things) don’t understand that you can actually die from drinking too much water.
Refreshingly, Soucheray’s conclusion wasn’t that teachers aren’t doing their jobs. It was that people are just dumber than they used to be. He wasn’t sure why, but based on how easy it is to find examples of stupidity today, he was quite sure people just don’t have the brains they used to.
He did make some interesting points. If you stop to think about it, initially, it does seem like the number of dumb people is on the rise. Indeed, late night TV talk shows have been ahead of the curve on this one. Except for terrible singers, nothing’s funnier than stupidity. What a great country. Where else is it possible for a society to capitalize on it’s own weaknesses?
It certainly is an easy argument to make. As Jay Leno has shown us, it’s really not that hard to find stupid people these days. Be it history, geography, literature, grammar, current events or mathematics, millions of Americans should know more than they do. This is something I think we can almost all agree upon. It’s why we, as a nation, are always so concerned about the state of education. I mean, when was the last time you heard someone say, “Boy our schools sure are great. Kids today are smarter than ever.”?
But if this is the case—if, for some reason, Americans are indeed getting dumber—logically we should begin to see a drop in the productivity of U.S. workers. Right? But we’re not. According to the U.S. government, worker productivity has been on the rise since the early ‘90s and has accelerated dramatically in the last five years.
According to a recent article in INC. magazine, just one example of this rise in productivity can be found in the insurance industry. On average, in 1991, a worker in insurance contributed $85,000 in revenue to his or her company. Today it’s $250,000. So I guess the only conclusion we can make now is that stupid people (and bad singers), while funny, are still great for the economy.
The problem with the argument that schools are failing or that people are dumber is that they both contain faulty assumptions—that we know what people today should know in order to be productive members of society. Or better yet—we can know.
Children in kindergarten today will be graduating from high school in the year 2019. We don’t know what the world will look like in five years. What are the specific sets of facts or skills that are going to be valuable in the year 2019 and beyond? Will it be important to know where Edmonton is? Should everyone in that graduating class be required to know about John Smith and Pocahontas? How about the capital of
Rhode Island or the elements of the periodic table?
Maybe we should be asking Jay Leno these questions.
Our current educational model was built to meet the needs of industrialism. As such, it is assumes that you should know certain things, and you should be afraid of making mistakes—just like you should be afraid of your boss and to make mistakes on the job. Tests are given so that we know that you know certain things. But let’s face it. Some kids are rebellious. Some kids just don’t care about tests. And sometimes, try as we might, we simply can’t make them afraid.
So today, understanding the complex interplay between all of the issues surrounding society and education, American politicians have devised a system called No Child Left Behind–so that others can be afraid for them. And I think it’s working. Administrators, teachers and school boards across the nation are wringing their hands over test data, devising complex and thorough systems to identify children at risk, and redoubling their efforts to differentiate instruction to fit the unique learning styles of each student.
Thankfully, however, educators aren’t fighting this battle alone. Drs. and pharmaceutical companies are also doing their part by creating and distributing drugs that help fidgety kids stay focused.
“Every educational system around the world has the same hierarchy of subjects,” says Sir Ken Robinson, an expert educator and Senior Consultant for the Paul J. Getty Trust. “At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts. And even within the arts is a hierarchy too. Art and music are usually given a higher status than drama and dance. There isn’t an educational system in the world that teaches children dance every day the way we do mathematics.
“Truly what happens as children grow up is that we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads—and slightly to one side,” he says.
Robinson concludes that the whole purpose of educational systems around the world is to produce university professors. What he advocates we do instead, is to cultivate creativity.
In 1934, Gillian Lynne’s teachers thought there was something wrong with the eight year old because she couldn’t sit still. She couldn’t focus and wasn’t getting anything done. So they recommended her parents bring her to a Dr..
After the initial examination, the Dr. asked her mother to step with him out of the room, leaving the young Gillian on her own. But before he left, he flipped on the radio. Outside, the Dr. simply asked Gillian’s mother to watch her through the window.
“Your daughter is not sick, Mrs. Lynne,” said the Dr.. “She’s a dancer. Take her to a dance school.”
Luckily, she did, and Gillian Lynne excelled. Eventually she met Andrew Lloyd Webber, and has since composed for some of the most successful musicals in history– including “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera.” She’s been extremely successful in her career, contributed greatly to society and culture, given pleasure to millions and is a millionaire many times over.
But I have to wonder—might she have just done better with an ADHD diagnosis and some meds?
And do you think she knows that drinking too much water can be fatal?
Related Articles:
18 responses so far ↓
1 Kenzie // Feb 12, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Oh, oh, oh– I am in love with this entire article that you wrote. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to comment. Just know that I loved it. The end.
Thanks Kenzie. I love exploring creativity and critical thinking. To me everything else (in education anyway) is just a means to that end.
Chris
2 Diane // Feb 13, 2007 at 9:21 am
Ditto Kenzie.
Thanks Diane
CW
3 Jake Wisse // Feb 15, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Brilliant article!!!
4 tinatech // Mar 4, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Oh so true! Now if we could get the basics into our daily curriculum (balancing a check book in 5th grade) and understanding that YES, you do have to have money in the bank BEFORE you write your name on the check … balance your checkbook (not just within the closest $1000.00) so your checks don’t bounce … and then remember to deduct the bank charges when they do…we would be much more prepared for the real world than ever before!
Thanks Tina,
There is always room for improvement–that’s for sure.
Thanks for your comments!
Chris
5 tobeme // Mar 6, 2007 at 9:53 am
Great article! Very well written!
I wonder if this woman knows how lucky she was to have seen a doctor that had such an understanding. The shame is that it today litigative society doctors are afraid not to diagnosis something and prescribe something. How many children have we hurt with this mentality? What has our culture missed out on?
Hi Mark,
One thing I try specifically not to do is think about “what might have been.” Talk about a bummer. Plus, whatever you pay attention to gets all the energy, right?
Great point about doctors though. That is a big deal. Not to rip on doctors (because I know quite a few, and they are always an easy target), but I shudder to think of how many write prescriptions just for the reason you stated above.
One thing I’d like to see is much more personal responsibility when it comes to health care. I’ve actually got a lot to say about that–someday.
Thanks again for stopping and sharing your voice! Your a great benefit to this blog. And not a bad blogger yourself.
Chris
6 Jim Serrat // Mar 12, 2007 at 2:28 pm
WHOA! For starters, I don’t agree with the premise that people today are dumber than people in the past.
The analysis is superficial and the assertion is unsupported.
Consider for a moment that people “appear” dumber because with today’s technology, we see and hear more of these “dumb” people.
Jay Leno’s famous on-the street interviews makes for terribly funny fare… I agree. But I bet that if you conducted the equivalent survey a hundred years ago, you would get equally hilarious results: people would have looked very dumb.
People “know” what they need to know to survive. That’s why productivity is not going down. It’s simply not connected in any meaningful way with the general “dumbness” of this country.
The poor mechanic who answers “Alaska” to Leno’s question: Name a country that begins with “A”, probably knows his job very well and simply doesn’t need to know the correct answer to Jay’s question in order to be a success in his job.
By the way, I have a graduate education but have no clue what a thingamajiggy belt on my car does. Does that make me dumb?
Couldn’t agree with you more, Jim.
Thanks for saying that.
Chris
7 John Vance // Mar 12, 2007 at 3:51 pm
People aren’t getting dumber - they’re getting smarter. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
Very interesting. Though I expected as much, I hadn’t seen that information anywhere before. Thank you very much!
Chris
8 Jonathan // Mar 12, 2007 at 4:02 pm
I would only add one more point…
The amount of knowledge needed to be considered expert in most lucrative fields grows exponentially with each passing year. In my father’s time, in order to get a PhD in Math, some programs required their graduate to know all math… Any mathematics question was fair game at orals.
That would be completely impossible today - the number of math theorems probably doubles every six or seven years now. And many fields like genetic engineering and computer science are expanding at faster rates than mathematics. Medicine and law are not exceptions to this rule either.
And as the world specializes more each day, it’s less important to be a generalist. Yet that is what schools emphasize more in their curricula with each passing year.
I always thought report cards were a strange way to assess a child’s progress in school. If your child is a biology wunderkind, but has trouble in history and English literature, the child is reprimanded more than another student who is average in all subjects. But which child will be more productive later in life?
Anyway, I wholeheartedly agree with your article. Just wanted to add a few more dimensions to the problem.
Great points Jonathan,
They emphasis my point perfectly. Glad to see there are others out there with the same opinion.
Thanks again for adding your comments.
Chris
9 Whiteboard // Mar 12, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Nice read. It’s interesting because if you look at the current academic literature on education, the problems with the system are well know and many great new models have been developed. The problems are both infusing the system with teachers who carry this ideology and shedding the baggage of the past (one text book, abcdef grades, regents exams, sat exams, psat). If we want to reorganize the system we can’t keep dragging these things along.
—-
Shredder
Thanks Whiteboard,
I agree. The traditional grading system has got to go.
Chris
10 More Ken // Mar 12, 2007 at 9:21 pm
The story about the dancer is in Sir Ken Robinson’s talk at TED Talks. Check out the video here:
The other videos on this site are great as well.
Chris, you should give credit to your sources by linking to them. Nice article though.
More Ken,
Thanks for the help with the link. I’d had trouble with that link earlier.
Yes! Ted Talks is outstanding! I just found that site (through another teacher) a couple of months ago. Makes me want to go buy an I-Pod so I can download all those great speeches.
Thanks for the comment Ken, and especially for the link.
Chris
11 Dave // Mar 12, 2007 at 10:42 pm
your arguments are dubious, just because productivity is up doesn’t mean anything. First we have been importing skilled labor for the same amount of time, at a cheaper as the increase in productivity. Not to mention the the increase in technology over the same period- the technology is what allows fewer people to be more productive, skewing your medain by an untold amount.
The truth is that our culture of teaching to the test is not only producing idiots on the informatino standard, it is producing a generation of people that cannot think for themselves. That cannot solve a problem unless someone solves it for them. The sad thing is that economists and industry leaders have been saying for over 100 years that those are the most productive employees, because they don’t ask any questions.
so you can see that linking intellegence to productivity is a silly idea to begin with
12 Dave // Mar 12, 2007 at 10:45 pm
also, No Child Left Behind never got funded- only passed.
13 Josh // Mar 13, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Great article. It highlights many of the problems I see with our educational system. In school I receieved high grades in all but English classes. I believe I have a firm grasp of the only language I’ve ever spoken, I simply lost interest in tests on where the comma goes, but it discouraged me to the point i pretty much gave up and dropped out to move around the country on a motorcycle. I did go back and get my diploma, but I think that could be the greatest problem with our current system - keeping the students interested in our fast-paced media driven society.
Children can’t sit still, so we drug them.
They are curious to the point of annoyance(mine are 2 and 3), so we give them distractions or, as you pointed out, we try to scare them. I don’t think the scare tactics work with children, it only instills irrational fears and inhibits curiosity. Fear and suppression have always been used to control the masses, though. I learned that in school.
14 Is creativity as important as literacy? Better yet: Do schools care? // May 5, 2007 at 1:15 am
[...] I was inspired enough by this speech to write this column titled “Why Stupidity is a Good Thing,” for a local paper. I should have linked to Robinson’s talk back [...]
15 taylor // Jul 5, 2007 at 9:48 pm
I MISS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHHA buh bye
16 Dark Revent // Oct 22, 2007 at 3:34 am
I highly compliment on your views for, as a high school student, strongly agree. My parents are the same in the aspect that they have no care and see no need for my creative talents. For, I too, love to think much about society and how most people are dying inside due to this lack of creative caring. For which, our minds are dwindiling into complete stupidity… I praise the last smart individuals left on this earth…
17 Think Thank Thunk » For Teachers » Is creativity as important as literacy? // Apr 2, 2008 at 12:03 am
[...] I was inspired enough by this speech to write this column titled “Why Stupidity is a Good Thing,” for a local paper. I should have linked to Robinson’s talk back [...]
18 Laurie // Dec 1, 2009 at 7:43 am
Hey there Chris - I know I am really late in commenting on this article, but have just recently found your blog and am having fun reading all the posts out here…I have to say I LOVE this one…just one comment…
You said, “Tests are given so that we know that you know certain things. But let’s face it. Some kids are rebellious. Some kids just don’t care about tests. And sometimes, try as we might, we simply can’t make them afraid.”
Unfortunately, in my case, the tests made me SO afraid, that I did really poorly on them. Not rebellion - total and complete FEAR is what killed my test grades. The only thing that saved most of my grades was that I did the daily work well…
I have to say - I love the idea of creating a learning place of creativity - much more learning happens when the mind is actively engaged in a fun activity than when it is sitting there listening to someone diagram a sentence or explain a theorem or go on and on about something in history - which may be important, so we don’t repeat those mistakes - but to a 14 y.o. who is more interested in the boy/girl next to him/her than what Napolean did at Waterloo - doesn’t matter….but then, maybe that is the musician in me!
Hey Laurie,
Better late than never! Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for leaving your thoughts.
Chris
Leave a Comment