Tag: Students

“Idiocracy” Is Coming True!

About ten years ago I went to see a film by Mike Judge about the decline of the American people into a dystopian future where the population became idiots.  The movie was ‘Idiocracy’.

Since then I have watched their view of the future become more and more prophetic.

And now the news is not very encouraging abut the mental make-up of the people of this country….

For the first time in recorded human history, scientists have discovered a generation they claim is actually less intelligent than the one that came before it.

Neuroscientist Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, who previously worked as an educator, argues that people in Gen Z have become cognitively stunted as a result of their over-reliance on new technology, like smartphones.

With records being kept on academic achievement for the past 200 years, this sudden decline from Millennials to Gen Zers was attributed to this rapid digital development, with Dr Horvath explaining before a Senate committee last month that this drop happened despite young people spending longer than ever in school.

Gen Z are the first age group to grow up with easy access to the internet both at home and in school, which Dr Horvath explained has caused a provable loss in skills related to problem solving, reading, memory, math, and paying attention in class.

The Mail reports that Horvath told the Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee that this is directly tied to the rise of ‘educational technology’ in school, where teachers rely on tablets or computers in school as part of the learning process.

The neuroscientist claimed that humans had not developed over the course of millions of years of evolution to digest short video clips and sentences and convert them into understanding and memory, without having to work at a novel or think through a complex idea.

On January 15, Horvath told the committee: “More than half of the time a teenager is awake, half of it is spent staring at a screen.

“Humans are biologically programmed to learn from other humans and from deep study, not flipping through screens for bullet point summaries.”

Continuing his argument about human evolution, Horvath explained that, as social creatures, we had developed to learn from each other in face-to-face discussions. Not a short YouTube video or AI summary.

Even the act of looking at a screen can disrupt the process through which our brains store information, as well as hurt our ability to focus. He also argued that it was not a case of developing better apps, but returning to how humanity had evolved to process information.

Horvath said: “The answer appears to be the tools we are using within schools to drive that learning.

“If you look at the data, once countries adopt digital technology widely in schools, performance goes down significantly.”

Calling for a sea change in how those in power look at education, Horvath asked legislators: “What do kids do on computers? They skim.

“So rather than determining what do we want our children to do and gearing education towards that, we are redefining education to better suit the tool. That’s not progress, that is surrender.”

(unilad.com)

If this continues then this country is doomed….and as long as we have politicians willing to lie and steal this country is doomed….

Just watch ‘Idiocracy’…..

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

The movie was meant to be a comedy and instead it has become a gloomy prediction of our future without substantial change.

Glad my time is limited and I will not see the end results of this stupidity.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More On Those ‘Outside Agitators’

This ought wrinkle a few of the dullards that keep passing on crap as fact about the protests going on across the US…..they will not pay attention for this does not feed their ignorance.

I recently wrote a post about the accusation of those ‘outside agitators’ that conservatives and their lackeys keep trying to convince the nation exist.

For those that could not spare the time before maybe you can find a bit here…..

Those Damn ‘Outside Agitators’!

Groups have been watching these protest besides the media and people looking to start shit with lies….all that violence that is being blamed on ‘outside agitators’ is almost non-existent….that’s right dimwits….these are not violent….

Just over a week after U.S. President Joe Biden defended police crackdowns on dozens of anti-war protests on college campuses by declaring that students don’t have “the right to cause chaos,” a new analysis on Friday showed that nearly all the campus demonstrations have not been violent at all—and many that have descended into violence did so due to police interventions or aggressive counter-protests.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) examined 553 campus protests that took place across the U.S. between April 18-May 3 and found that fewer than 20 resulted in serious violence or property damage—meaning that 97% of the protests remained non-violent.

The group categorizes demonstrations as violent only when “physical violence that rises above pushing or shoving” takes place or when property damage includes protesters “breaking a window or worse.”

ACLED’s latest analysis comes after a previous study released May 2, which found 99% of campus protests in the first days of the burgeoning student-led movement against Israel’s assault on Gaza had remained peaceful.

In the latest report, analyzing the 3% of protests that became violent, ACLED found that at half of those students clashed with police who had been sent in to clear the peaceful student encampments—which should have been allowed to proceed unimpeded according to Biden’s speech about the protests on May 2, in which he said, “Peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to controversial issues.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-peaceful-protests

From the point of view of the protesters…..cops in riot gear would be an outside agitator…..but most are too numb to crap to see what I am talking about.

Educate….Agitate….Organize….

But Wait!

I think we may have identified those ‘outside agitators’ (sarcasm in case you missed it)

VFP members were present at the initial rally of about 200 people at Metropolitan State University of Denver, Auraria Campus, in Colorado on April 25 (photo above right). Since then, at least 40 students arrested. A VFP flag can be glimpsed in this local news clip. Thanks to Tina Jayroe for this report.

Members of VFP Chapter 125 rallied and marched in solidarity with 1500 others on the Emory University campus in Atlanta, Georgia (crowd shown above left) on April 26, the day after Emory President Fenves called in goons from the Atlanta Police and Georgia State Patrol who brutalized students and faculty, arresting over 50 people including the head of the Philosophy department. The next day, chapter members Marcone Canguso and Geoff Sumner appeared on WRFG’s Beyond Borders show to talk about the Emory University protests and unprovoked violence against students and faculty, “and the relevance of waging peace in today’s increasingly dishonest and cowardly environment.”

VFP members Craig Bardo and Tom Grose on Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 27. The veterans came to support the students who are camping out there.

Washington, D.C. VFP Chapter 16 member Mike Marceau is quoted in the online live encampment coverage posted by the GW Hatchet, an independent student paper serving the George Washington University community. He visited the encampment on May 4, its tenth day. Mike explains, “I told the crowd that I was a Vietnam veteran, that their peaceful action reminded me of the actions in the late ’60s, and that I was proud to stand with them as they spoke out against the Israel genocide and war crimes.” Read the GW Hatchet post HERE.

VFP?  Veterans For Peace.

But not to worry the idiots in the GOP and those that listen to the manure and pass it on as fact will be asking for an investigation…..

A House committee announced it was launching an investigation into 20 groups it claims are behind the campus protests against US support for Israel’s war in Gaza. In a letter to the Treasury Department, the members of Congress requested documents on the organizations while smearing them as antisemitic and pro-Hamas. 

On Tuesday, The Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Committee on Education sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janey Yellen requesting “All Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) generated in connection to the following organizations, or any known officer or employee thereof.” 

The list of 20 groups includes Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace IfNotNow, Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and People’s Forum. Some of the organizations are Jewish-led. 

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/congressional-committee-targets-pro-palestinian-groups-with-investigation/

I say investigate but make it all sides for instance how much cash flows to those calling for this from AIPAC…..and stop calling the protests pro-HAMAS or antisemitic they are neither.

This will be just another waste of time and taxpayer money….something the GOP is very good at doing with their time in DC…..but this time there will be Dems that go along with the bovine fecal matter.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Those Damn ‘Outside Agitators’!

First of all….who are these outside agitators?

Of all the hundreds of arrests how many were outside agitators?

Name some.

Or is it manure spread as fact?

That is the big term being batted around over the protests on college campuses…the accusation is that ‘agitators’ are running the show…I am not saying that other protesters are not involved….but I hear terms like ‘they do not look like a college student’….what does a college student look like?

Basically this is a concerted plan to divert attention away from what Israel is doing to make the grievances of the students is not legitimate.

In these instances, and others, authorities have not offered many specifics about who the “outside agitators” are, how significant their numbers are or how they differentiated outsiders from university-affiliated protesters.

Large-scale social movements can certainly be vulnerable to groups who seek to capitalize on the chaos for their own ends, said Aldon Morris, a professor emeritus of sociology and African American studies at Northwestern University. But time and again, authorities have leveled the broad accusation of “outside agitators” to undermine or stifle protests.

“The notion here is that student protests aren’t really legitimate because the claim is they are being taken over by outside agitators who are violent, anti-government, anti-democracy and so forth,” Morris told CNN.

The use of the term is nuanced. This time around, city officials, university administrators and supporters of the student protesters have allcited “outside agitators” as people who are trying to hijack the protests for their own means. But whether the person using the phrase is trying to quell the protests or defend them,it’s not always clear who these “outside agitators” are, and whether they can be classed as such in the first place.

“It seems to me that the ‘outside agitator’ claim is one to shift the focus away from the grievances of the students and their protest,” Morris said.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/27/us/campus-protests-palestine-outside-agitator-cec/index.html

College students have a long history of protests…..as far back as 1960 college students have been protesting what they see as problems in this country.

USA TODAY revisited four monumental campus protests to explain how college protests have become a staple of American life and often influence the outcomes of political strife. Here’s a look at how previous campus protests unfolded — and whether they were successful in their causes.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2024/04/28/us-has-long-history-of-college-protests-what-happened-in-the-past/73431111007/

History shows that students have a more moral compass than most of the ‘adults’ in this country…..are they wrong?

History proves my point…..

Recent protests have not yet reached the scale of the major student protests of the late 1960s against the Vietnam War or the 1980s against South African apartheid. But on campus, they may be “the largest student movement so far” of the 21st century, said Robert Cohen, a professor of social studies and history at New York University who has studied student activism. In recent decades, there were mass protests against the Iraq War, as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and after the killing of George Floyd, but they were primarily happening off campus.

Just like the protesters who came before them, the students who are now being arrested, and in some cases suspended, for setting up encampments on their campuses in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza have been demonized by politicians. At Columbia University, some protesters were removed and arrested by police after taking over the same building that antiwar protesters once occupied in 1968. The university has said that students who participated may be expelled.

Read More 

No they are not….they, protesters, see a problem and they bring light to the darkness of government and the media.

Just another attempt to cover Israel’s ass it seems.

Just who the Hell are these ‘outside agitators’?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is Education Failing?

For years now the retention skills of American children have been dropping and the latest stats look even more disturbing..

National test scores for 13-year-olds released Wednesday showed setbacks in mastering basic skills, providing evidence that schools and students have not overcome the lost learning caused by the pandemic. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, which conducted the tests last fall, reported major drops of nine points in math scores and four points in reading from three years earlier, before the start of the pandemic, the Washington Post reports. The results sparked serious concern across the education field. “This is more than alarming,” said an educator who’s on the board that sets test policy, adding, “We really need to be concerned about what is happening here.”

The declines in what’s been called the nation’s report card put the average reading score back to where it was in 2004 and the average math score back to the 1990 level. In both subjects, scores dropped the most for students already at the bottom of the scale. Students of all races and ethnicities fell in math. But reading scores varied, with Black, multiracial, and white students posting declines while Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, and Alaska Native students pretty much held steady, per the Post. Scores fell 11 points for female students overall and 7 for male students, per CNN. Roughly 8,700 students in 460 schools took the test.

The drop in scores has been pronounced since the pandemic first disrupted schools, but student performance already was in decline, per the New York Times; the questions are designed to spot long-term trends. Action is needed, said a junior high school math teacher from Colorado and member of the governing board. Researchers and policy analysts should help identify the most effective methods for teachers and schools, said Mark Miller, who considers the situation urgent. “It’s like the alarm has gone off,” he said.

History and civics scores are at a record low.

Ignorant students make ignorant voters.

I blame local school boards….they spend more time worrying about bathrooms and what books are acceptable and less time on the quality of the student’s education.

I blame the voters for not caring about their children’s education enough to learn the issues other than some divisive crap.

School boards should not be a political position.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ignorance At A Young Age

May the fourth be with you! (Happy Star Wars Day)

I am a proponent of a total education….especially in history and civics for without a knowledge of these essentials then an educated citizenry will be pliable to the ideas and programs of authoritarianism…..as we see today in our beloved country.

I bring all this up because of something I read the other day about our children and their knowledge…..

For instance…..you know the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware on his way to the successful attack in New Jersey during the Revolutionary War…..a recent study found that many students struggle to identify the standing man in the small boat….(hint:  It was George Washington)

Far too many American students are failing to learn the basics about their country’s history and how their government operates, according to the assessment known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” The average history score among eighth-graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) dropped five points between 2018 and 2022 to 258, the lowest on record, NPR reports. In 1994, the first year of assessment, the average score was 259. Civics scores also dropped for the first time in the assessment’s history. According to the findings, only 14% percent of American eighth-graders are proficient in US history and 22% are proficient in civics.

 
8th-Graders' History Scores Hit Record Low

Far too many American students are failing to learn the basics about their country’s history and how their government operates, according to the assessment known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” The average history score among eighth-graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) dropped five points between 2018 and 2022 to 258, the lowest on record, NPR reports. In 1994, the first year of assessment, the average score was 259. Civics scores also dropped for the first time in the assessment’s history. According to the findings, only 14% percent of American eighth-graders are proficient in US history and 22% are proficient in civics.

NAEP carries out the assessment on a nationally representative group of students from more than 400 public and private schools every four years. Results released last year showed steep drops in reading and math scores. Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, called the history and civics results a “national concern,” the Washington Post reports. Too many students, she said, are struggling to “understand and explain the importance of civic participation, how American government works and the historical significance of events.”

The NAEP found that around 68% of eighth-graders are taking classes focused on US history, down from 72% in 2018, AP reports. Around half were taking classes focused on civics or government. In a statement, US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said the report “further affirms the profound impact the pandemic had on student learning in subjects beyond math and reading,” though the Post notes that the decline in history scores began in 2014. Cardona added: “Banning history books and censoring educators from teaching these important subjects does our students a disservice and will move America in the wrong direction.”

This says it all and the best example of how destructive moronic programs that limit education have become.

Students are no longer teach what it means to be American…..a good education is a unifying characteristic which teaches students that we are all in this together…..nit the crap they are forced to teach these days.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–14Apr20

We have heard all the reports of the deaths, shortages and lack of responses……and most schools are out and probably for the rest of the school year.

There is one sad stat that has come out of the virus…..no one is dying in schools from mass shootings…..

The nationwide lockdown to stem the rise of the coronavirus has had one silver lining—March 2020 was the first March since 2002 without a school shooting. 

“Depressing on mulitple levels,” said New York Times reporter Annie Karni.

Washington Post reporter Robert Klemko made the observation Monday morning on Twitter.

“Heartbreaking statistic,” tweeted the Wall Street Journal‘s Robbie

Whelan in reply.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/13/heartbreaking-statistic-thanks-pandemic-last-month-was-first-march-2002-without-us

A classic good news/bad news.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–21Nov19

After I returned from Vietnam and left the Army I was a staunch opponent of ROTC on college campuses and later in the program called JROTC…where the military comes tomhi9gh schools and recruits…..my opposition was for naught for the program made it into the high schools in my area.

The rising costs of war and the dwindling amount of recruits has made the idea of a “national service” return to the backrooms in the Pentagon….

Over the past five years, retired Army Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich and Col. Larry Wilkerson along with members of the All-Volunteer Force Forum have traversed the country in an effort to address what they see as a looming crisis in the military — dwindling numbers of qualified and interested recruits for a military straining at the seams.

And they’ve got the solution: Bring back the draft.

The pair, along with William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy spoke to a crowd of a few dozen attendees in the Capitol Visitor’s Center Tuesday.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/11/19/rising-costs-dwindling-recruit-numbers-increasing-demands-may-bring-back-the-draft/

So the Army has decided to avoid the unpopularity of a draft the Army has decided that brain washing the young would be acceptable…..

Well the Army is beefing up their JROTC program…..

One of the Army’s biggest strategic challenges over the next few decades will be continuing to staff its all-volunteer force amid a shrinking population of capable and interested youth — but high school JROTC units could be part of the solution.

The Army has been “tearing apart” its recruitment data to figure out how to boost its accessions in an increasingly competitive job market. One of the solutions potentially on the horizon involves more focus on the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps at high schools.

The service, which is trying to grow to 500,000 active-duty soldiers by 2028, has found that Americans at high schools with JROTC programs are more than twice as likely to enlist after graduation, according to Maj. Gen. John R. Evans, Jr., who helms Army Cadet Command.

“And you don’t have to even participate in the program,” Evans told a crowd at an Association of the U.S. Army forum Wednesday. “The mere presence of the program at your high school has at least a corollary effect on your desire or your willingness or your propensity to serve your nation. So, pretty powerful data point there for us.”

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/11/07/how-increased-footprint-in-high-schools-may-help-army-fix-recruiting-shortfall/

I still believe that ROTC does not have a place on a campus unless it is a military academy…..and the young do not need a good washing of the brain…..they need an education not uniforms.

But that is me.

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Closing Thought–12Mar19

I have listened to our Beloved Leader on many occasions and his use of simplistic language leads me believe that he has NO grasp on complex ideas or thoughts.

My daughter and I were discussing our Beloved Leader and I told her that he says he is a”really smart person” but I think that if he is a grad of Wharton, probably the 2nd best business school, then daddy bought his degree.

Then I read something his professor i marketing had to say about student Trump……

Donald J. Trump was an undergraduate student at Wharton for the latter two of his college years, having graduated in 1968. 

Professor Kelley told me 100 times over three decades that “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.” I remember his emphasis and inflection — it went like this: “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.” Kelley told me this after Trump had become a celebrity, but long before he was considered a political figure. Kelley often referred to Trump’s arrogance when he told the story that Trump came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything. 

https://www.alternet.org/2017/10/former-wharton-professor-trump-was-dumbest-gddam-student-i-ever-had/

I knew it!

Who needs to study hard to get ahead when Daddy has money and the school needs a new classroom?

 

Closing Thought–22Oct18

I have always been an opponent of the military in our schools…..I feel that the students should be focused on their studies and not on whether they would make a good Marine in high school……if one chooses to be a soldier then apply to a military school like Our Dear Leader did in his youth (of course that was as close as he got to being a real soldier)….

The Army is failing to attract those young ones and is changing up its recruiting style…..

Recruiters armed with new marketing campaigns and technology will target cities where the Army has struggled to engage potential soldiers as part of a revamped strategy to fill the ranks.

The service is taking a holistic approach to updating its recruiting and marketing enterprises, which have gone years without proper review, Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, chief of Training and Doctrine Command, said Tuesday. The lack of assessment has left current recruiters poorly outfitted to engage their targets — about 30 percent of men and women ages 17 to 24 who qualify to join the military.

https://www.stripes.com/army-targets-young-americans-in-new-ways-for-recruiting-1.551040

To my young readers….DO NOT believe the hype!  The Army cannot guarantee you a spot of your choice because that is determined by a battery of tests that are given AFTER you sign on the dotted line.

Please think carefully before signing……keep in mind that this country is in wars all over the planet….your chances of deployment to a war zone is very good.

Protests And Then Some

Just when you thought the students protests were over……look and there they were yesterday……

A day already painful for gun control activists became even more so Friday when the 19th anniversary of the Columbine school massacre coincided with a shooting at a high school in Florida. One student at Ocala’s Forest High School suffered a non-life-threatening injury; the suspected shooter, identified as a male who is not a student at the school, was in custody, the Ocala Star Banner reports. It’s a scenario students across the country are already rallying against in coordinated walkouts Friday. More:

  • Origins:NPR reports Connecticut teenager Lane Murdock came up with the idea for the walkout upon learning of the deaths in Parkland, Fla. “I thought, originally, it would just be my school but, obviously, it’s grown,” the 16-year-old tells CNN. Students at more than 2,500 schools across the US were taking part. It grew out of this petition.
  • A test: The National School Walkout “will be a test for the staying power of this new wave of activism,” per Vox. Student leaders vow they won’t let fading headlines stop the movement
  • The goals: Unlike school walkouts earlier this year, this one is to last a full day, per the New York Times. One common theme: 13 seconds of silence to honor the 13 killed at Columbine. The walkout’s stated aims are to “hold elected officials accountable,” to advocate “solutions to gun violence,” and to promote political engagement.
  • Celebrity help: The Washington Post reports Robert DeNiro has penned a letter for students who need help getting out of class. “By bringing awareness of the tragic consequences of gun violence, and influencing out leaders to pass sensible gun laws, our communities and schools will become safer,” it reads.
  • Teacher remembers: At NPR, longtime Columbine teacher Paula Reed discusses the 1999 massacre, as well as this year’s school shooting in Parkland. “I came completely freakin’ unhinged,” she says of the Florida rampage. “It was too close to ours.”
  • ‘Enough’: Meanwhile, the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune has arranged the names of people killed on school campuses in the US in the last 20 years to spell “Enough.” “Please take the time to read these 223 names. Be sad. Be outraged,” it says.

The students refuse to do what Congress always does…….they refuse to rollover……..

These students refuse to go away.  Ignore these students at your own peril….these young people are becoming a force to be reckoned with….

Time for me to push away from the PC and do anything else….have a good day my friends…..chuq