On Tuesday 29 August 2006 13:31, Gene Heskett wrote:
Chuckle, but while its somewhat funny, its also an indication that
our educational system is today, a dismal failure when high school
graduates have trouble properly using even a 1200 word vocabulary.
By the time I was through the 8th grade, I had been tested at about
the 3000 mark, and I sincerely hope I have added another 5000 or
more, although little used, to my working vocabulary. Its indeed
frustrating when I'm trying to explain something to a Joe/Jill
Sixpack and get interrupted well before I've laid the foundation of
the explanation just because I've used the technically proper word
for something, but its not in their mental dictionary.
The biggest mistake (IMNSHO) was dropping phonetics as a study in
itself, without that base, a new words meaning is often nearly
complete gibberish to later students of the language who do not
have that base of how to take word apart to derive its meaning, or
to build a new word that better defines a meaning, in their
educational background. IMO, the wholesale failures of the
educational system of today can largely be laid to the result of
dropping phonetics from the curriculum.
I was fortunate in that my grammer school education took place in
the State of Iowa, where, back in the 40's, we were extremely proud
of being the most literate state in the union with a 99.9% literacy
rate. No educational system is doing its students any life favors
when the high school graduating class is composed of 20+%
functionally illiterate students, but they graduate anyway because
of the un-funded no child left behind act.
The financing of those truely exellent Iowa schools then was
exclusively from the profits of the state run liquor stores, with
the only beer being 3.2% over the counter or in pool halls. Then
some damned goody two-shoes got the bright idea that the state
really shouldn't be in the business of selling alcoholic beverages
and sold all the liquor stores to private enterprise, leaving only
a limited state alcohol tax & the rest of the tax base to make up
for the losses.
This resulted in a rather severe tightening of educational budgets
because the legislature was reluctant to maintain the funding level
by loading up more taxes elsewhere, and the result today is as
disastrous as it was predictable (by intelligent people) then.
But this was all done by design, by the few elitists that want to
control and suck dry the masses.
They deliberately dumbed down the education system through out the
country and threw in plenty of issues to keep the masses fighting
among themselves so they would not see what was being done to them.
This began happening at the moment the government stuck their nose in
the education system and started interfering with the established
system. Back in the late 1800s an 8th grade student had to pass a
test that was ten times harder than what is required of the 12th
grade now.
--
Jack Gates
http://www.morningstarcom.net