Are Kids Getting Stupider?

Most of this is probably going to be a little bit repetitive due to the fact that there were things in class we spoke about that might come up into my opinion. First and foremost however, I I am slightly peeved with her writing style. There were a few things that stood out to me: why did it matter what the student council members looked like? Honestly, was that important? Was she trying to say they were pretty? Was there a hidden point about the stereotype of a pretty girl being unable to be intelligent? Because that is dumb. With that paragraph and section, I began to understand what kind of woman she was, and her real voice behind the article. The more I look and read, the more I agree with what this is: a rant.

It's not anything worth reading, though the concerns and points she have may be valid, the way in which she presents them and writes the article is nothing less than that of some gossiping forum/blog post. I frequent various forums across the Internet, and most of these forums have General Chat forums, or Rant/Rave forums. This article is something you would find in one of those sections. And in general, it would probably be ignored. In all honesty, if I was the mother of any of the children she spoke about, I'd have been mildly concerned for my children's safety; what with this angry woman eying up and making statements about my children.

That, however, is not the point, and I suppose that is a bit of rant myself. It makes me think about the comment someone said about 'parenting' being the issue. It is a parent's own fault if they're too 'scared' to give their kid a hand with homework, or discipline them, or encourage them. There should be a balance of everything. You cannot count out technology, because it is the way society runs today. Sure, illiteracy rates are on the rise (I wrote a 12 page paper on the negative effects of the internet, so I do indeed have back-up proof that this is, in fact, truth.) However, this is because kids are not enthused about what they need to read, or should be reading. They're aren't encouraged to do so. Teachers give up, parents give up. Everyone is different and needs different things. I don't think that technology is completely to blame, but it is a large part of the distraction.

Kids aren't opening up books to discover what they see in them because they've been programmed to think that books are bad. The books that kids are exposed to in school are textbooks, required reading... bland and boring things forced down their throats. There is a combination of things contributing to the lack of intelligence in society. I do indeed believe that there is one, but this is also largely affected by standards and the level of certain programs in the area. Everyone is being taught differently all across the country. I've been told that up in New Hampshire, kids in regular English classes have to read Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. In my school, in New York, you had to be in AP English to read that (in class, I mean, if you wanted it was in the library.)

And as for the attention-deficit disorder comment, well... everyone is a little bit ADD. Humans are naturally alert, it is almost abnormal to be able to concentrate on things for incredibly long periods of time. Sometimes distractions help people work better. This sort of terminology is used for people who differ from the norm, and in all honesty, I'm not really sure what's so wrong with being different. If everyone is different then it stands to reason we don't all do things the same way. I can't function on less than 9 hours of sleep, some say that's crazy. But maybe you (the reader) can function perfectly well on 4, and maybe I think that is crazy.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that technology is NOT totally to blame. People are looking for an excuse. They don't want to be burdened with the guilt or responsibility it would take to remedy this situation. And maybe this isn't true for everyone, but it is certainly true for this one mother. We, as a society, need to become more open-minded. Nothing will change unless that happens, and if literacy rates really are dropping, we better hope it happens fast.