This week I'm stepping back from posts directly connected to our work in class. My husband pointed out this article two weeks ago when it appeared in the SF Chronicle. Mark Morford writes a pretty persuasive article with much evidence. Read the article to see what he says. (By the way, the article is written at the 10.6 grade level.)
Your task this week is to provide the counterarguments. You are the generation he is calling 'dumber than dirt'. Defend yourself.
33 comments:
I see it in our generation, teh people that cant think for themselve or even fear to. i can see them struggle to think and shun me for doing what they refuse to attempt. it makes me sad but i still have faith in humanity. because im not the last free thinker out there. of the 7 billion humans there are many who still think about the world and what it all means. someday we will return to discover what we truly are but in the meantime america is in its learning phase of what humanitys lowest limmits are. they refusse what they have the right to and this leads to basic instinct of the human body 'fight to survive' and that is all.
agriculture- the science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products.
democracy- a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
just so i can say i know the definition.
I believe that students these days are very intellegent, however, they just prefer to apply themselves to things they find more entertaining. If they dont find an assignment fun or interesting, then they won't apply themselves. The assignments should force the students to get involved and the techers should praise them for trying.The teachers need to give more positive feedback to the students too. If they feel intimidated by getting the wrong answer, then they won't try. And eventually won't participate at all. The teens of today are very talented, but just at different things.
I am speaking as an individual unfortunately there is some truth in what Mr.Oakland Teacher is saying but I am an American kid but I'm not dumb.In defense of my peers society has changed since the sixties and seventies. when all you had to worry about was pimples and the first day of school.Ok Ok another kid blaming society but give me a minute. not only do we have to worry about being shot at, raped by our teachers, where we are going to live because our parents cant afford to buy a house now a days so were forced to live in dangerous neighborhoods. some of us just give up and try to survive wherever we are but some of us look beyond the hopelessness, ignore people like you who tell us were idiots and make it successfully.So instead of saying American Kids, try saying the unfortunate few whose parents, society,and teachers gave up on.
I THINK THAT OUR GENERATIONS ARE NOT DUMB AT ALL, ACTUALLY, IT'S VERY INTELLIGENT BUT THEY DON'T WANT IT TO SHOW BECAUSE THE REST OF THE CLASSMATE WILL MAKE FUN OF HIM OR HER. THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING, ALL THE STUDENTS HAVE SOME SKILLS, BUT IT DEPENDS ON WHAT THEIR PARENTS THAUGHT THEM TO DO, AND THEY THINK THAT WITH THOSE SKILLS IS ENOUGH TO KNOW IN THEIR LIFE, SO THEY DON'T WORK HARD AS THE TEACHER WANT US TO WORK AT CLASS.
i believe that everyone is intelligent, but sometimes we just have a hard time applying ourselves. the writer and the teacher just can't say we are not smart. yes the teacher has seen it firsthand, but he just can't say that we are not smart. it would just like saying that everyone who is not beautiful is just not beautiful. everyone is smart in their own way but some may have a hard time applying themselves in many things. he is right though o say that our generation is very differnet. we have more technology and it may make us seem unintelligent. but everyone is intelligent in their own way and its unfair to say that we are dumber than dirt.
Our generation is not dumb, there are new inventions that we need to learn how to use and the cellphone happens to be one of them. This is an outragious article saying how stupid we are and no one on the face of the Earth no matter what generation is stupid. I dont what to go against my counterargument but the guy wrote this is stupid.
After reading this article, it made me wonder are we, our generation, really getting dumber or is it the educational system not doing their jobs correctly? I believe that everyone is smart and creative in their own special ways. I think since we have all these technology, like our ipods, cellphones, television and much more that we barely have to use our brains of inteligience anymore. American kids can be too ignorant theses days but, it isn't fair at all to say that my gerneration is "dumber than dirt." These people even said, "The worst part: It's not the kids' fault. They're merely the victims of a horribly failed educational system." It is not our fault that smarter people, nowadays, invented more technlogy things and the educational system are not teaching us the correct things to learn. Once again, it is not fair at all to say that we are dumber than dirt because the older generation hasn't seen us in the real world being independent. I set my case, we are not dumber than dirt!
I do not agree with this article.As a student myself i can tell you first hand into the minds of the students i know.We are a very intellegent group of people i mean ask your kid for help on computer skills and you'll feel like your dumb compared to them.students can do very complex skill at an early age it is just we have tecnology which helps us do all the easy things that sometime our know how slips our minds but we have the ability to learn it and once spark we remember it copletely like in a critical situation if we need it scarcly.you can see that our intellegence will show when sparked in just the right way
I don't think that our generation of teens are dumb. In fact most people are really smart. But the problem is that they aren't focused. Teens have trouble prioritizing between entertainment and work. Its not the ipods, TV, and video games that get them off track, it's that they can't prioritize their time. I myself have found it easier to have a prioritized routine. I come home, get my Homework done, and then I play games or watch TV. If teens can just learn to focus and prioritize better, than it would reflect their true intellectual ability.
I disagree with this article because us teens are actually smart. This made me think a lot but i have come to a conclusion that we are not dumb.You may think that were dumb because we spend most of our time listening to an ipod, watching t.v, playing games, etc. but we aren't dumb. Just because we do all of that doesn't mean that were not learning anything. Everyday i learn a new thing, how to work something, do something, etc. but the entertainment has nothing to do with us being dumb. I am kind of disgusted at how a guy could right this and and not feel bad of what he's writing.We teens are not dumb!!He is dumb!!
I beleve students these days are smarter then people think because kids dont choose to apply themselfs to school they rather apply themselfs to other things like on homework why do it if u spent 6-7 hours at school already doing everything i know suposubly its practice but you do enough at school thats why kids have bad grades and no kid is dumb because every kid has a brain thats expanding and the more stuff they learn the more there brain will expand. If kids applied themselfs to school they would all get 3.0s but they dont want to they think its a waist of time.
I understand that in our ggeneration that we are really not doing the good job as the last generation or even the generations that is so many years before our generation. However, I don't think that is all either the kids fault or the parent's fault. People are just keep invente things and the kids and the teenagers are so crazy about the fancy technologies. We are not as dumb as before, we are actually being more smarter than before because we know how to use the new technologies. So what I think is we are not dumb because we only wallow in new stuff, we are actually learn more from these new technologies.
Coming from the perspesctive of a teen,I strongly disagree with this article. I think that teens are genereally intelligent. One thing I agree with the article about is when they talk about blaming the low grades on the educational system. I agree with this because there are students out there that struggle because they need more help and need to be focused on more. If teachers helped these kids more with their homework assingments then maybe test scores, grades and academics would be higher. People should continue with the phrase "Children are our future" rather than going by, kids are, "Dumber than dirt."
I think that american kids are not dumber than dirt i just think that every one is seen in a diiferent perspect of age, or put into a group to me it is the time you grew up for example if you were born back then in the early 1900's or sometime you know that era if your born know youll know things your parents didn't learn everyone has learned or been taught different. So to me Mark Morford is not looking at our era through us but through himself. Most growups just see us as lazy kids but we are good at what we know.
I believe that this article is an inncorrect statement. Being an american kid i know exactly what i should and should not be yet knowledgeable of. Yes alot of kids in my generation do have problems when it comes to academics and using common sense, but this does not exclude the knowledge us kids use in our everyday lifes that a much older generation would have no idea how to use. For examle a cell phone or and i pod. As for the truths about the aritcle, i would blame the education system for our low tests score for multiple reasons.But for the man who writes this article, he has no clue what teens have to go through and school work being there least concern when other more serious problems in their lives may be happening.
i do agree that tv and ipod hurt us mentally. and that we are also lazy. but not every kid is lazy and dumb. he thinks that all kids are dumb,we are just lazy not dumb. i see at school today that people are really lazy, but when they focus on something they really want to do, they are really smarter than they thought. ipod's and tv are just there for us to enjoy, its nit like it controls us to not do any eof our work. it's not lik ipod's and tv's are making us dumber. you have some true facts, but not all kids this generation are dumber than you think.
I agree tv and laziness makes us dumber, but there are different people who apply their intelligence differently. But sometimes it is hard to apply ourselves and focus on the task at hand. This article makes me wonder about how technology can be a downfall.
I agree with Ariella when she says that people (especially adults) say, "Children are our future" rather than "Dumber than dirt". I agree because, how are you suppose to build up intelligence in a society by referring to a put down rather then actually trying to help kids in need of good education? Cellphones, Ipods, TV, etc. MAY be a distraction to some students but to others it's just a hobbie most people at my school don't even have any of that so you can't blame the devices for "dumbing" us down. Our generation isn't "dumbing down" it's just we have more technology and inventions created then before and some can get carried away. But for the Mr.Oakland teacher guy, he has no right to say that we are malicious because of our dumbness but most students may be going through a daily crisis in making it through each day. Some students find ways to even survive through a day, especially in Oakland! There are serious problems we all go through that greatly effect us in school. As far as the low testing scores, some kids just need that extra help or need of care to do well in the testings... and by this teachers like HIM should be able to help those in need not just to put them down as a "dumber generation". It isn't our generation that is making things worst, it's the society/world/community around us that may effect one more then another.
I disagree with what the Oakland teacher says and believes, because it's not true, and he doesn't know everyone [especially students] to make bad judgements about them. Our generation now, may be getting off task but it doesn't mean we are dumb or anything. We go through much more today and some of us are not getting help and advice and so most of them would handle it by dropping out of school or just having bad academics in school. Also, I believe that what we go through is more tough then before, and not all of us have many devices such as ipods, phones, etc... so that wouldn't be are reason to be having bad academics and low test scores. So what is the reason to cause all this bad academics? Not having our teachers explain homework more, and plus they move on to the next subject too fast for others to catch up. So I strongly believe that the teacher is wrong, and that we're not dumb.
In the article it says that a lot of kids theses days are dumb. I don not beleive that is true at all. If you look at kids in the national spelling bee, there are 6th, and 7th grade kids who are spelling words that adults can't even spell. Their are a lot of kids now who do not go to school and that is their choice to be uneducated, but that doesn't mean they are stupid they can be smart in other things. The author of the article is obviously stupid himself for even writing this.
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However i agree with them i also have some counter arguments to show that not all the children are like this. Most children i know what to be a success and want acheive and try their hardest to their best of thier abilities. They may have little attention spans but thats because there so dependent on technology that things in the past doesn't compare what we have from progression in technology.
I believe that children these days are unable to do certain things not because of the environment they live in, not because of what they watch, and not because of what they eat its simply because there not trying hard enough in school and because they have parents that dosen't push them hard enough. A parent being strict has nothing to do with how the child is going to turn out brecause the child is the one that's going to determine their future. I see what the article was talking about in our school, kids not being able to form complete sentences, its just crazy. I am also concern about our future because a lot of kids are not making anything of themselves. I think instead of talking about how stupid the next generation is going to be, how about taking action.
I believe that children these days are unable to do certain things not because of the environment they live in, not because of what they watch, and not because of what they eat its simply because there not trying hard enough in school and because they have parents that dosen't push them hard enough. A parent being strict has nothing to do with how the child is going to turn out brecause the child is the one that's going to determine their future. I see what the article was talking about in our school, kids not being able to form complete sentences, its just crazy. I am also concern about our future because a lot of kids are not making anything of themselves. I think instead of talking about how stupid the next generation is going to be, how about taking action.
it's not that the students are stupid, it's the fact that we don't take education for granted anymore. try educating a few kids in a third world country like Africa. all the kids would put in all their effort into the work. us americans have been educated for so long that many of us don't care about it anymore. there's so much technology out there now that our generation learns from investigation and experimentation rather than in a classroom. schools aren't the backwater for learning and becoming successful anymore. they haven't been for years. the only thing they are good for now is getting you started and giving you a good or bad resume.
while there seems to be more idiots now than before, it is simply not true. what i've been starting to realize is that we all have certain skills in any way, shape, or form. i know many students in this school who taught themselves how to hack onto schooloop and change their grades. i know people who can shut down someone's computer while they are working on it. and by the way, who was it that unlocked the Iphone? a 17 year old high school guy.
the reason we really don't appear intelligent at first glance is because we've had education out whole life and we don't know what it's like without it, so we don't realize how priviliged we truly are to have families with enough money to give us food, education, and thus opportunities in life. it's just something we don't think about.
what i've also realized is that our generation is much calmer than our parents' and that we are able to adapt to situations better. you never hear about adults escaping rapists and what not. most of the survival stories seem to be teenagers. there's another thing that our parents didn't have: street smarts. by the way, i completely agree with Mario's comment.
one more thing:I find it really funny that many of the people who made comments deny that they are dumber than dirt, but they mispell simple words incorrectly.
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I really think this writer is using a biased point of view. Saying that ALL kids of this generation are actually dumb is to broad of a comment to say. Kids today have a lot higher standards in school than in past years. My parents always tell me how they never had to even do the math or science im doing until college. The writer is just trying to show that adults are superior to kids which is immature if you ask me.
Nowadays its different from when are parents were kids. They use to be able to go out and play with their friends, ride bikes, basically do what they wonted and their parents didn’t really have to worry about them. Nowadays there a lot more crazy kidnapping, rapist out there, so their parents won’t let them just go out with their friends. Since kids back then got to go out and do stuff with their friends then they learned stuff, like building things, responsibility, and to use their head to think about things. They also had to help out around the house like chores, and help their dad do stuff like working on the car or rebuilding the fence. Kids nowadays didn’t or don’t get to or have to do that stuff, so that’s part of why they are how they are today.
i think we the generation are not dumb just beacuse we are not intellignet like other students. we are all equal to each other. we the generation have human qualities like other peopple do.we can learn from our parents we didn't know before. we each equal the same.
After reading the article i think it is all make believe. The article just tears teens down. In fact teens are much smarter than they gives us credit for. The real problem with teens is that they are either too smart and not being challenged, or are to afraid of how they'll look in front of their peers if they are wrong, so they don't ask for the help that they need. Teens are smart, it is how they are raised that impacts them the most. If they are raised to think that school doesn't matter then they won't care about it. They'll just blow it off, and go do something that they think is more interesting. Most teens are quite intelligent, they just don't show it because they are either to lazy or don't care.
After reading the article I completely disagree with what Mr. Oakland says about the teens in my generation. There is a reason for everything and I think the reason why the teens are slowly getting "dumber" is because of the media and the things that happen in everyday life. Some teens are trying to survive everyday let alone get their education. Other teens have to drop out of high school and work to help their parents keep a roof over their heads. Other teens are just brainwashed by the media and beleive that just by following their dreams they can make it without an education. Many teens now-a-days are struggling to survive on a daily basis. Others are doing drugs. So basically the reason why teens now-a-days are "dumber" is because the world has changed into a malevolent thing. Everyday there is more you have to make it through. So for Mr. Oakland to just blame it on the teens is ridiculous because the finger of blame is to be pointed anywhere its the generations before takinjg life for granted and not thinking about feauture generations.
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