The older I get the more disillusioned I become with the ‘people’ of the U.S. I remember being upset when I started working in advertising and was told that in order to write ‘good copy’ one must understand that the average U.S. citizen had the mind of a 13 year old child. In other words, I must dumb down my writing so that this vast number of people could understand it. “Never write a sentence over ten words, and break those up in some way if you can,” was the way it was put. Now I find that the ‘average’ seems to be even ‘younger’ in the mind... or shall we call a spade a spade and say even more stupid.
Look at what we have in Congress these days. Ted Cruz, mentioning "that great speaker, Ashton Kutcher"; Paul Ryan, a man who has never held a ‘real job’ being called ‘the intellectual of the Tea Party (a rather damning indictment of the rest of that group);’ thousands of people signing petitions to keep ‘Duck Dynasty’ on the air. Or even horror of horrors, the fact that ‘Duck Dynasty’ is one of the most popular programs on TV. My parents and all of my really intellectual ancestors are spinning in their graves.
I spent my childhood first being read to by my parents (I recall Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’ as an early one), then reading my way through the family and public library, including two sets of encyclopedias. (I wasn’t alone, my sisters and I read constantly. The library of the moment was usually full of others; where did they all go?) My older sister graduated from college too young to get a job, so returned to get a Master’s. She went on to become one of the first women Captains in the Army during WWII, then after having seven children went on to a logical career in education.
I began my adult studies in art, quit after a couple of years of work under an artist I hated, became a meteorologist with the U.S. Weather Bureau, then returned to university to get a degree in English, went into copywriting and now write fiction, essays, non-fiction and poetry. My younger sister simply married well. Unfortunately I didn’t and he got the money. Nevertheless, I kept my mind and am very saddened to find that the rest of the country (well most of it) has not managed that. In all my long years of life the IQ of this country seems to have slipped almost to extinction. The TV alone has less and less worth watching. ‘Reality TV’ seems to have taken over with its cast of less and less intelligence daily, winding up with the seeming morons of Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty, worshiped by the TV mob. Do they hear, do they see, do they think? I rather think not.
Having spent the final day of this past year watching the world’s celebration of New Year’s Eve, I wonder where the world is heading. I guess it’s not just our country that has given up basic intelligence. Each large city seems to be competing to see who could spend the most money blowing up millions of dollars worth of fireworks to ‘celebrate’ leaving an old year behind and welcoming in an even more ignorant one. After all, it is far easier to take the ‘education’ money out of the budget and put it into fireworks and other trash to entertain the morons. On a stage in Times Square the older morons sang what passes for music to the younger ones.
I am hoping ‘the common core’ might help return education rather than the useless ‘testing’ of the Bush “All children left behind” era, but I wonder if we can catch up with the rest of the world or will they simply follow us into the pit of mediocre schools? I do bemoan the lack of intelligent conversation in the new ‘all digital tablets’ schools, ‘charter’ schools and others, and hope that some lectures with question and answer periods remain, plus a lot of discussion in the classrooms of younger children.
As a child who moved often, I understand the difficulties of children who go from school to school, missing classes, and would therefore be better off with a common core education. Having known a great number of teachers in my lifetime, some who were bright and wonderful, some who should never have been in a classroom, I hope that an overhaul of ‘teacher’s colleges’ can help the next wave of students. Finally, I hope and pray that good teachers are not only paid better to teach well, but are at last considered superior citizens of our country.
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