We’ve Failed
The two most important things parenting and education can impart to our offspring is the ability to think critically and respond to adversity with resilience. Our educational system and our culture are failing on both counts.
School is now a fiasco. The credential value of a high school degree is approaching zero. With the partial exception of degrees in hard science and engineering, the same thing is happening to a college degree. Grade inflation, which began in the late 60’s to protect students from the draft, has become endemic. Nobody fails anymore. Over 50% of the grades passed out in institutions of higher learning are A’s. Who can take an “A” seriously? My college graduating class had four students who earned honors. The last graduation ceremony I attended (at a very prestigious institution of higher learning) featured about 50% of the class receiving an honors designation.
The search for truth through study and contemplation and dialogue has been replaced with a search for “my truth”, an emotional wallow. That search seems to consist of naval gazing with a large dose of victimology. Minds cannot be changed through dialogue because “my truth” brooks no contradiction. Studying the wisdom of the ages is a waste of time because it is irrelevant — nothing but stuff from dead white males.
Striving for intellectual excellence and discovery has been replaced by a new educational goal — DIVERSITY. The result is a group of people with different skin tones and sexual preferences seeking their own truth, and ending up with very similar victimology narratives.
Even science has been corrupted. An alarming number of so-called definitive studies, especially in the social sciences, can’t be replicated. The instances of published work relying on inadequate or unrepresentative samples and/or doctored data is astounding. Science seems to have forgotten that its mission is to validate any hypothesis by attempting to disprove it. Facts are sought out(or doctored) to cheer-lead, not cast doubt.
Our cultural mores are the icing on the cake. Celebrity trumps accomplishment in almost every instance. The shining example is Kim Kardashian, a women who has created a large fortune by selling nothing of substance. She can’t sing; she can’t dance; she can’t throw a curve ball. If she is excellent at anything except self promotion, it has escaped me. Those who lament the existence of a no-talent celebrity in the White House should spend some time thinking about the educational system and cultural landscape that led to that outcome. It should be acknowledged, however, that he seems to be quite resilient.
My recommendation to parents is that you send your kids to a school that teaches reading, writing, computing and logical thought, and rewards only excellent work with an “A”. Encourage them to enter races in which they may finish last. It is good to learn early in life that there is always someone faster, smarter or prettier than you are. Even if you don’t win every race (or any race), you can forge ahead to lead a life that is rewarding and achieve goals that give you a high sense of satisfaction.
