September 25th, 2009
Can a test be meaningful if failure isn't allowed?
Dumbing Down
I understand the political need to dumb down the tests, or in the delicate wording of a Washington Post story on the matter, "the compromises educators face in balancing what is politically palatable against raising academic standards." But the degree of the dumbing down is quite remarkable.
September 15th, 2009
The dumbing down of America
Dumbing Down
It was during Charlotte Iserbyt's tenure at the Department of Education, when she had access to grant proposals from change agents across the nation, that she saw that what was happening was a concerted effort on the part of numerous organizations. A globalist elite wanted to permanently change the American body politic by brainwashing the students. She leaked some sensitive material to the press and was fired for it.
August 19th, 2009
The dumbing down of America
Dumbing Down
Delving into HR3200, you will find that the government is making health care mandatory and if you, as an individual, do not provide health care for you and the dependents listed on your tax form, you will face a 2.5 percent tax penalty...Do you understand what this means? If you break the health care laws, instead of being brought before a criminal court they are using the tax code to penalize you.
August 17th, 2009
Dumbed-down maths GCSE fails to prepare youngsters for A-level
Dumbing Down
A shake-up of the subject last year means teenagers can gain high grades without mastering tougher material such as algebra, it claims. Wait a sec - algebra? The easiest of all the branches of mathematics? WTF?!
August 11th, 2009
How predictive texting takes its toll on a child's brain
Dumbing Down
Predictive text messaging changes the way children's brains work and makes them more likely to make mistakes generally, a study has found...They claim this makes them prone to impulsive and thoughtless behaviour in everyday life.
August 6th, 2009
Forget Red vs. Blue -- It's the Educated vs. People Easily Fooled by Propaganda
Dumbing Down
Millions of Americans live in a non-reality-based belief system informed by childish cliches - they can barely differentiate between lies and truth...Nearly a third of the nation's population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.
July 28th, 2009
Celebrity news? That's the real dumbing down of America
Dumbing Down
I was going to get in touch with modern society to raise the level of my intelligence above "normal" and now it is declining. Reading this stuff reminds me of the years when I was at home with my kids and watched "Ryan's Hope" and "Days of our Lives."The more you watch, the dumber you get.
July 18th, 2009
Sotomized: Dumbing Down the Court
Dumbing Down
Notwithstanding the advantage of fervid preparation, her prosaic performances at her confirmation hearings expose her cerebral paucity when measured against the keen legal minds of other recent nominees, including Alito and Roberts...The selection of Sonia Sotomayor is revealing. The Obama administration has no use for excellence, only for compliance.
July 11th, 2009
Shop turns away 9 out of 10 job applicants because they cannot calculate sums
Dumbing Down
The Remnant Shop has a company rule that staff must be able to mentally add, subtract, multiply and divide on the spot. . In the past, eight out of ten made the grade. Now just one in ten can cut it..."My grandfather Sydney Bamberger could add up a column of 50 figures in old pounds, shillings and pennies – including ha'pennies and farthings – in a matter of seconds."
July 9th, 2009
In Praise of Cussing
Dumbing Down
You'll find many of the most successful people in the world using salty descriptions to get their points across. According to U.S. News & World Report, United States Presidents have "a rich tradition of cussing." President Obama is no stranger to the practice while his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has famously raised the practice to an art.
July 6th, 2009
Dumbing down the naval academy
Dumbing Down
Bruce Fleming, a tenured professor of English at the Naval Academy, is accusing his school of "dumbing down the Naval Academy" and "dumbing down the officer corps" through the use of an admissions policy that favors minority candidates. Fleming's claim appears to have merit.
June 15th, 2009
Academics worried by 'spoon-fed' students
Dumbing Down
“Increasingly, I am hearing alarm at the extent to which our second-level system is producing students who learn to the test; who in ever greater numbers are not learning to think for themselves; who receive spoon-feeding at second level and expect the same at third."
June 9th, 2009
Your Brain Waves Change When You Watch TV -Low Alpha Waves Can Lead to "Mind Fog"
Dumbing Down
If you experience "mind fog" after watching television, you are not alone. Studies have shown that watching television induces low alpha waves in the human brain. Alpha waves are brainwaves between 8 to 12 HZ. and are commonly associated with relaxed meditative states as well as brain states associated with suggestibility.
'Orwellian language' in schools turns pupils into 'customers', finds damning report
Dumbing Down
The Oxford-based Nuffield Review, the most comprehensive study of secondary education in 50 years, said that 'the words we use shape our thinking'...In a damning indictment, the report said that a culture of hitting targets, where 'cuts in resources are euphemistically called 'efficiency gains', has led to 'the consumer or client' replacing 'the learner'.
June 8th, 2009
TV Causes Learning Lag in Infants
Dumbing Down
Analyses of the recordings revealed that each hour of additional television exposure was linked with a decrease of 770 words (7 percent) the child heard from an adult during the recording session. Hours of television were also associated with a decrease in the number and length of child vocalizations and the back and forth between the child and an adult (called a conversational turn).
May 11, 2009
Cambridge University research reveals 1 out of 38 boys have been dumbed down with autism
Dumbing Down
a Cambridge University study of autism that revealed “five cases in every 300 children - or one in 60″ boys and girls have been inflicted with autism. 4 out of every 5 children effected with autism are boys.
April 21st, 2009
The Corporate Media and Critical Thinking in Education
Dumbing Down
Orwell adumbrated a world where past and present are controlled by the message. The corporate media, marketing world, and others also realized the power of the dominant message. Hence, it is not surprising that those with a vested interest would seek to control the message.
March 28th, 2009
Exit Winston Churchill, enter Twitter ... Yes, it's the new primary school curriculum
Dumbing Down
'This is part and parcel of a general trend both at primary and secondary level to downgrade knowledge, as if all you need is techniques, and knowledge is just stuff you get from the web.'
March 24th, 2009
Why Johnny Still Can't Read
Dumbing Down
The National Council on Teacher Quality launched a sweeping examination of reading courses and textbooks at the nation’s colleges of education. The results are appalling. What masquerades as reading pedagogy is, with painfully few exceptions, a soggy confection of political correctness, collectivist social indoctrination, diversity training, and fluff courses that make basket weaving sound like advanced biophysics.
March 19th, 2009
Study Says Hip-Hop Dumbs Listeners Down
Dumbing Down
In a recent study conducted by Virgil Griffiths, a PhD student in California, Hip-Hop music listeners are portrayed as unintelligent and intellectually deficient...From the early days of Hip-Hop’s christening, to this very moment, there have been those—and they are certainly in no short supply—who have tried to diminish its cultural value, and render it unworthy of critical evaluation.
February 8th, 2009
British teenagers have lower IQs than their counterparts did 30 years ago
Dumbing Down
The IQ score of an average 14-year-old dropped by more than two points over the period. Among those in the upper half of the intelligence scale, a group that is typically dominated by children from middle class families, performance was even worse, with an average IQ score six points below what it was 28 years ago.
January 21st, 2009
The Deliberate Dumbing Down Of America
Dumbing Down
Charlotte Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ORI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration, where she first blew the whistle on a major technology initiative which would control curriculum in America's classrooms. Includes link to download her book " The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America".
Dumbing Down Your Resume To Get A Job
Dumbing Down
The job market is cut-throat right now with more people looking and fewer jobs out there. You'd think people would want to boost their qualifications, but some are actually dumbing down their resumes just to get any kind of work.
December 12th, 2008
More Americans Believe in the Devil, Hell and Angels than in Darwin's Theory of Evolution
Dumbing Down
Large majorities of the public believe in miracles (75%), heaven (73%), angels (71%), that Jesus is God or the Son of God (71%), the resurrection of Jesus (70%), the survival of the soul after death (68%), hell (62%), the Virgin birth (Jesus born of Mary (61%) and the devil (59%).
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