Ignorance is Not Bliss

By Selwyn Duke

There is another in a long line of articles about the striking lack of knowledge among today's youth.  Metro.co.uk writes:

One in three youngsters believes wartime prime minister Sir Winston Churchill was the first person to walk on the Moon.

Worryingly, nearly three-quarters can't even identify the Moon in the night sky as the stars in children's eyes these days are more likely to be celebrities, a survey shows.

Just in case any of you kids read this, don't think this is just another case of an old fuddy duddy (although I'm not really that old) criticizing the "younger generation."  I'll be the first to say that education has been declining for at least 50 years now.  It's not a matter of one generation being "good" and another "bad" but a continuum; each generation is worse than the one that preceded it.  In fact, my best friend and I used to say in high school that we could complete all the course work necessary for graduation in four months -- and we went to a premier institution (you had to pass a test to qualify for entrance).  Even though we were young, we knew the standards were laughable and that it wasn't the kind of rigorous academic environment in which students of bygone days were often molded.  By the time I went through the "system," standards had already seen a precipitous decline.

It's here that many would mouth bromides about educational models or classroom size or funding or technology, or all of the above.

It's nonsense.

This is empty talk that we engage in to distract ourselves from the real issues, ones that we don't want to address.  First, we're fooling ourselves if we think that children  will learn absent discipline and obedience.  These two things are -- and this is a truth hiding in plain sight --  prerequisites for learning.  Understanding why isn't difficult.

Let's take obedience.  How can children learn from you if they're not first willing to listen to you?  And, of course, discipline flows from this, as you can't enforce it without having established authority over your charges.

Another matter is the complete breakdown of the family and tradition.  The main place in which children should learn is the home, but this cannot happen if there is little respect for (obedience again) and interaction with their parents.  Today, families often don't behave as families; each member is off doing his own thing, being an island unto himself.  Families often don't eat dinner together; they dine at different times -- often in front of the TV -- thus sacrificing great quality time.  Remember that when families would eat together (and children were disciplined), stories would be shared, the kids would listen to the parents discuss issues, and learning occurred as a matter of course. 

Then, there are so many distractions nowadays.  What do you think kids were doing before they were staring at computer screens, walking around with headphones on, or were pacified with some other electronic babysitter?  Sure, not all the time was well spent, but there's no question that a good percentage of the time they were, believe it or not, actually socializing with other family members.  What a radical idea.

Lastly, we have become so detached from tradition that we fail -- fail miserably -- to pass many great truths on to our children.  For instance, when I used to work with kids, I was struck by how few of them knew the old proverbs with which I had grown up.  This is significant not only because such sayings are often little snippets of wisdom, but also because it's a barometer for how much of value they actually know.  It's also an example of how, as was discussed in an article recently, Americans no longer have a common cultural frame of reference.  And, of course, when that's the case, the people are no longer one people. 

But, hey, don't listen to me; I'm just a cultural Luddite.  What we really need is more multiculturalism.  As the song says, suicide is painless.

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