Lack of Education

There is a test called the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery or ASVAB. The test is given to see what jobs someone can hold in the military. When I was in high school every man had to take it in his senior year. I don't know if it is mandatory anymore as there is no draft.

The ASVAB is a pretty simple test and I am guessing many of my American readers have taken the test. I wish to be fair in what I am about to say. When I took the test I scored in the top 1 percent. That is not why I think the test is easy nor related to my coming comments.

This year one in four high school graduates failed to get a score high enough to join the military. This is pitiful. This is worse than pitiful. We are indeed failing to teach anything in school. I do not compare others to myself, I am looking at the passing rates from the past.

Why can't high school graduates pass a basic test? Simple answer, they don't know the basics and get passed not knowing much. Prior to the Vietnam war kids were taught the basics in school and more. A high school graduate could write a paragraph and a report. You cannot twitter a report.

While in college I was a teaching assistant for a class in political science. The class was designed for business majors. I graded their exams and was appalled by what I saw. In my opinion one quarter of the students should have been failed. Some of the exams I read indicated illiteracy.

Over the last 40 years I have witnessed a continual degradation of students abilities. There are still smart kids, problem is the others are allowed to not learn. Over the same period we have seen numerous attempts to teach kids better and all have worked less well.

The media responds with a blathering mess of finger pointing. I don't buy any of it. We search for solutions and cant seem to find any. Here is a solution, teach kids the way we used to. Teach the basics first instead of focusing on opinions. Make them write a short paper every week and go over their mistakes. Yes, mistakes.

In the last 20 years there has been a push to focus on what kids have done well. In school every kid would get an award so that their egos would not be deflated. We have become a Narcissistic culture that is unwilling to be corrected. In that situation fewer and fewer learn. We learn from mistakes; but, only if they are pointed out and we are willing to see that we can still improve.

The beginning point in all learning is language. I cannot teach someone math or science or anything else if they do not have the vocabulary to learn it. Learning to use words with precision allows for deeper thought in every field. The next step is learning to put words together in a understandable manner. I am amazed at how many college graduates cannot write a simple document.

We were the richest nation in history and undermined ourselves by not teaching children to read and write well. I don't blame the teachers or the parents as much as I blame the methods the teachers were taught to use. Those methods failed.

We have raised a nation that wants leisure and comfort. Both need to be earned. When I talk to people who are under 30, most cannot tell me when World War I was or when the middle ages were. They have no world perspective and no understanding of the history of other nations. As G. Gordon Liddy told one person, "In the battle of wits you are unarmed."

One of the biggest mistakes that occurred was to grade on the curve. The normalization and comparison to the others that are uneducated. Another mistake is to have children do group projects. They need to know the basics before being graded as a group. Grading on group projects allows those who have not learned the basics to be hidden and holds back the best.

Schools are often paid in a way that prevents them from spending the time needed to teach students who don't get it off the bat. Schools often are paid based on how many students pass. The teachers therefore and the school system itself is rewarded for passing students rather than teaching them.

I know people who graduated high school and could not read. I mean they were functionally illiterate. Why is this acceptable? The current system teaches children who don't get it right off the bat to hide behind those who do. Worse yet, it teaches kids that do get it off the bat to look at those who don't as stupid. As the years progress the gap gets larger because those on the bottom never learned the basics so they cant learn the intermediate or advanced. Everyone can learn the basics if we spend the time to teach them.

The bar exam is given in every state. California and New York have traditionally had the lowest passage rates. As a consequence their attorneys tend to be better. Some states have over a 90% passage rate. Those states don't have enough attorneys so they pass just about everyone who graduates. This is pitiful.

An application has been developed that allows people to put their phone over foreign languages and it is shown in English (or whatever language you choose). The tower of Babel has risen again and we now can communicate without learning the languages of others. If you cannot read you own language an application will translate what is written into verbal communication. Sounds great but it has consequences. Why bother learning another language if you don't have to. Yet the writing doesn't give the context, learning a language requires that you learn about a culture.

As we rely more and more on technology to think for us, we become less able to think. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. What happens when the technology fails? Then we enter a new dark age.

How many stories have you read about people who were using GPS and drove off the road because the GPS was wrong. They relied on the technology and ignored what their eyes told them. There are now people seriously talking about melding technology with humans, the Transhumanists. I have written about this before.

We don't live in the Matrix yet; but, we are creating it. We are willingly relying on technology to make our decisions. With the advent of cloud computing this will only increase and the conformity of thought will be oppressive. We need to move away from simplicity and comfort and seek the strenuous life. We grow more from strenuous learning than we do from varied experience.

Ringo Starr - It Don't Come Easy

UPDATE:

After writing this post I came across a video saying what has happened to the educational system. I don't agree with all of what he says; but, the video brings up some good points. I still have not decided what I think about the fluoride debate so I will not comment on what he says about that at present.

This second video is in direct contradiction to what I have written. This famous educator wants us to go even further down the road that we have travelled. If you watch the video you will find that he declares that 98% of all children are geniuses who are dumbed down by schools. Nope, it might feel nice to believe that every child is a genius but they are not.

If we teach people that are below average that they are geniuses who are being held back then they don't bother trying to be the best they can be. The educator proposes that copying and reading the answers rather than learning them is a better way. This is also societal poison. It is teaching people that they cannot learn and should follow those who did. It is teaching to not think for yourself.

We are all born with a set level of ability; but, what we do with that ability determines how far we can go. The educators answer is to teach people by grouping them not according to age; but, according to where they are in their learning. Put the dumb with the dumb and the smart with the smart. That leads to little if any learning on the lower end and conformity in thought.

Ayn Rand feared a world where the best and the brightest were held back to prevent anyone from excelling. I fear a world where the average and below are kept apart from those who do know better. We want people to try harder not to try less.

The educator wants to teach that there are no answers only unlimited possibilities, this is garbage and is what we see in the educational system now. People are not taught to seek the truth and all answers are considered equally valid. All are not equally valid. By refusing to ask the questions properly all answers cease to be valid at all.

The educator attempts in the beginning of the video to downgrade the value of a traditional education. He does this by saying that in the past we were taught that if we learned in school, worked hard and got a college degree then we would get a job. He says this is wrong because there is no guarantee of getting a good job. This is garbage that has been spread for the last two decades.

The reason we should study hard is so that we can LEARN. If we learn then we are less easily led and are more likely to come to a greater understanding. Education is not primarily about getting a job, it is so that we can understand our life and our experiences in a better context.

The teaching of relativism is what has completed the destruction of learning. All knowledge has value including geography, history (with dates but not the focus) and the aberrant and amazing. We do live in an amazing world and we don't teach that. We are capable of so much more than we do. We are capable of greatness, individual success, the achievement of what we can get out of ourselves.

We are trained that the goal in life is to retire and take things easy. We are trained to use the least amount of effort to get the most amount of reward. This is wrong, the goal should not be the reward the goal should be to push ourselves as far as we can and then to share what we have learned with others.

How can we excel as a nation if we fail as individuals? How can we understand the complexities of the world if we don't bother to learn the basics. We should learn not because it is easy but because it is hard. We should learn because otherwise we allow ourselves to be marginalized. We should attempt to understand our world because we can then understand our place in it.

We are taught that there is no God, we live and we die and we don't matter to the universe. After telling kids that enough the logical conclusion they come to is that they should seek out all the experience that they can. This is a simple and foolish belief set. Experience is a distraction from growth. Growth is the goal.

The Truth?

How do you determine what you believe and will act upon and what you don't believe? I ask this question in order for you to understand propaganda. You cannot understand one without understanding yourself.

I will let you think on that while I explain what propaganda is. Propaganda can be true or false, not all propaganda is lies. Propaganda is a technique of getting people to believe something. It is getting the masses to believe the same thing, not everyone, the masses.

Let me give an example. Fluoride. I don't know if you believe fluoride in the water is a conspiracy or not. I don't have an opinion myself. It doesn't matter for this example. Do you believe fluoride in the water is safe and protects your teeth. That is what we have been told. Why do you believe it is safe, if you believe such a thing?

The vast majority of Americans believe fluoride is safe and good for our teeth. How did we come to believe this? I know why I believed it, the government spent millions on commercials and reports and news articles. I watched them growing up as they began fluoridation of the water systems. My government told me they had checked it out and that it was safe and good for me. Because of this I didn't drink bottled water, I wanted the fluoride.

I was a kid. I don't trust what anyone tells me anymore unless I have investigated it. That started pretty young because I discovered the teachers didn't know things I knew. Most kids are trusting of what they are told, they don't care if it is the truth, they just want to fit in. That is why repetition is the primary process of propaganda. We want to swim with the crowd.

The crowd is not what you think, it is the crowd you choose to be with. The next thing that causes people to believe garbage is that it is in agreement with what they do. We like to be told that what we are doing is good and right even when it is not.

You cannot cheat an honest man. If you are honest with yourself then you will know when you hear propaganda. You will know it is false because the truth is inside you. You know when you are doing things for the wrong reasons, you can hide from it, justify it and even tell yourself how decent in doing so. Somewhere deep down inside you, you will know you are lying to yourself.

While I was writing this a young man was asking me questions about business and I somewhat lost my train of thought. I apologize. Have a great day, the rains have begun in earnest here.

It Is Raining In Los Angeles

I live in the desert, the Northeast part of Los Angeles County. It is freezing and it is raining. It has rained very hard and people have been evacuated from some of the mountain areas. There is a lot of rain and even more coming.

If you are homeless, Los Angeles isn't a bad place to be as it goes. I lived in Boston and that is bad place to be homeless. I used to watch the homeless put cardboard boxes above the vents for the subway. That is how they stayed warm. Or at least as warm as they stayed. I got frostbite in Massachusetts. I didn't much care for it.

I like the heat. I don't mind it over a 100 although I find anything over 115 to be too hot. I hate the cold and I hate being cold. I would really hate being homeless in Boston. I don't like the snow either.

I spent about a week on the streets a long time ago. I was not alone; but, we had no place to stay. It sucked. It is hard to understand what it means to not have a place to stay if you never been there. It can lead to anxiety and desperation. Worse than that is that after awhile people just accept that they are going to be homeless and they stop trying and focus on surviving.

I work downtown and am not infrequently asked for money. Sometimes I give it. I have had people tell me that the person getting the money will only use it for alcohol or drugs. I neither know nor care how they use it. Homeless people frequently ask me for a cigarette, I often give them two.

There are times when I will not give anything. I will not give to people begging by the freeway entrance as it endangers people. I will not give to anyone who stops me while I am in my car unless it is parked. I will not give to anyone who interrupts me while I am speaking to someone else.

I think at this time of year (and I don't mean Christmas), the winter, it is good time to give a buck or two. It is cold out there and wet. If the money is used to buy some alcohol, at least they will feel the cold a little less.

The Odd Stuff

I attempt to read as much alternate news as possible. I begin my days reading newspapers and the Drudge Report. After having read traditional news sources I like to read alternative news sources. I don't agree with much of what I read but I like to know what is on people's minds. As a consequence I cannot recommend any of the news sources I am listing. The vast majority of them are news aggregates rather than the actual publishers.

Fortean Times I like this news source, they collect strange articles and hit a wide variety of things while never taking any position.

The Anomalist. This one tends to focus on ufo's, cryptozoology and ghosts. Updated daily.

David Icke. I don't know what to say about this one. The guy believes that reptillian aliens have interbred with humans and that their offspring run the world. He also has a fear of a Zionist world conspiracy. What he does do is follow the news and that he does well.

Alex Jones. If you don't know who this guy is I strongly recommend you watch him at least once. He has a big presence on the internet and many followers. Personally I find him a alarmist and a promoter of violence. I disagree with both. His website does track many news stories and catches patterns. He is friends with David Icke apparently now.

Rense. I find this one real hard to post. The guy makes a lot of stuff about jews and zionists. The useful part of his site is that he is updating during the day about international news.

Wired Magazine. Great technology stories. I highly recommend this one.

The Daily Beast. Well put together with little apparent agenda.

The Daily Grail. Low production value, good news catches.

Rapture Ready News. Good news catches.

Above Top Secret. Love this one. All over the place with good commentary.

I still read more than just these and the newspapers listed on the side of my blog; but, a listing you might find amusing. It is important to read beyond the norm. The internet allows us the opportunity to share beliefs with people we would never associate with or even want to be around. It allows us to hear why people believe things that appear crazy to us.

I try and read as many things a day as I can. I have found overtime that the same article will be in half or better of the things I read. It is therefore a lot less reading than one would imagine. I used to read the foreign papers more often but pretty much just the London Times and the Sydney Morning Herald at present. I am being lazy.

It has been my experience that the alternate news sources are often all over the place and everything in their mind can be a conspiracy. Yet, paranoia is your friend and these news sources watch things that the others do not report. I go to the original sources to check them. Sometimes they are very correct.

I will give an example because it came up today. I was viewing Above Top Secret and it had a video by an engineer showing that thermite could be used to take out steel beams. This may not make sense to you immediately. Thermite is a powder that burns very hot, some have claimed it was used to take down the twin towers. Now, I don't care if you believe 9/11 was an inside job or not, it is not the issue right now. Mythbusters and NIST both claimed that Thermite could not cut through steel. This engineer proved it could and with very little.

Why is the story important. Because the NIST and Mythbusters lied. Fewer people read Above Top Secret than watch Mythbusters. NIST is the "official government story" and both lied. This engineer proved that thermite could cut through steel. He didn't prove that was what happened at the twin towers; but, he did prove that their explanation was faulty. Nobody other than the alternates are even checking.

NEVER believe experts or the official story. Check them first. Look for other perspectives and check them. The government and the people in power own the media. This is just a fact. Average people don't own or control television stations. They have an agenda, everyone does.

And now for a musical interlude.

Peter Wolf - Lights Out

Flash & The Pan - Hey St. Peter

Alice Cooper - Hey Stoopid


My boy Bach - Fugue and toccata in D minor

Saint Saens - Danse Macabre


Donald Fagen - New Frontier

Linda Ronstadt - Down So Low

Sabrina Parker

I don't often post about human interest stories. Having said that, I read this story and feel a need to share it. There was a lovely young lady named Sabrina Parker and a young man named Matt Scozzari. They went to school together and fell in love. He asked her out at the same time that she learned she was dying.

The most horrific love story I personally know involved one of my cousins. His father died on his wedding day and for a lot of reasons the wedding could not be delayed. My cousin and his wife have done well and are strong people. Still that is a tough wedding day.

I am not going to explain what happened to Miss Parker, I would prefer that you read the story. I found the story heart wrenching but not sad. I do not think the young lady would like us to feel sad, she didn't live that way. I see the story about the courage of a young lady and the strength of her boyfriend. I see the story showing what we are capable of if we try.

Stuff We Should Know About

There are things in this world that most people don't know about. It is not hidden, just rarely discussed. I want to throw a few links to you.

Coral Castle

Oak Island

Pyramids in China

Just some fun stuff for you to watch.

Slow news day

I couldn't really find anything worth writing about. It is cold and raining very hard. Hope you had a good weekend. Be well.