Diliberate dummin doun

much music people listen to (such as rap) is not very "productive" inspiring.

HAVE U EVER LISTENED TO RAP BEFORE???!!!!

Talib Kweli, Mr Lif, El-p, Mos Def etc... these artists are the only artists in the music industry write now who are educated and intelligent enough to get meaningful messages to young people.

WHAT THE HELL IS MODERN ROCK DELIVERING IN TERMS OF CONSTRUCTIVE LYRICS??? DANCE IS MINDLESS, SO IS POP, SO IS R'N'B.

In reply to the topic, dumbing down is a political game, and polititians will do as much as they can get away with.


Freemason if u r gonna make ignorant ass comments like that then u r just setting yourself up for a take-down.

[Edited on 29-11-2002 by Fantastic_Damage]

Why does music always have to have a 'message' or make some sort of statement? Can't I just sit back and listen to some Kenny G or Michael Bolton and just enjoy it. (That�s a joke - I don't listen to either of those artists)

BT, if I elect to send my children to private schools, which they currently are - why can't I have 'my' money back to use towards private schools? My children are therefore not a burden on the public school system. Or what about those kids who have no choice to go to a failing public school system that might be able to go to a private school and get a better education if only there parents were given a voucher? Is the government afraid of losing their monoply on the education system? Doesn't vouchers offer a 'choice?'

Bob, from your posts, I do think you consider Kenny G & Michael Bolton 'artists'! I bet you're a big Kenny Loggins fan as well!
I said parents should get tax relief for a private school choice AND that public schools should not lose the funding on a per child stand point.
I broke down the illusion of vouchers in another thread; but suffice it to say, $2500 per child tax credits won't pay for tuition/books/uniforms/lunch/transportation, but only be a small percentage of. Where are these poor families going to get the rest?

Loggins? Footloose in an epic! (j/k)

I save money w/ uniforms BT - there's no doubt. Lunch is lunch. I'd probably spend the same at a public school. Same w/ books. Do you have children BT?

Still, I'm guessing that yours is not one of the poor families trotted out to be an example of who this is suppose to help, correct?
I still can't see the math in a family with three kids, making $35K per year, being able to cover that nut with a $7.5K tax break at year end....can you?

The federal government has no place in schools and the Federal Department of Education should be shut down.

I plan on homeschooling my son, who's almost 4. Here in Ohio you need a high school diploma, which I have, and you just let the school superintendent know of your plans. You have to start by the time your child would have entered first grade, which for my son would be in 2008, since there's that September 30 cut-off date and his birthday is in December.

I think the main thing is making sure your child knows how to read, and all else follows. Even if you don't know trig, if your child can read, he could probably learn it on his own.

I was looking at a Laura Ingalls Wilder biography, and according to her you had to be at least 16 to get a teaching certificate--you had to study and take this test. And kids were smarter back then (or rather not as dumbed down). Go figure.

This is being covered here
and
here.

For the most part...

[edit on 9-10-2005 by Rouschkateer]

Originally posted by Fantastic_Damage

much music people listen to (such as rap) is not very "productive" inspiring.

HAVE U EVER LISTENED TO RAP BEFORE???!!!!

Talib Kweli, Mr Lif, El-p, Mos Def etc... these artists are the only artists in the music industry write now who are educated and intelligent enough to get meaningful messages to young people.

WHAT THE HELL IS MODERN ROCK DELIVERING IN TERMS OF CONSTRUCTIVE LYRICS??? DANCE IS MINDLESS, SO IS POP, SO IS R'N'B.

I dont usually like rap, unless im drunk. Can-I-Bus is probably smarter than every pop artists put together. But I doubt most people get most of what he says. I had to explain half the stuff to the guy who let me hear his CD. Punk groups cover conspiracy theories about as much as rap. As far as meaningful messages go "george bush hates black people," is not one. But if you wanna hear something bad sung about the gov't.. forgetaboutit, punks got it covered. But seriously, none of the punk songs or rap songs are really educational. Unless you go "Hmm I wonder what an earthquake machine is? Ill google it!", and start reading about Tesla. I've found that its up to me to educate myself because schools are a waste of time. Well not a total waste: "50% of teens have had oral sex," school does have its uses *wink*. And to all the parents reading this, one of your kids is a slut. Thank you public school!

I remember reading, maybe 2-3 years ago, about new school books comming out that are easier for todays youth to understand. In the margins of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, next to Romeo's statments about Juliet is: "This means Juliet is his girl." I mean c'mon what highschool kid needs english translated into english!?!?! An American highschool kid is the correct answer here.

Ha! My school is great! Of course we aren't in a city so I guess that's why, no black people to dumb things down.

I know that sounds racist, but hey, white kids don't need F 451 translated into "What he means by hello is Yo wat up my n*@&#^$. What he means by book is "Something you will never touch outside of school." And so forth. WHen they see Nixon on the plane doing the Peace symbol half scream about him doing a crip gang sign the other half applaud because he is doing their gang sign. TPS schools have gotten F grading every year for as long as I have been alive. WHile all the white hicks/rednecks/country listeners schools get passing grades. As far as I know from watching local news several of the TPS schools have 20 year old sophmores. NBC had a special on it, doing the "Average Age" thingy and how the sophmore classes had older students then senoir classes since they can't pass a simple test at a 8th grade level. Sad, they were doing coverage of Scott's HS graduation, 7 senoirs graduated... Out of a school with over a thousand students, only 7 graduated, while my school has almost all the senoirs graduate, even the jocks and cheerleaders, and have about 300-400. I hated the test we had to take to go from sophmore to junoir because it was so easy and had over three hours to do it. Thankfully I had my books and MP3 player to keep me busy for the other two hours and ten minutes. So, the TPS schools in a big city get more funding then the dinky village/town schools yet we get better grades. Although the TPS schools lost funding since they keep failing the state evaluation.

Go Cardinals!(Cardinal Strich, not a private HS but like one, you don't pay extra, it is a pubblic school, but you have to pass a test to get in)

I live in a predominantly white area and it's just as bad.

I used to live in the Detroit suburbs, so I can make that comparison. They're dumbed down here in NE Ohio too. The Amish are probably the exception, since they teach their children in their own schools.

Well it gets bad with certain groups here to, mainly the druggies. Our principal is a total ditz and doesn't realize this school moves more drugs then the largest Columbian Drug Cartel. NE Ohio? Where at? Bono native here! About 70 miles from Cleveland.

I have to chuckle concerning Boomslang's post on the first page of this thread.
I am not particularly educated but mostly self taught. I had one year of latin in high school of which I failed miserably.
One of the words which I do remember is the latin word "Frater" meaning Brother.

IT was much late in life when I learned the concept of etimology...the historical derivation of words. The word Fratracide..breaks down to the killing of a brother. YOu can do this with many words in the English language. It is even better and more useful if one is multilingual. This knowlege of how words break down or the root words from which they derive is a handy tool. To bad it was not taught to me in public school. If you dont know the meaing of words it can be very easy to mislead or be mislead about a great many things. This too can be construed as dumbing down.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Originally posted by ViolatoRI mean c'mon what highschool kid needs english translated into english!?!?!

You are talking about Elizabethian English compared to our modern English. (Face it, people during those time did not talk like that) I read six Shakespeare plays in highschool; MSND, MacB, R&J, Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar, and Othello. Everyone in my class would have failed the class if there were not footnotes available in the library and offcampus.

Math books have been edited over the years, why not add footnotes to Shakespeare?

I read one theory that proposed the dumbing down began back in the 30's, when studies showed the more educated one was, the more likely they were to vote for socialists. They claimed that, in order to decrease support for the left, a plan to 'dumb down' the educational system was started. The only name I recall being mentioned was someone named Dewey, and the US and UK were the countries they named as pursuing this plan.
The 'Dick and Jane' books were cited as being part of the new plan.
Any more detail on this theory would be welcome.

I believe you refer to John Dewey and his concept of Progrressive Education which was the baillywick of the public education system. I believe this was replaced by a more progressive education system called Outcome Based Education. I suppose John Deweys system was not progressive enough. We could even be on to something more progressive than this eventually.
One thing is obvious to me ..when you read literature like Cicero, or Marcus Aurelius, even going into more recent times. Matthew Arnold , Emerson, these people could read and write. Thier ability to put pen to paper and communicate a idea or a concept is much greater than the bulk of us now days.
No most people back then did not write as did Shakespeare or the others I quoted. This does not mean we need to be able to read or express ourselves at a level of the newspapers or with four letter words to describe mostly our emotions. It means we need to be aware of concepts far greater than our individual provincial thoughts. Language and dicipline in language is a means of doing this. If you dont know much about language ,your language,it is very easy for someone to decieve you about a great many things.


Thanks,
Orangetom