Dumbing Down America Analysis

2806 Words12 Pages
“Dumbing Down” America The one thing you were always pushed and told to do when you were in school was to get an education, so you can get a good job and be successful. You need an education to get anywhere in the world. Schools in America were regarded as the best schools in the world up to the 1970's. Today, compared to the development of Asian and European schools, American schools are ranked as some of the lowest schools. Some students are graduating from high school with little or more knowledge about the core classes, some people that graduate they say are illiterate. This topic has been debated for years on why education in America has decreased in the ratings of mathematics, science, and reading. Many American critics believe that…show more content…
This whole cut and dry teaching, what is wrong and what is right in education. But is this to say we are “dumbing down education” to meet standard test and better scores and rankings. The slang expression of “dumbing down” describes the deliberate diminishment of the intellectual level of the content of literature, film, schooling and education, news, and other aspects of culture. I believe that there are many factors why Americans rankings are so low. Education has dumbed down but there are so many different aspects of the situation, fingers pointed on why this has happened. Reason of media, social, funding, whether you when to public or private schools, the extra curricular activities schools were offering. I don’t believe that just one of these subjects are to blame, but a combination of them all. Due to the No Child Left Behind Act and the Instrument to Measure Standards tests, which most states have, schools are now micro-managed by state and federal regulations. Teachers are told what they will teach and how they will teach. This has created a larger workload for teachers, while their paychecks remain unchanged. Money is dropped into states for education, but that money…show more content…
Life has distinctly undergone some very dramatic changes ever since the dawn of the Internet era and with each passing day there is a growing dependence on it. People start to rely on the accessibility of information on social media, we rely on the internet to give us answers and retain information. Social networking including Facebook, twitter, blogs and even You Tube play a role in our education. Students who attempt to multi-task, checking their social media sites while there are studying or working on a paper lose their ability to perform the task on hand and their concentration by these distractions, I know this to be true because I can admit that I too have looked at Facebook and the internet for distractions while writing this paper. Another problem that social media creates another way for people to bully or have access to emotionally abuse others. Bullying has become a debacle in the news for years on kids that are being abused emotionally and even in some cases physically as well. Bullying has a huge impact on schools and education. In many cases children who are victims of bullying have a lower self-esteem later in life, and are prone to missing more school because of excused and unexcused reasons. This results to kids have lower grades cause they are not there to get the full education and lower grades. It is unbelievable how fast people come up with these slang expressions to use that
Open Document