Reply #23: American culture is the problem

[Lydia Leftcoast]

According to American culture, you're supposed to go to school and get good grades, but you're not supposed to be an intellectual. That's the kiss of death socially. You have to pretend to be a mindless mediocrity, and if you enjoy reading, you'd better do it in secret.

The schools responded with grade inflation (higher grades for less work) and dumbed-down textbooks and supplementary materials. Parents actually protested teachers who demanded high performance from their students, because their child might not get good grades if he or she had to read and write about real literature. Why not just have the kids watch a movie and answer true/false questions about it afterwards? And who cares about grammar and spelling anyway, as long as your reader can figure out what you mean?

Of course, if you've taught, you know that the students live down to your expectations.

This trend started in the 1970s, so many of the teachers who are teaching now were brought up under this dumbed-down curriculum.

Meanwhile, in the pop culture, Dumb and Dumber isn't just the name of a movie.

The result is that a lot of students come to college without ever having been required to think about anything on a complex level.