Are We Producing
Stupid Americans?
Richard Salbato
9-30-2010
I know that is an offensive title
and I am told to never use the word “stupid” but no other word fits what I want
to say. I have been wondering for a long
time why people cannot logically give forth an argument on their point of view
on any subject no matter what it is.
Even when they have the same opinion that I have I always wish they
would have said this or that to make the argument but they
never do. News commentaries have a bias
in politics to one side or the other but instead of giving a good reason for
their opinion, they resort to name calling and repeating over and over sad
sound-bites that they hope a stupid public will embrace.
I was watching the Pastor
who was accused of sexual assault on four boys talk with has congregation. He did not deny any of the accusations and
yet the congregation gave him a standing ovation. Why?
Democrats and the liberal news
media loves to say over and over that the money problems we have today are
because of President Bush, but never say that the Democrats have held the House
and Senate for the past six years and that it is the house that controls the
budget. They never say that it was
Democratic bills that caused the crash of the credit market and the housing
industry.
I understand that but where
are the conservatives to give a good logical argument against these claims?
Now we have the expiration
of the Bush tax cuts ten years ago that brought the GDP from 9 trillion to 14
trillion and increased the taxes to the
government. However, because of two wars, the destruction of
They make the same argument
against President Reagan, because of some debt but never mention the fact that
under him was the largest growth not only in jobs but in taxes to the
government. We went into debt because
Reagan wanted to bankrupt
They credit
People do not look at the
facts but just absorb the sound-bites like a sponge takes water or acid without
knowing the difference. Why this failure to think properly?
How Were We Taught?
Actually I think it is
because of the way we were educated over the past 70 years. Prior to World War
II, all schools had the same education philosophy
and this system went back to the time of Plato,
who wrote it. It is called Trivium –Quadrivium,
the three and then four stages of education.
This method not only
produced the great minds of the past but even the great inventions of the 20th
Century. If you look at all we have
today, it all started with people who were educated before World War II,
including the great inventions of the war, cars, airplanes, sonar, radar,
atomic power, subs, computers, etc. Before that we invented electricity, fuel,
heavy farm equipment and building tools.
We built the
We had the greatest
education system in the world and it was entirely controlled by local
governments (towns, cities and counties) and private schools. As a result we had the greatest economy and
standard of living in the world. What
happened?
After World War II the Feds
passed the GI bill giving free education to those coming back from war. This was a good thing, but it opened a
Department of Education in
Philosophy was replaced by Psychology, and History was
replaced with Sociology. Books were
edited to be politically correct.
Schools were bombarded with useless courses that did nothing for
education except wasting time. Students were judged by how they memorized the
book they were reading no matter what the subject and no matter if the book was
true or not. Not even the teacher could question the books or programs. Accept but do not think!
Schools no longer accepted
any disagreement or other opinions, but only what they taught. There is no room for thinking, reasoning, or
free thinking. Is this any different
from a cult, where the victim is told what to think, what to read, what to eat
and who to talk with?
The cost of this
brainwashing to tax-payers is $200,000 per every 15 students and half of them
drop out of school and or graduate without being able to read, write or think. If
allowed - think of a great teacher, who puts 15 students in his or her own
house to teach properly and is paid $200,000 a year for doing it. That is what we are paying now and getting
nothing for it.
What is not taught in the modern
One of the saddest things
you can do is look up “the criteria for becoming a teacher”. You will find that there is
no real criteria, and in fact there are methods where you can become a
teacher with one or two years of college.
There are no classes that teach
you how to teach. In fact I could
not find a course that leads you to a teacher’s degree. To be an engineer you follow a set selection
of classes, but not for a teacher. And
yet a teacher makes more per hour of work than even the average Master of
Engineering.
In the old days you had to
know the historically proven method of teaching, shown below, but not used
anymore anywhere in America.
Trivium and Quadrivium
From Plato to the 20th Century we knew the true method of
learning and at what stage of life. Even
Trivium:
1. Grammar and discipline. This
starts at birth and is almost the only thing that needs to be taught. This is the time when the brain is empty and
can absorb and remember not just one language but many. This is the time when self control is learned
of never learned. Much is learned in
Grammar because you cannot learn “tree” without learning what a tree is. Within language is the definition of
everything. You cannot think unless you
have words and definitions to associate with them.
2. Rhetoric, the use of language. Then the student (after proficient language
skills) learns to communicate with others what he may have read or
experienced. He will be judged on how
much he understood or what he read and how well he passed that knowledge
on. As this skill is developed and
judged he becomes more cognoscente of understanding what he reads.
3. Logic, understanding the truth and the false. After mastering Rhetoric, we learn from
defending and explaining what we read, to questioning it. In logic we find the faults in our thinking
and in others thinking and learn to argue against it. This is where real learning and thinking
takes place. Without logical thinking we
cannot study the other sciences and should not. In One we learned the
language of all science: numbers, space and time but not the science
itself. Only after learning to question
and reason can we truly go on to the other sciences which we then do in the:
Quadrivium
The Quadrivium consisted of:
1. Arithmetic, the use of numbers, cannot be understood without a background
in logic and resoning because nothing is more logical
than numbers. If “A” is defined and “B”
is defined as something different then A cannot equal B. If 1+1=2 then 1+2 cannot
equal 3.
2. Geometry, numbers in space or how to measure the physical world. This takes more logic and reasoning than most
other sciences. If you have logic you
can design formulas for figuring size, distance, weight and movement of
physical things. At least you will understand the formulas for doing this and
judge how truthful they are.
3. Music or harmonic and tuning theories.
This also is a very important science because it measures and
understands the use and misuse of sound, how it works, and how it alters the
brain.
4. Astronomy or Cosmology, the measuring of space and time.
Philosophy is often envisioned as science that unites all branches of
knowledge or the mother of all science. Logic is the
art of arguing correctly: Formal Logic today lies not so much in the
establishment of positive conclusions as in the prompt detection and exposure
of invalid inference.
Up in the mountains
above
“History,
aided by a simple system of ethics derived from the grammar of theology, will provide
much suitable material for discussion: Was the behaviour
of this statesman justified? What was the effect of such an enactment? What are
the arguments for and against this or that form of government?
“What use is it to pile
task on task and prolong the days of labor, if at the close the chief object is
left unattained? It is not the fault of the teachers—they work only too hard
already. The combined folly of a civilization
that has forgotten its own roots is forcing them to shore up the tottering
weight of an educational structure that is built upon sand. They are doing for their
pupils the work which the pupils themselves ought to do. For the sole true end
of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and
whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.”
“The
Lost Tools of Learning”
by Dorothy L Sayers