Pundits are having a field day dogpiling on poor Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina Teen. Asked in competition, "One fifth of Americans can't locate the United States on a world map; why do you think that is?" her response was rambling and literally incoherent, with non-sequitor observations about Iraq and South Africa. She has since said she froze. Genuine freezing might have been preferable; saying nothing would have been better than what she did say.
I refuse to make fun of her. Personally--and I'm completely serious here--I'm wondering if she didn't have a sort of mini-stroke brought on by the stress of the moment. It makes sense to me. People who have had strokes sometimes find themselves unable to say the words they're thinking; instead random words are tossed out. Circumstances such as those that she found herself in would be enough to burst a blood vessel in anyone's head. They probably did dry runs with her about assorted world topics and her synapses just started spitting out fragments of those replies.
Second, I don't think that a country that has tolerated seven years of a president so characterized by malaprops that entire 365-day calendars are devoted to them--a president whose town-hall meeting questions are carefully vetted before they're spoken--gets to laugh too hard at a scared teenager who had a tough question sprung on her. Caitlin Upton has to do her own damage control; she doesn't have a press secretary to face reporters the next day after a session of babbling incoherence and say, "Okay, what she MEANT to say was..."
And it WAS a tough question, because in thirty seconds she had to try and come up with an answer that was fundamentally upbeat and positive because, hey, that's what beauty pagents are all about. If someone asked me that question and I had to come up with an off-the-cuff response, it would be this...
"One fifth? I'm surprised it's that low. On the quiz show "Power of Ten" it was recently revealed that twenty-five percent of surveyed Americans believed that the inventor of the diesel engine was Vin Diesel. The fact is that obesity is not the number one health problem in this country, it's stupidity. A lot of Americans are stupid. Bone dry stupid. Stupid as a box of rocks. They were born stupid, they were stupid in school, and they became stupid grown-ups. And there's enough of them out there to have a considerable impact on this country, because morons are running for high office and morons are voting for them and putting them in there. Americans are oblivious to the rest of the world, and if that were not the case, then maybe our leaders might have listened when the rest of the world said, 'Stay the hell out of Iraq, you morons.' Many Americans have a fundamental arrogance that stems from a basic lack of intellectual curiosity. They don't read. They don't learn. They don't think. They tune out with television or computer games or Ipods and obsess about what Lindsay or Britney or whatever other troubled pop tart is up to rather than caring about things that really matter.
Our educational system needs to be overhauled beyond the test-centric mandates of No Child Left Behind. If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and he will feed himself for ever. Students need to be taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think. More money needs to be spent on programs for kids who are already gifted so that those gifts can be fully realized and brought to fruition. We need to remember that the arts enrich a civilization; that science and scientific thinking is not the enemy; that it is more important to care for poor people over here than blow up poor people in other countries.
The fact that one fifth of Americans can't find the country on the map pales beside the likelihood that one fifth of Americans probably couldn't find their own asses with both hands and a flashlight. And that stupidity is going to continue to be a hallmark of our country until we work together to remedy the situation from the top down."
Not an easy thing to sound upbeat about in thirty seconds, is it.
My condolences to Ms. Upton. Now...she needs to strive to be part of the solution, rather than be dismissed as part of the problem.
PAD
Posted by Peter David at August 29, 2007 05:19 PM | TrackBack | Other blogs commentingIt's not even so much that the educational system needs to be reformed, though I won't argue that point. The bigger issue is that, for large swaths of American Culture, it's okay and encouraged to be stupid. Or, more accurately, to be mentally lazy.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic to why this is. For the most part, it's a culture of lower class ethnic majority. Their lives are generally filled with hard work, and little reward. They spend a lot of time trying hard to just not think about how crummy most of their time on earth is for them, and are happy to latch on to opinions that make them feel better than others without having to actually do anything to be better than others. It's a release from a hard life.
But you raise a kid like this, where beer and TV are the main forms of entertainment, where you'll work damned hard all your life and if you're lucky be able to pay the rent every month, where your place in the world is believed to be largely set based on your race, gender, and place of birth, and anyone different is a threat, where thinking about things just makes you think about how much you don't like your life - that kid is probably not going to develop a love of learning. He's going to look for the path of least resistance, become intellectually lazy, and be very well rewarded socially for doing so. When your environment is actively hostile to thinking differently than your parents, and those parents latch on to whatever radio or TV personality that their friends listen to, it's a rare individual that'll care enough to do well in school just for his own sake. Mom and Dad don't care, so long as you don't flunk out, and the teachers will pass you so long as you don't cause too much of a fuss, so just go with the flow.
You can put in whatever system you want in the schools, but it's very hard to break out of this cycle. And I don't have the slightest idea about what to do to fix it.
And kudos to people who _do_ become educated coming from anti-intellectual backgrounds. It happens, and I admire you!
There are so many things that need to be addressed to fix the educational system that it's beyond sad.
#1. Get rid of No Child Left Behind. I've seen enough "teaching to the test" with my kids, now 8 and 10, to know it's a waste of time.
#2. Find the money to making teaching a viable profession once again. We live in a society that has villified even the idea of taxes. You know what? Taxes are a GOOD thing. They are used to benefit everybody. Even if you don't have kids and part of your taxes go to support the school system it benefits everyone by producing smarter children who are far less likely to end up on welfare or otherwise being a burden on society, thereby saving everybody money in the long run. What is bad is when government revenue is WASTED on things like tax breaks for large corporations and needless invasions of foreign countries.
#3. Parental involvement and supervision of in their kids' education is frighteningly low. Back when most children has one working parent and one stay-at-home parent it was much easier to keep tabs on the kids' schoolwork and activities. when both parents work young kids are sent to afterschool centers for several hours until they can be picked up and get little personal attention. Older kids just kill time alone at home and others prove the old theory about idle hands. I check my kids' homework every night, I'm in frequent communication with their teachers and I try to supplement what their learning in class with actual exercises about learning. If they learn something in math I try to show them a practical application for what they learned. If they learn something in history it will normally only be the who, what and when so I try to supplement it with the why.
I'll stop here but there are so many more things that need to be added to this list.
She got a chance to try to answer the question again. Her answer the second time was slightly better.
http://blog.vh1.com/2007-08-28/miss-teen-south-carolina-is-still-kinda-dumb/
It's downbeat to say this, but what do you expect from a society that uses the term "Einstein" as a perjorative?
And if Ms. Upton had actually used such a word as "perjorative" in her answer, I'll tell you the most disappointing thing: it's not that certain people wouldn't know the meaning of that word, 'cause that's okay -- knowledge is a measure of exposure, not intelligence -- it's that those who didn't know what it meant wouldn't care enough to get a dictionary (if they even had one on their shelf) to find out.
To delibertately dismiss exposure in the name of improving one's knowledge IS a measure of intelligence -- a very telling one.
I'm with Peter: I don't blame her, but I think she is a symptom of a larger problem.
Her 'redo' on the link above is actually very good. Paraphrased: I and my friends know where it is on a map; I don't know anyone who doesn't; but if the statistics are true, we need to improve our educational system.
The blogger attacks the first half of her answer ignoring the second half. And the first half is understandable. Anyone who receives a good education from a good school would likely react with the same surprise and doubt of the statistic, because they haven't been exposed to the 20% yet in their life.
And she sounded fairly intelligible in the rest of the conversation as well, where she didn't have three days to prepare her answer.
Peter, great reply. Substitute "American" for "Australian" and it'd describe my country's problems too. As Kirby has stated, here in Australia as well we're encouraged to be intellectually lazy.
I hadn't heard anything about this until this morning, when a colleague of mine showed me the video before a meeting.
While I definitely feel sorry for her, I don't think it was an issue of a mini-stroke. She seemed too coherent in terms of facial expressions -- it was too clearly someone flailing around for a response to be anything else. (She had a moment in the middle where she clearly felt like she finally had it ... and then it all went to hell again.)
Apart from that, I agree with most of what's been said here, most particularly about American culture and the glorification of stupidity.
My two additions, for what they're worth:
-- Some of the people I feel the MOST sorry for in this would be Miss SC's teachers, past and (if relevant) present. Assuming that they were decent teachers, they must be cringing up a treat at this point.
-- Considering that we've already had about 4700 presidential debates and it's only August of '07, I'd propose that we lock each of the candidates alone in a room except for a camera and ask each of THEM this question, along with a few others. No chance to rehearse, and knowing that people will see the answer. Let's see how well they do.
TWL
If I might borrow a phrase: "...we're encouraged to be intellectually lawe're encouraged to be intellectually lazy.
zy."
I wonder if it might be more basic than that, though. There's a lot of teaching of facts, but very little of the application of these facts, and even less on how to research further facts. In my second English comp class in college, we had a research paper. Now, along with my writing, I also did some work in a library for a year, and one of my favorite things is to figure out how movie effects work. I know how to research. Now, this was a fairly young teacher, not too experienced in handling her own class, and it came across sometimes. There were a lot of questions being bandied about on how to research(shocked the heck outta me) and not much in the way of response. Sure, structurally, she knew what to tell people, but if they needed help in the research end, they were pretty much left high and dry. That same semester, I had an Intermediate Algebra teacher, I learned more from that man about math than from any other teacher, because he showed us not only how to do it, but he showed us WHY it did it, and WHAT you could do with it. Also, if we were stuck during a test, or if we bolluxed one up, he'd help us to get the right answer and show us why it was right, and where we'd gone wrong.
Also made me think of my acting classes, my radio classes, and my speech class. My radio classes all said the same damn thing to me--you've got the face for radio, and a great voice, you just talk too damn fast. My acting classes with one possible exception were all really simple for me. My speech class, run by your stereotypical effete gay professor, that was another ball of wax. Most people aren't taught to speak in public. Most people would rather have a proctologist assist in a root canal than speak in public. Well, this guy knew it, knew that he could do it better, and proceeded to belittle everyone in the class. Several people despised this guy by the middle of the semester, one of whom actually stormed out of the room, slamming the door impressively, and all he did was make a sly joke. So, it was evident that all he was interested in was his own ever-increasing opinion of himself, and not in assisting any of us to become better speakers. Maybe this South Carolinian(is that the correct phrase, Bill?) just didn't have the right training for public speaking.
Oh, and in response to ...
I don't think that a country that has tolerated seven years of a president so characterized by malaprops that entire 365-day calendars are devoted to them--a president whose town-hall meeting questions are carefully vetted before they're spoken--gets to laugh too hard at a scared teenager who had a tough question sprung on her.
I'd like to petition that those of us who NEVER tolerated Dorkboy-in-Chief be allowed a certain latitude in this area. :-)
TWL
"Considering that we've already had about 4700 presidential debates and it's only August of '07, I'd propose that we lock each of the candidates alone in a room"
Hey, that in itself's not a bad idea...
Having watched the clip a couple of times, it appears to me as though she was *very* over-coached, and rather than listening to the question asked, she was instead thinking about all of the things she'd been told to do: Make sure people know it's your opinion, give an example, always smile, don't smile during the serious bits.
She's a 16 year old kid, and had a brain seizure in front of millions of people. Not entirely her fault, and not something to make fun of - she'll be hearing about it for years, poor thing.
It's not a stroke; I've always believed that this phenomena is a pretty common remnant of our evolutionary past.
I mean, back in the day, when a cave bear jumped out at you, thinking was not a very high priority. You KNEW what you had to do: run. In fact, any blood going to your brain is blood better sent to your feets, which had best be doing their duty about then. It's a common thing to feel your skin grow cold during fear as your body constricts the blood vessels and takes blood away from the skin surface (so as to reduce the inevitable bleeding that is part and parcel of a cave bear encounter). I think it's also the basic mechanism of "test anxiety". Confronted with a test, the modern equivalent of a cave bear to hear my students talk, the body reacts as it would a physical threat, turning our young scholar into a grunting wide eyed sack of anxiety, unable to recall even obvious questions like "What is your name". Don't even ASK them to make fire without flint or steel.
(It also occurs to me that in moments of fear one's senses become particularly acute--the slightest sound becomes distracting. A kid who nervously taps his pencil during a test is liable to get dirty looks and metal protractors thrown at him.. I'll bet Miss South Carolina was able to hear every snicker, which probably wasn't helping.)
My niece went to the Miss New York pageant twice and the question and answer portion was sheer torture for both the contestants and the audience. Even if you're rooting for one person it's no fun to see one of her competitors get the flop sweats on stage, if you have even a modicum of empathy. I remember one poor girl who just could not answer the question--she had it repeated and you could see that it might as well have been spoken in Aramaic. She just shook her head sadly and said she couldn't answer the question, while the hearts of everyone in the audience sank. (I might add that the questions seemed almost deliberately designed to NOT be able to be answered with the cliched "and world peace" response. My niece's was some dopey tax policy question, as I recall.)
I just watched the clip (I hadn't heard about it until now), and it seems very obvious to me that she was extremely nervous and just froze up and began spitting out words. It's happened to me (though never quite that bad), and to most people, I'm sure. I agree that it's not something to be made fun of.
I'd like to petition that those of us who NEVER tolerated Dorkboy-in-Chief be allowed a certain latitude in this area. :-)
Hear! Hear!
Let's not just lock all the candidates in room. Let's lock them in the Thunderdome.
I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and just say that she was flustered. Not everyone can come up to a quick and perky answer on the fly.
But, let's be honest, the question segment of these beauty pangents is just a meaningless puff piece thrown it to try and convince people that they're not just cheesecake contests.
unable to recall even obvious questions like "What is your name".
I recall an old Shoe comic strip from 20 years ago which has Skyler (preteen? hard to tell when it's a bird) panicking before a final. He's psyching himself up, and says, "okay, all I need to do is get through the first question. Here comes the test...
"Name.
"Name WHAT? Name WHO? Oh, God, I'm losing it!
"Oh ... wait ... MY name. Calm down, get a grip..."
It being my senior year in high school, I surreptitiously posted that strip above every copy of the exam schedule I could find. :-)
TWL
As someone who gets tongued-tied the minute I have to stand up to speak in front of a group of people (even people I know well), I feel a little bit of sympathy. I'm so bad that when I was secretary for a voluntary organisation, I used to remain seated to deliver my reports. Seated, I was ok, but on my feet, even with notes...
" Bill Mulligan at August 29, 2007 09:52 PM "
I think you're referring to the "flight or fight mechanism"
I try to go back to my high school every year for career day, during which I usually get a group of about 15-20 juniors and seniors, half of whom are actually interested in a career as a writer or journalist; the other half consisting of kids who want to get out of their regular class for an hour. At any rate, during my regular spiel, I always talk about the need for communication skills, which include being able to spell!
The last time I did this talk, the teacher came up to me afterwards and thanked me for mentioning the need to spell, as it was a skill that a lot of students seemed to neglect. I was quite surprised, as this was my former high school, from which I graduated after taking four years of advanced English classes and getting college credit. The teacher turned on his overhead projector and slapped a copy of an essay he wanted me to read. My first response was that it had been written by somebody who was mentally challenged: lots of punctuation and grammar errors, and just about every other word misspelled. The teacher then explained that this was in fact an average essay, which he now used to show his students how he would deduct points for each of those errors.
The lesson I learned from all of this? Gosh, if a top-ranked college prep school in one of the most affluent counties in New Jersey and ultimately the United States had a problem like that, I could only wonder what other communities and other states with less money and poorer education systems had to deal with. Judging from the discussion at hand, I guess I now have some idea.
She's just a kid who froze on TV. I say let's cut her some slack. She's from South Carolina for goodness' sake - do they even have schools? (I keed, I keed)
I've read on more than one occasion of someone who had been blind practically since birth, within a year or so of having their sight restored, asking their doctor to blind them again. They go from a linear world, where, say, their furniture simply does not exist until they encounter it in their living room, to the spatial world we all know where the 2-inch airplane hanging in the sky outside of our kitchen window has no existential effect on our enjoyment of our meal. Such a recovery of sight, with the patient transitioning from a linear to a spatial world, alters his or her very relationship with reality, and in turn alters the patient's very identity in a way he or she can never be verbally warned of. We, taking for granted the practice of managing our sighted experiences into full development in late adolescence, are unqualified to issue such a warning.
Likewise, our reasoning, in the form of language, is linear, but our experience is spatial. If we judge ourselves by how well we conform to socially acceptable roles, then there is less demand for us to construct our own reasoning, relying on a reasoning we simply inherit from the role we adopt. We then learn to smother our own unconscious reactions to our experiences, rather than learn to articulate them.
If the public role we adopt is one that comes with great privileges, those same privileges then become enablers of our straight-jacketing our own feelings and intuitions.
It takes intelligence to acquaint ourselves with our own feelings and intuitions, so that we may put words to our authentic experiences. But it also takes intelligence to adopt a socially-approved role with which we may straight-jacket those same feelings and intuitions. Not all intelligence is of equal benefit in equal degrees, if they can be said to be beneficial at all.
Each school-aged generation must be taught to divest themselves of privilege -- by the generation preceding them who pursue privilege aggressively. The faster pace of progress, and the increased privileges produced by it, only increases the severity of this problem.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and he will feed himself for ever."
Build a man a fire, he is warm for a day; set a man on fire, he is warm the rest of his life.
I am definitely in favor of teaching critical thinking to children, starting in elementary school. Of course, a LOT of people would object to this.
And, it doesn't help that, in elementary and high school, showing mental aptitude gets you labeled as "nerd" or "geek". Why would kids want to learn?
Peter David: I don't think that a country that has tolerated seven years of a president so characterized by malaprops that entire 365-day calendars are devoted to them--a president whose town-hall meeting questions are carefully vetted before they're spoken--gets to laugh too hard at a scared teenager who had a tough question sprung on her.
Luigi Novi: And what about those who haven't tolerated it? Those of us who have criticized that president at numerous opportunities, who protest what he and his cabal have said and done, who have voted against him? I don't think the "country" has tolerated him. Just some of the people in it. Speculate on mini-strokes all you want, but it seems to me that criticism of Upton is merely consistent with the same intolerance of Bush.
Though I'm loving the irony that the question was about education.
(Oh, and Peter? I think you misspelled non sequitur. :-) )
Posted by: James Blight at August 29, 2007 07:15 PM
It's downbeat to say this, but what do you expect from a society that uses the term "Einstein" as a perjorative?
And if Ms. Upton had actually used such a word as "perjorative" in her answer, I'll tell you the most disappointing thing: it's not that certain people wouldn't know the meaning of that word, 'cause that's okay -- knowledge is a measure of exposure, not intelligence -- it's that those who didn't know what it meant wouldn't care enough to get a dictionary (if they even had one on their shelf) to find out.
To delibertately dismiss exposure in the name of improving one's knowledge IS a measure of intelligence -- a very telling one.
James, I don't mean to be snarky but the word is PEJORATIVE. (I only mention it because it looked wrong to me, so I consulted my online dictionary which affirmed my feeling.)
Peter, I think she answered the question demonstratively, instead of verbally.
America is a country that values beauty over intelligence.
In a pageant like that, as you say, the answer must be upbeat. Because America is a country where a beautiful lie is valued more than an intelligent truth.
Disclaimer : Yes, I'm generalising. Not all Americans are dumb, but your "culture" leaves a lot to be desired. And yes, the rest of the world has similar problems. For example : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article2344054.ece
How to think 101 engage your brain and sneces in high radified ideologies before you think the word What.
HOW to think 101 engage your brain and senses in high radified ideologies before you give yourself the option of preset programs on WHAT you think.
Joe, can I ask which HS you speak at? I teach at a fairly high-powered college prep school in an affluent county in New Jersey, so I can sympathize. :-)
TWL
Excuse me, I, Mr. Teen(-plus) Illinois, would beg to differ with Mr. "Teen" New York's above answer.
The reason one-fifth of Americans can't find America on a world map is a LACK OF INTEREST.
--By kids
--By parents
--By schools
--By adults in general
--By the news media
--By the entertainment media.
Try and name 3 broadcast tv series set outside America. Sure, there are movies set in foreign countries, but they are often backdrops in action movies and while featuring American tourists passing thru (often in high speed cars, bikes, planes, etc. in hot pursuit). How often is foreign news reduced to "it bleeds, it leads" or "it MIGHT bleed, it leads"?
There used to be greater interest in international news decades ago--but that was due to concerns about the Cold War. Outside of business folk invested internationally, the average person simply doesn't care about international news.
That's what happens in a superpower. When Britain dominated then Britains were more focused inwardly. When Rome dominated then Romans were more focused inwardly. Today, America dominates so Americans are more focused inwardly. In countries not superpowers then there is greater world concern, at least in what the superpower is doing. The giant tends to be less interested in the nearby ants but the ants are quite focused on what a nearby giant is doing.
But here's the dirty little secret: MOST people are that way. MOST people are more interested in local events, thus people tend to more interested in their state, their country, their city, their community, their home than elsewhere--until or unless it's demonstrated how THEY are AFFECTED.
Show people how THEY are AFFECTED by the world at large and they will take a greater interest.
-- Ken from Chicago (Mr. Teen-er-plus Illinois)
Joe, you're right about spelling. I suspect the problem has gotten worse, much worse, since emails, IMs and text messaging have become so popular. When a kid keeps using "Ur" for "your" it can get to be a habit.
My own modest spelling abilities have certainly not been improved by the invention of spellcheck.
I'm more concerned by the fact that so many kids simply can't put words on paper in a coherent form, spelled well or not. They can express themselves verbally so why should putting those words on paper be so difficult? Granted, speech is an inborn ability that has been with us for a long time while written language is a relatively new invention. It doesn't surprise me that some kids are not hard wired properly for easy reading/writing skills. But the problem seems to be getting worse.
On the bright side...those of us with kids can easily ensure that they will stand out in the crowd simply by encouraging them to write well.
here's the video link from youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D77VDmMvsQ
um, watched it twice now, but still can't decipher what she's on about.
why do they only get 30 seconds for such an obviously trap question
>The bigger issue is that, for large swaths of American Culture, it's okay and encouraged to be stupid.
Worse, it's not exactly a new phenomenon. It's been deeply ingrained in U.S. culture for over 40 years.
As for knowledge of the outside world, that, too is sadly neglected. A New Jersey couple - long time friends - who were well-educated, and TREK fans even, decided to celebrate their daughter's high school graduation by sending her to spend a couple of weeks in a foreign country. Well, Canada - it was all they could afford. She stayed as my guest and we spend much time conversing. I was dismayed at how she seemed to feel a need to explain every US cultural reference as though I couldn't be expected to know what she was talking about. I finally told her that I was well aware of those things and she needn't elaborate unless I asked. In exchange she was embarassed (and rightly so) to admit that she didn't even know what a 'province' was.
Seems to me that one of the prerequisites to being a policeman is to have some knowledge of the neighbourhood one is working in. Shouldn't this also apply to a country which sets itself as the world's beat cop? Apparently it doesn't think so. Which does explain a great deal about the problems cropping up out there.
These two statements seem to be in opposition:
“They don't read. They don't learn. They don't think. They tune out with television or computer games or Ipods”
and
“We need to remember that the arts enrich a civilization”
Perhaps you have forgotten that television shows, computer games, and the music we listen to on our iPods are in fact works of art? In fact, you could make a strong argument that we are an art obsessed nation, that cares about little else except art. (Even celebrity worship largely revolves around artists... actors and musicians.)
Got to admit, I got pretty sick of seeing that story over and over again on the news networks.
There were much more important things to talk about than that poor girl flubbing her answer.
On the other hand, as has probably been said before, can anyone name the winner of the pagent? Hope she can spin this into something positive, at least.
Anyone remember the FOX/Sci-Fi TV show Sliders? There was an early episode where Quinn and the gang travelled to a world where smart kids were the celebrities. If only our country was like that. Other countries are. In the book The World is Flat, Friedman gives an example of the crowds that gathered when Bill Gates visited China. In China, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In the U.S., Britney Spears is Britney Spears.
That makes all the difference.
Ed
In 9th grade, we had to give a presentation book report. I ended up locking my knees, and nearly fainted. I had to ask to sit down, another student gave their report, and then I got back up and made my presentation without a flaw. I wasn't laughed at...in fact, other students were asking what I took in between efforts, because my second attempt was so much better than my first oxygen-starved attempt.
There are many things that this event, and the media and public reaction to it, are symptomatic of. It's ironic that she flubbed a question on education, but from reports I've read, she's an exellent student, getting good grades and challenging herself. Her response the next day shows that she's capable of forming a good response.
The ridcule she's been exposed to is an outgrowth of American's mean-spiritedness. We love to laugh at other's follies. The more public the misadventure, the funnier it is for us. I think there's also a large swell of upmanship involved, too. People like to be made to feel important, and if they can think that they're clearly more intelligent or composed than ms Teen Beauty contestant, it makes them feel somewhat important.
The education system in this country is in bad, bad shape, and that's saying something. My in-laws are teachers, who refer to Bush's program as "No Idiot Left Behind." By tying our schools' funding to every last child's performance, it forces them to spend 95% of their resources on 5% of the kids. Or cheat.
We're taking the responsibility to teach our kids ourselves. Given the overall state of schools, trusting your children to even a good school system seems risky to me.
um, watched it twice now, but still can't decipher what she's on about.
why do they only get 30 seconds for such an obviously trap question
Where the contestants' preparation could be said to be tested in the talent competition, the ambush question seems to be an attempt to test the contestants' spontaneity and, kind of like Graham Chapman squawking with his thumbs in his ears, her babbling answer was her spontaneous reply.
If the judges were truly judging on spontaneity, they would give high scores for truly spontaneous replies, like in the Monty Python sketch. Since most contestants seem to get by by taking the safest course of issuing a bland answer, the test seems to really be about who can fake authenticity and demonstrate the least vulnerability while doing so.
This rewarding of pretense and ridicule of vulnerability is how we smother creativity, rather than nurture it, and obstruct innovation.
As the parent of 3 kids whose IQ's tested out in the Superior + range (3-4 years above grade level), we have been at odds with the school board so often that we're all but banned from Board of Ed meetings, because our ongoing chant is "Where's the education?" At an expenditure of $8500 per pupil (good Prep school is $10,000), education has been replaced with happy social skills. Of 180 alleged school days, 10 are lost for "Town Meetings" where the entire school is packed squirming into the auditorium to hear students read poems or vote the most popular kid as class officer, etc. Another is lost for "Be One" day, where there are no classes, just social activities to make everyone friends (My vision, and my kids, of Hell). Another is lost for Field day, another for the end-of-year trip. Take out another 5 for 6th and 8th grade, who do expensive extended field trips out of state (my kids didn't go). Add in local field trips, snow days, and you're down to 170 or even 160 days, where a 60 is passing, and unless you outright Fail (below 60) at least FOUR classes for THREE semesters, you can't stay back (even one D cancels it). We don't teach grammar (there's no time), we don't teach spelling ("that's why we have spell check"), we don't teach penmanship ("You don't need it any more - everyone uses computers"), AP classes are based on student popularity and last exactly three hours a week for eight weeks, that's it. There is no more grouping kids by ability level; you must mix all the smart kids and dull kids together for all classes, because the smart ones will help the stupider ones learn (I must be stupid, because I thought that was the TEACHER's job). I had one kid crying by second grade, because she was so "bored" (and at 3 years above grade level, she WAS). The teacher's response? "Oh, she's not bored. Tell her to use a different word." It was 4th grade before she got a teacher who truly realized how far ahead she was, and taught her accordingly. She remains my daughter's favorite teacher.
If I knew at the start what I know now, I would have home schooled my kids. I sent them to school brilliant, and they've had the brilliance beaten out of them every step of the way. What scares me is that we are allegedly one of the best school systems in the state. IF we're good, what the hell are the rest like?
Maybe they're stuck in class instead of hugging and cheerleading for Be One day.
Joe Nazzaro and Bill Mulligan,
You're both right about spelling. To say nothing of punctuation. It's depressing how many cases of misspelling I see. Both online and off.
I've even seen people on this blog spell "dying" as "dieing." Now granted spelling conventions change over time, but even so...
Campchaos,
Where is this school district you mention? I want to be sure to stay away from there should I ever have kids.
I had the good fortune at least to attend a Jesuit-run college-prep high school from 7th-12th grade where there was an emphasis on education. And still is. We were also taught how to think.
Sadly, the first or second day of philosophy class my freshman year in college (at a private university, not a public school), the teacher said he was taking us next door to the library, to teach us how to use the library. I excused myself, telling him I'd learned how to use the library in 6th grade.
Again, the sad-- no pathetic-- thing was that this was a private school that required students to have achieved certain SAT and/or ACT scores to get in. It wasn't open to anyone who'd just gotten by in high school. And yet, despite that fact, this one teacher felt his students would benefit from learning how to use the library. Makes me wonder what his experience with previous freshman classes had been like.
Speaking of how to think vs. what to think, I'm reminded of the Prisoner episode, "The General", in which the Speedlearn "educational" process imparts information directly to the cerebral cortex. But the result is that the people who take the "course" on "Europe Since Napoleon" can only parrot back the information "beamed" into their heads. They can answer when the battle of this, that or the other thing took place, but not where.
To Number Six, these people are "a row of cabbages." Number Two counters that they're "knowledgeable cabbages", but that knowledge is pretty limited and more or less an illusion. If I ask you "when was the Treaty of Adrianople" and you cough up a parrotted phrase-- the same one everyone gives-- but you draw a blank when I ask you "what was the Treaty of Adrianople?", the information's not that much good, is it?
Be seeing you.
Rick
One of the things that I constantly found lacking in my own public education (and it didn't end so long ago) was the "why." I was always that annoying kid in class who'd sit in the back and complain about how I was never going to use the quadratic equation in my day-to-day life. So instead of telling me why it was important we sat around and learned songs to memorize it.
It seems like the "why" of school has become to get a diploma. Frankly, that wasn't enough motivation for me and I see it failing as motivation for many others. The "why" of school should be to learn information that will improve yourself and your life, but not many teachers show how to use the information they teach in a way that would do that. I doubt that many of the teachers know how the information they teach is useful to the average person. Why should kids have to learn it if they can't use it? It's like drawing dots on a grid without being told how they're connected. No wonder we end up with people like Bush in power. He tells us the "why" of his actions. It might not be a good "why," but we haven't been taught how to find the information for ourselves.
Peter--send your post to the NYT. They might even print it and it would get the wider audience it deserves.
Rick Keating:
In northern New Haven county, CT. On the other hand, we have an extremely high graduation rate (because it's impossible to fail), very low teen pregnancy rate, no gangs, and no weapon issues. I guess it's a trade-off.
It would be interesting to see how graduates of the school described by campchaos do post-graduation. From his brief description, I'd say those graduates are nice, caring folks who are largely unprepared for life in the real world. Work doesn't provide bonding time with you co-workers. It doesn't offer hugs and support when you're feeling blue. What it does do is offer your job to someone else if you fail to effeciently produce positive results, and there's someone around who can do better.
Once in a while, I hear private sector managers talk about how some new employees, fresh from college, still have their parents riding shephard for them. Some have called their children's managers to complain if their kids get reprimanded or treated poorly at work. This is yet another by-product of a system that caters to the ego, one that is afraid to hand out poor grades or (gasp) fail a student.
Not too long ago, wasn't it accepted that schools graded on a curve? Meaning that a certain number of students, no matter how well they scored, were going to fail, simply based on their performance compared to their peers? While that system hardly seems fair these days, we've certain overreacted, in that now you practically have to be trying to fail in order to truly fail. And given the success rate of guessing, you'd probably have to actually know most of the material in order to give the wrong answers enough to fail.
I don't envy teachers. They've got a truly important job. I also don't blame them for the current state of our system. For that, I blame the officials that think they know what makes a good education system, and force schools to teach in a certain way in order to get the funding they need.
campchaos,
Jeeze! My district is a poor one (student expenditures half of what you pay) but it sounds like they could get a better education with us.
On the other hand we do have pretty sorry pregnancy and graduation rates and gangs, though the gangs are kind of a joke to anyone who has dealt with real gangs. In Wichita I had crips and bloods in the same room. Those kids meant business, in every sense of the word. North Carolina gangs are a pretty mild lot in comparison.
But that nonsense about the AP classes and such would not fly here. In fact I just had my favorite student booted out of my Earth Science class so she can take an Honors Earth Science class. It was obvious she was miles ahead of the other kids and would be better off at a higher level (she was home schooled and I think they didn't know where to put her). Great kid and I hate to lose one like that but you have to do what's right for the the student. The average IQ in my class just took a precipitous dip, however, and that's never fun.
We have a 7 point grading system so you need a 70 to get a D. You fail, you fail. The football coaches kick off anyone not passing science (and make them run laps if they get referrals for misbehavior). Bullies are given zero tolerance. Anyone who fights is arrested.
We're far, far from perfect but it bugs me to hear about schools that have so much more money to use and are failing in ways that are easy to fix. No kid should ever be too bored at school because they are ahead of the material. There plenty of ways to feed them projects that will get them interested.
Now the kids who simply aren't interested, who have no ambition other than to get a flunky job or go on welfare and make just enough to be able to get drunk/high on weekends...don't know what we do to get them to broaden their horizons. But there's no excuse for what's happened with your children.
(The thing I hate about threads like these is having to be real careful about spelling so as not to look too dopey when whining about the Sorry State Of Our Youth, as opposed to when we talk about, oh, zombies or something, when I can just type pell-mell, accuracy be damned.)
Tangentially related to using math in everyday life, someone once told me that he hasn't done basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division since he was in school. He just uses a calculator. Me, I do the above on paper more often than not. I refuse to become dependent upon a calculator. Yes, it's sometimes faster to just punch in the numbers on a calculator, but at least I can still figure out a problem if one isn't available.
On a related note, I don't know exactly how they make calculators work, but I suspect that someone could program a calculator to show that 2 + 2 = 5. And if you have a generation of students who are encouraged to just use a calculator, rather than learning basic math, who knows what could result?
Speaking of teaching basic math, I'm reminded of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin's dad is trying to teach him about addition. Using pennies to illustrate 2 + 4 = 6 (or whatever the equation was; I just remember (O.K., I'm reasonably certain) that Calvin had four cents), he asks Calvin how many pennies he'd have if he adds Calvin's four pennies to his two.
"Two cents," (or whatever amount his Dad originally had), Calvin says. His Dad directs his attention to the total number of pennies on the table only to hear Calvin protest:
"But those four are mine!"
Rick
"But those four are mine!"
Almost as good an answer as...
"Some beans."
I blame chicken meat cloned from genetically augmented chicked parts, done to avoid killing any real chickens.
(If you didn't see EUREKA this week, that will make no sense to you whatsoever.)
Peter: Yes, there are embarrassingly stupid aspects to our society and culture. We flog ourselves about low standards and lack of commitment to good and well-funded education, as well we should. But, alas, I don't think we can claim a global monopoly on stupidity. There's plenty of that to go around the world.
Now, compare some of our bright spots with those of the rest of the world. It was we who went to the Moon several times over, and continue to visit space on a regular basis. Americans created and proliferated computer technology and the Internet. It is an American that just designed a $100 computer that is opening up new horizons to the poorest villages and schools around the world. Some of the most stunning medical achievements come from within these borders.
Yes, it seems no one can top our stupidity. But the same applies to our brightest moments as well. We truly are a land of extremes....
Jasmine - Oh gods yes. I had one grade in high school math where I did poorly. It was strict rote memorization. I have a very good memory, but math is not about that, it's about learning to use the principles as one would parts of a language. The next year we were taught the how and why of those principles and I did fine as there now was a logic to it all. To this day I still cannot understand why they didn't teach that second year first.
During an inservice a few years ago our principal shared some things that she learned from a book by someone named Ruby Payne. (I'm not positive on the spelling of her last name - we didn't see the book.) Ruby pointed out that there are many kinds of poverty, not just monetary. There's also emotional poverty and spiritual poverty. The parents don't know they're short changing their kids because they grew up with the same kind of poverty in their lives.
Sadly, when a child shows signs of intelligent life, the impoverished parent will *knock* the child. "What, you think you're smarter than me?" On a subconscious level the parent knows that if that child rises from the impoverished mentality, the parent will no longer have any control over the child. For some people, control over their kids is the *only* thing they have. If the child gets smart enough to attend college, they will be out of their parent's sphere of influence.
"Perhaps you have forgotten that television shows, computer games, and the music we listen to on our iPods are in fact works of art?"
I don't think one can "forget" something that one isn't willing to agree with. I don't think that most of the crap that passes for entertainment and music could reasonably be termed art or anything other than...well...crap.
In any event, I was referring to the fact that the very first thing schools cut back on when it comes to budget tightening is the arts...and that the arts are also routinely targeted for censorship by government representatives and politicians. That the arts are woefully underrepresented when it comes to government funding and support.
PAD
A friend of mine taught for 32 years and in that time he made it a point to go to his students' homes when their parents didn't show for conferences. He found expensive cars in the driveway, huge televisions in living rooms without furniture. Their lives revolved around how things looked on the outside.
We had students who came to school late for weeks in filthy, stinking clothes. A teacher went to do a home visit and a cloud of pot smoke rolled out when the door opened. There was no electricity and no water. The boys only ate when they were at school. The only geography they knew was related to how to get from home to school. They were operating in survival mode. (They were put into foster care after MANY teachers called CPS.)
My wife and I work in public education (high school level). More reasons public schools are struggling to satisfy our society:
1) Schools have taken the position: "failure is not an option." Sounds good, but many kids choose to fail, and if you don't let them they only learn that they don't have to work to pass.
1a) Stop worrying about dropout rates. The only way everybody can graduate is if the standards are so low that nobody can fail to meet them. We're basically guaranteeing that only the weakest students are being challenged.
2) Job training vs. academic education. These are not synonymous. Society needs to pick one and stick to it.
3) It's extremely difficult to convince a teenager that it's useful to know how to identify a participle, or how to factor an equation. Once a student hits the wall, where the content becomes too abstract or irrelevant, they shut down. Since much of academics is abstract, we should not be surprised when students start to fall behind.
4) We write these kids to death, but it's pointless. Lengthy, elaborate writing is possible only after the student can conjure a lengthy, elaborate thought. Teachers are being urged to keep lectures and reading assignments short. This reinforces shorter and shorter attention spans. We need to raise the bar, and demand more attention. Otherwise we are creating people who can only think in sound bites.
5) A return to "tracking" is essential. A teacher cannot use explain a concept--in language appropriate to their learning level--to three different groups at the same time. If the teacher speaks in simple terms, the smart kids get bored. If the teacher speaks in complex terms, the weak students get left out.
6) Get rid of the riff-raff, those who show up only to make trouble. One student's right to attend school stops at the point where that student gets in the way of everybody else's education. I can't state strongly enough the amount of class time wasted due to disciplining the same knucklehead day after day. He doesn't want to be there, he refuses to get with the program, he needs to be removed so that others can have their teacher's full attention.
They don't read. They don't learn. They don't think. They tune out with television or computer games or Ipods...
We need to remember that the arts enrich a civilization...
Perhaps you have forgotten that television shows, computer games, and the music we listen to on our iPods are in fact works of art?I don't think one can "forget" something that one isn't willing to agree with. I don't think that most of the crap that passes for entertainment and music could reasonably be termed art or anything other than...well...crap.
Are you saying art is qualified by consensus? That if enough people, or one, or the right person disqualifies as art what you are credited with writing, it isn't art?
I take it you don't agree with the Scott McCloud definition, that if an activity isn't motivated by survival or procreation, then it qualifies as art. Can you define what you refer to as art?
Sadly, when a child shows signs of intelligent life, the impoverished parent will *knock* the child. "What, you think you're smarter than me?" On a subconscious level the parent knows that if that child rises from the impoverished mentality, the parent will no longer have any control over the child. For some people, control over their kids is the *only* thing they have. If the child gets smart enough to attend college, they will be out of their parent's sphere of influence.
Chilling but true. Around here it's called "Taking on airs."
I've been the high school coordinator for Upward Bound for a few years now--it's designed for kids whose parents didn't go to college but who want their kids too. What you'd expect everyone in that position to be like--but that's not the case.
Stop worrying about dropout rates.
The problem is, I could see some schools actually encouraging some kids to drop out, so that their overall test scores would go up.
It's like how some schools actively discourage lower level kids from taking the SATs so that the school can brag about the high scores they'll get when only honors level students are taking them.
Job training vs. academic education.
Good point. Not everyone has to go to college. Some can become good plumbers or bricklayers (and make more money than some of us college grads!)
Get rid of the riff-raff,
Good luck on that one. Some of them are now legally considered special ed kids--Behavioral Disordered. Pretty much untouchable unless they really screw up. (I'll also add that some of my genuine Exceptional Ed kids are among my favorites.)
I hear private sector managers talk about how some new employees, fresh from college, still have their parents riding shephard for them. Some have called their children's managers to complain if their kids get reprimanded or treated poorly at work.
I think the NYT even had a front-page article on that phenomenon a couple of months ago. It's taking the idea of "helicopter parents" to the next chronological step. Awfully silly.
Of course, I say that NOW. My daughter's only 3. :-) I hope I never go that route, though. (In my career, I've found that teaching kids of colleagues is either wonderful or nightmarish, with absolutely zero middle ground in between.)
I refuse to become dependent upon a calculator.
HELL yeah. I've seen students reach for a calculator to multiply something by 10; it makes me weep a bit. (On the inside. Usually.)
Personally, I do various mental math things to keep my brain engaged when I'm bored. When we get near a long break at school (winter break, spring break, exams, etc.), I usually have a countdown on the board -- of course, the "time until break" is listed in seconds...
A return to "tracking" is essential.
On the whole, I agree with you (and certainly with your overall point), but you also have to be careful about when and how you apply it. At my first school, the science courses in grades 7-9 were untracked, and that actually was useful: in my ninth grade classes, I could really see the weaker students being buoyed up by the level of discussion when they found themselves in a generally strong class.
(Of course, this being a fairly elite independent school, the "weaker" students were probably pretty good insofar as the potential LA student pool was concerned. I'm not entirely pie-in-the-sky about this.)
And on yet another note ... yes, Ruby Payne's name is spelled correctly. Interesting stuff, too.
TWL
Art being the first thing cut back on amuses, annoys, and terrifies me. It amuses me because there is art in everything. Why learn the rules of English? So you can both communicate, an art unto itself, and appreciate the art of the written word. And usually, it's the ones who don't understand/can't stand art that do the cutting. It annoys me because there's art in everything, and having rote-repeating drones isn't what education is about. It terrifies me because if you don't teach art, and show that Those In Power are cutting art out, the only views the students are exposed to is that of the Administration. The reverend at my son's school, last year, was talking to the older kids about the ills of the world, and movies came up. As regular listeners know, I work in TV, so I was half listening as I put his backpack on the hook. Then good old Rev(not the esteemed Mr. Black, just to clarify) came out that most of the problems in the country could be traced back to all the (insert negative homosexual term here) in Hollywood who work on TV and the movies. Putting aside from the fact that I despise that word, and putting aside the fact that by implication, he was calling anyone in media a homosexual, and putting aside that I really wanted to disembowel him with the dull end of a spoon, I don't think anyone should be using that kind of phraseology and expressing those kind of ideas to second- and third-graders. Don't even get me started on his science lecture that I caught the end of. Those is schools should realize that teaching opinion like that not only provides a narrow view of the world around, but it also risks alienating the students who might have a differing opinion.
Talon reminds me of my in-laws. Not personally, mind you, but the whole "You think you're smarter than me" could be a mantra in their households. In fact, one Christmas, the grandfather and the great-grandfather were trying to put together a rocking horse for my nephew. Three hours they looked at those directions, with less progress than an arthritic millipede in a shoe-tying contest.(My apologies to any arthritic millipedes reading this.) I went out, had the thing together in half an hour, and did I get thanks, or praise, or anything of the sort? What do YOU think? "God damn college kid comes in here, reads the directions and thinks he's so smart putting that thing together..." So, you know how education was regarded in that house.
"Some beans."
A very small casserole, said the bird who'd just swallowed a plate. Isn't thinking important?
"In the U.S., Britney Spears is Britney Spears."
That's actually not such a bad thing. I don't think Bill Gates can sing, and I'd hate to see him in those clothes.
" of course, the "time until break" is listed in seconds..."
I used to call my future wife with the to-the-second amount of seconds left until she was impris-I mean, until we got married. And she still married me. Maybe she thought the kids'd be normal.
Our son proves that theory wrong regularly.
I think one of the easiest ways to start to solve the problems with schools is to let kids know about all of the options that they have. I didn't do well in high school, I was one of those smart-slacker types who would score "A's" on the test but when everyone else was doing busy work I'd chat with my friends or doodle. I wouldn't say it was because I was bored... well, I was, but not with the material so much as how it was presented. So due to my low grades, during my sophomore year of high school I opted for the California High School Proficiency Examen (CHSPE) and left high school. The problem with CHSPE though, is that it's not that well known unless you're looking for it. I believe that there are 10 other states that have similar programs, but I could be wrong.
In any case, I was doing poorly in high school to start, and I only got worse as time went on. It wasn't for lack of learning the material, rather how it was taught. I needed a way out of the system, but all anyone ever seemed to think was that I just needed to take summer school and focus to get the better grades (Although by the end of my second year it was pretty clear that it would take a miracle for my to finish high school in four years the normal way, even with summer school, or, at least it was clear to me). The way I found out about CHSPE and other alternatives was through other students who were in my same position. Although the staff and counselors were aware of the other options, none of them talked to me about any of them. In fact, after discussing my plans to take CHSPE, she was reluctant to help me out of the system (she actually said "But you're one of the good ones," which is flattering, but holding me inside of a system that I'm failing at is hardly helpful).
Point being, there are a lot of kids like me who just don't do well in high school the way that the system is set up, and there are actually options for us to get out of it. However, these options aren't talked about or presented to students. I think it would be a boon for students in a similar position to where I was to have pamphlets or flyers about these options, or maybe a counselor to discuss the pros and cons regarding them.
Or maybe I just don't know any better because I lack a high school diploma.
:shudder: Parents like campchaos scare the crap outta me.
James Kochalka: Perhaps you have forgotten that television shows, computer games, and the music we listen to on our iPods are in fact works of art?
Luigi Novi: I think they're arguably works of art, but as a matter of opinion. Not fact.
I think they're arguably works of art, but as a matter of opinion. Not fact.
My question to Peter also applies to you. How do you define art that you can disqualify as art anything presented to the public?
I am seriously perplexed that the Van Halen song "Jump" appeals to anyone, but it would never occur to my to say it isn't art just because I don't like it. To me it's simply art that has no apparent merit.
Isn't it the point of asking those kinds of questions to weed out the winners from the losers in a contest? In a post game wrap up, she came on the Today Show and said "what I meant to say was..." well, why didn't she say it in the first place?
The inablity to utter words you are thinking is called aphasia- maybe she experienced this.
or,
Some people just suck at public speaking is all.
I blame chicken meat cloned from genetically augmented chicked parts, done to avoid killing any real chickens.
No, no, no. The hormonally injected chickens (and cows, for that matter) are why we're getting 6 foot tall 14-year-olds with C-cups.
Nothing new here. Back in the twenties and thirties they talked about "the gentleman's C," meaning a C was a good grade for a wellbred man since it showed you weren't a moron but that you didn't think too much either.
Anna Quindlen wrote an interesting essay about reading a decade or so back that covers a lot of this. She pointed out that the importance of reading is that it's important to Get Ahead and Succeed, not that learning or reading for their own sake might be worthwhile pursuits.
As for knowledge of the rest of the world, there's a Canadian show, "This Hour has 57 Minutes" that I understand is devoted to asking Americans questions about Canada such as "Would Canada get more respect if they removed the hockey puck from the Canadian flag" and people answering in complete seriousness.
Isn't it the point of asking those kinds of questions to weed out the winners from the losers in a contest?...
The inablity to utter words you are thinking is called aphasia- maybe she experienced this.
If she was thinking "I don't know why 1/5 of Americans can't find the US on the map," then saying what she was thinking wasn't an option, and it's no more aphasia than anyone else has experienced.
> That the arts are woefully underrepresented when it comes to government funding and support.
Too right. But whose fault is that? When one hears of people complaining about taxes one of the first lament is how the government wastes money on the arts and grants to arts groups and that sort of thing. It's that sort of short-sighted thinking which has seen the National Gallery (and museums in general come to that) go from free admission to a paid one years back.
As for society needing to decide whether schools are there to educate, or to prepare for a job and then stick to it, I say thee "why?". When I was in high school one had the choice of taking general courses which gave a decently rounded arts/sciences education, or take vocationally-oriented ones with an eye to the trades. One could even take one stream, and select a couple of electives from the other. Best of both worlds. Haven't they got that option any more?
All of us are to blame.
Name the top 3 football players in the country.
Name the top 3 actors.
Name the top 3 music stars.
Now name the top 3 scientists.
Speaking of math, in my 7th grade math class, we were taking a test or quiz and the guy next to me-- let's call him T.J., because I think it was T.J.-- leaned over and asked me the answers to certain problems.
So I gave him answers. Made up off the top of my head answers, that is. I figured it might teach him a lesson. Even at that age, I never quite got why one person would copy what another wrote down, or verbally ask for the answer. How do you know he or she wrote down-- or would verbally give you-- the correct answer?
Anyway, the teacher saw this interaction going on and questioned us about it afterward. I told him exactly what I'd done and why. And as near as I remember, he gave me tacit, retroactive approval. I know I didn't get into any trouble at least. No doubt he compared our two papers and saw that our answers to the problems were different.
I also think (and probably thought at the time) it was the kind of thing he'd appreciate. He was a young teacher and overall, a fun one. He would issue "Get out of jail cards" that would presumably allow those of us who earned them avoid homework assignments from time to time; or provide us with similar perks. After the hostages were taken in Iran, he changed them to "get out of embassy cards."
Such was his sense of humor.
As to T.J., I've no idea whether he learned not to take somebody's word for the answer to problems on a math test. I don't recall if he came back for 8th grade, but I know he didn't continue on into the high school.
Rick
P.S. Scavenger, in answer to your questions:
The top 3 football players: Don't know or care.
Top 3 actors (in terms of salary or talent?): No idea. I can name three that I think have the best talent, but that'd be my opinion.
Top 3 music stars: Same as above-- by salary or talent? Current? I couldn't honestly say; don't know enough about them. Of all time? Benny Goodman and the Beatles would definitely be on the list.
Top 3 scientists: Stephen Hawking would definitely be on the list of current scientists. Dead scientists would include Sagan, Feynman and some former patent clerk named Al something or other.
Still, your point is well made.
Rick
Scientists aren't entertainers working in the public eye, and they don't hire publicists to say "LOOK AT ME!!!!!"
Not a good example you're using, Scavenger.
I understand what you are trying to say, but it's a bad example that you used.
Name 3 people you've never met or are likely to meet that don't have publicists or work in the entertainment field.
Name 3 of the people who work at a gas station in a city you don't live in or visit.
Name 3 firemen that have saved someone's life that haven't been on the news.
Maybe when corporations stop trumpeting the corporate banner rather than the human being(s)behind the study and research of new inventions and the like, that'll help make scientists more visible.
Besides, if the church knew who these scientists were, they'd probably have them killed as heretics and such. "You're research goes against what the bible says, you must die!"
Scavenger,
Not really the best example. I don't follow lots of things in some areas of pop culture, but I can still name tons of people from those areas. Simply watching the news or the "news" channels on cable will get total crap stuck in your brain.
Posh & Becks, Paris, Brittney and whatever twit of the moment gets wall to wall coverage these days. I can tell you more about some rap stars then I have ever wanted to know to begin with and I own zero rap CDs and can't stand 99.9% of the stuff. If something is everywhere, you would have to be a total idiot not to pick up on at least some of it.
Jerry, I don't know about being a total idiot, but maybe just not very observant.
As for the scientist thing--I'd throw Gates, Jobs, and Dodson into the mix. Part of the problem, though, is generally the research is done on behalf of or for corporations, thus the corporations are the ones people hear about, not the individual scientists.
As for knowledge of the rest of the world, there's a Canadian show, "This Hour has 57 Minutes" that I understand is devoted to asking Americans questions about Canada such as "Would Canada get more respect if they removed the hockey puck from the Canadian flag" and people answering in complete seriousness.
Um, actually it's "This Hour has 22 Minutes".
While "Talking to Americans" is one of the skits that appears from time to time, it's not the focus of the show. In fact, that skit was halted for a while after 9-11, as it was felt to be in poor taste. Most of the show's time is spent making fun of Canadian stereotypes...
" I don't think one can "forget" something that one isn't willing to agree with. I don't think that most of the crap that passes for entertainment and music could reasonably be termed art or anything other than...well...crap.
Are you saying art is qualified by consensus? That if enough people, or one, or the right person disqualifies as art what you are credited with writing, it isn't art?"
No. And no. But thanks for suggesting something that didn't remotely relate to what I said.
PAD
"I don't think that most of the crap that passes for entertainment and music could reasonably be termed art or anything other than...well...crap."
I've given up on trying to classify what is and isn't art. If the creator considers it to be art, then I'm willing to call it art. It may be bad art, so "art" and "crap" aren't mutually exclusive. Not that it matters, usually the people who make most of our entertainment aren't even trying to call it art, they just want to make something that's entertaining on some level.
I certainly agree that more education would improve the situation. If that happened, then even the people who just want to make crappy entertainment would probably accidentally make it less crappy because that knowledge of art was rattling around in their heads.
I;m not sure how or if this applies, but it's true. A friend of mine is a professional scientist, dealing primarily with cloud particle density and how that demonstrates global warming and pollution. He has been published and earns a living as a scientist.
And he is abominable at addition and subtraction. When we play games, I always have to check when something is added or subtracted -- and I usually wind up correcting him. So it's possible to be very intelligent in the advanced elements of a field and fairly lacking in the basics of that field. (I'm told by some editor friends that there are plenty of great authors who can't spell if their lives depended on it.)
Are you saying art is qualified by consensus? That if enough people, or one, or the right person disqualifies as art what you are credited with writing, it isn't art?No. And no. But thanks for suggesting something that didn't remotely relate to what I said.
You said "I don't think that most of the crap that passes for entertainment and music could reasonably be termed art..." but withheld a definition of art. Thank you for making my suggestion -- which gives you a point of reference from which to provide a definition of art if you feel like it -- relevant regardless of its remoteness from what you are thinking.
James, I'm really hoping the opposite situation isn't the fact, being people who can spell suck as authors. Really.
I felt so bad for that girl. It reminded me of the Great Books class I took in college. The final was one of those nightmare finals you see in movies but never expect to see in real life: an oral final, where you're grilled by three teachers in front of the class. I'd read the material, been there all semester, and everything. I knew everyone else's questions, but when it came around to me I completely blanked and stumbled through it. I frankly don't know how I passed.
As for the education system, I agree completely. The very existence of standardized testing boggles my mind.
"You said "I don't think that most of the crap that passes for entertainment and music could reasonably be termed art..." but withheld a definition of art. Thank you for making my suggestion -- which gives you a point of reference from which to provide a definition of art if you feel like it -- relevant regardless of its remoteness from what you are thinking."
Didn't do that either. However, if it's any consolation, it could be easily said--based upon your track record on this board--that you've transformed obtuseness into an art form. So you can take some pride in that, I suppose.
Done with you now.
PAD
You have to feel badly for the kid based on the fact that in today's Youtube world a public screwup can become international sport. But in the unlikely event that I ever got the chance to speak to Miss South Carolina I'd tell her that she could actually use this to her advantage. Nobody is going to remember the winner of this contest but they'll remember her. That they may remember her as a ditz is a disadvantage only if she IS a ditz--I've heard that she is actually a good student and my experience has been that the young ladies in these pageants tend to be far from the stereotype of the dumb model. Use the perception to her advantage. If I were here I'd give a speech on, say education--and boy, would there be press around to lap THAT up--I'd start out by showing the tape of my humiliation, make a self depreciating joke about it, and then wow them with a decent, well thought out speech. Take a few questions from the crowd--if I didn't drool they'd think I was a genius.
She could kill on the public speaking circuit. As Sarah Silverman says, "When life gives you AIDS, make lemonaids."
You said "I don't think that most of the crap that passes for entertainment and music could reasonably be termed art..." but withheld a definition of art. Thank you for making my suggestion -- which gives you a point of reference from which to provide a definition of art if you feel like it -- relevant regardless of its remoteness from what you are thinking.Didn't do that either.
When you refer to a definition of art, and withhold its definition, any plausible guess to that definition is removed from the realm of arbitrariness, and becomes reasonable. And therefore relevant. Unless you feel like attributing to me what you've said, or the withheld definition of art you refer to, you don't seem to haven't disqualified anything I've said.
However, if it's any consolation, it could be easily said--based upon your track record on this board--that you've transformed obtuseness into an art form. So you can take some pride in that, I suppose.
I never refuse to rephrase for clarity if someone brings something obtuse I've said to my attention. If my saying something obtuse bothers you, you have the option of bringing it to my attention. Until you cite something I've said you are unable to parse, whatever obtuseness of mine you refer to simply isn't my problem.
Done with you now.
Enjoy your holiday.
I'd feel bad for the girl, except that she is an absolutely shining example of how messed up the U.S, and to a smaller degree Canadian, educational system is.
The fact of the matter is, most American students can't locate their own country accurately. I've met some who can't even put it on the correct continent.
It also seems to shine a light on how messed up western "culture" is. When we look to beauty queens and celebutantes as bright examples of achievement we get what we deserve.
Posted by Rick Keating:
Sadly, the first or second day of philosophy class my freshman year in college (at a private university, not a public school), the teacher said he was taking us next door to the library, to teach us how to use the library. I excused myself, telling him I'd learned how to use the library in 6th grade.
I'd cut the teacher a little slack here. I don't know how well funded the library you learned to use was, but the teacher probably thought the university library was something new for his students. Even a star high school quarterback still benefits from being coached to play college ball. (What? You don't like sports metaphors?)
Steve Campbell,
If the teacher had brought us over to the library for a quick overview of how book are cataloged in university libraries (which is not the Dewey Decimal System), then I might have agreed with you. However, he wanted to go over basic library skills with us. Again, I learned these skills in 6th grade, and I'd hope the rest of the class had also learned them long before starting college.
That a teacher of a college philosophy class felt the need to review basic library skills with his freshman students should give everyone pause. After all, it's not like research papers and reports start in college.
And for those who believe all research can and should be done over the Internet, this took place long before "google" was a verb, and maybe even a word.
Again, if the teacher had focused on the differences between the Dewey Decimal System and the system university libraries use (the name of which escapes me at the moment), and assumed we knew the basics, then I might concur with your sports metaphor. As it stands-- for me at least-- the metaphor was more analogous to explaining to the star high school quarterback what a football was.
I suppose the teacher could have let the class he believed needed help with the library figure it out on their own, so the fact that he took the time to teach them what he thought they needed to know is a plus for him. Still, I find it... unfortunate that he felt a need to spend an entire class hour on the subject.
Rick
My school requires a passing, MLA formatted research paper each year of high school to graduate, and I've had a number of former students come back and tell me that they were among the very few, sometimes the only ones, that had any clue how to do research.
We've been fighting for several years to KEEP this requirement. The trend is to have seniors do a "senior project" which is often not even academically oriented (help out at a senior center, build a park a gazebo, etc.), and while I'm not saying that these aren't worthy projects, it's ridiculous to believe that these prepare them for college.
I'm sorry, guys. I can't accept any of the above, including Mr. David's remarks. She was a freaking bimbo. You can look at all the Miss America speeches given over the last forty years and they aren't any better.
She is supposed to look good in a gown and a bikini. She isn't supposed to represent anything else. Quit judging her like she was a human being upon whose life your own life depends.
Thomas E. Reed: "She is supposed to look good in a gown and a bikini. She isn't supposed to represent anything else."
Just because she looks good "in a gown and bikini" doesn't mean she isn't capable of anything else. And just because she so obviously froze while speaking publicly doesn't mean she's a bimbo. A lot of very intelligent people are poor public speakers.
Regardless of how she is represented in a pageant, Caitlin Upton is a human being, and to quote a poet whose name escapes me (and I don't have time to look him up at the moment), human beings "contain multitudes."
As an aside, were I Caitlin, I'd've simply stuck with the first part of the answer she gave: if people don't know geography, perhaps they don't have enough maps. Obviously, these people should get maps and learn to use them.
Quit judging her like she was a human being upon whose life your own life depends.
How does that criticism not apply to any artist?
"I contradict myself? So I contradict myself. I am vast, I contain multitudes."
Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself."
PAD
I thought that was Whitman. I actually read that poem in high school (as opposed to being assigned to read it and blowing it off, as some of my fellow students did). Unfortunately, I was in a hurry to get to work when I posted. Otherwise I'd've looked it up.
I should've known you'd know, however, Peter. :)
This is going to be lengthy.
The problems with why there are so many dumb kids out there are:
#1 Too much TV.
There are more tv's then people in a house. People watch more than 4 1/2 hours a day of tv.
Look at these stats.
Percentage of households that possess at least one television: 99
Number of TV sets in the average U.S. household: 2.24
Percentage of U.S. homes with three or more TV sets: 66
Number of hours per day that TV is on in an average U.S. home: 6 hours, 47 minutes
Percentage of Americans that regularly watch television while eating dinner: 66
Number of hours of TV watched annually by Americans: 250 billion
Value of that time assuming an average wage of S5/hour: S1.25 trillion
Percentage of Americans who pay for cable TV: 56
Number of videos rented daily in the U.S.: 6 million
Number of public library items checked out daily: 3 million
Percentage of Americans who say they watch too much TV: 49
Number of minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful
conversation with their children: 3.5
Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680
Percentage of day care centers that use TV during a typical day: 70
Percentage of parents who would like to limit their children's TV watching: 73
Percentage of 4-6 year-olds who, when asked to choose between watching TV
and spending time with their fathers, preferred television: 54
Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900 hours
Hours per year the average American youth watches television: 1500
Number of murders seen on TV by the time an average child finishes elementary school: 8,000
Number of violent acts seen on TV by age 18: 200,000
Percentage of Americans who believe TV violence helps precipitate real life mayhem: 79
Number of 30-second TV commercials seen in a year by an average child: 20,000
Number of TV commercials seen by the average person by age 65: 2 million
Percentage of survey participants (1993) who said that TV commercials
aimed at children make them too materialistic: 92
Rank of food products/fast-food restaurants among TV advertisements to kids: 1
Total spending by 100 leading TV advertisers in 1993: $15 billion
Percentage of local TV news broadcast time devoted to advertising: 30
Percentage devoted to stories about crime, disaster and war: 53.8
Percentage devoted to public service announcements: 0.7
Percentage of Americans who can name The Three Stooges: 59
Percentage who can name at least three justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: 17
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-09-21-homes-tv_x.htm
http://www.csun.edu/science/health/docs/tv&health.html
http://www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/21/tv/main2032136.shtml
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=35192
#2 Video games
Playing video games may mean spending less time reading or doing homework, according to new research on video games and children.
http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia102803nr.cfm
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20070702/playing-video-games-may-zap-homework
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070702161141.htm
http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/video.games.html
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~tonya/VideoGames/3.html
#3 They don't read very well, or at all, because of the above. Half of all children are below average, and teachers can do only so much for them.
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/104
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009531
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101900708.html
#4 I know that most of you think that everything that happens in life is Bush's fault, but maybe, just maybe, parents need to look at themselves in the mirror and take some responsibility.
My wife and I both work, but we sit with my daughter and help her with homework and make sure she reads at least a half hour a day. Hell at bedtime i read comics to her (she's into transformers). We also limit the amount of time she watches tv, even on weekends.
Parents have to be held accountable and quit making excuses or placing blame. Abortion is legal in this country. If you can’t take care of a kid then why have one? If you choose to have a child, then take care of it. I know some people work 2 or more jobs, i know some are single parents but if you kept the child then you will have to sacrifice for 18 years and make sure that the kid receives the adequate attention required. Liberals parade that children are choices that they make. Well, you make a choice to bring a kid to this world, then make sure that as parents your "choices" have the tools needed to be productive and intelligent citizens when they turn to adults. Some parents have more then one kid when they know they can't afford it, thus putting them into more of a bind. A month ago I was at the state fair and there was a woman at a pro abortion booth signing some petition. What struck me as funny is that she had 5 children and I asked her if they were all hers. She replied yes. I couldn't help but snicker at that. Her children were wild bunch, I kid you not. It’s the same parents that want the government to take care of their children. If you feel that you are responsible enough to make the child, you should be responsible to care for the child. I do not see why my tax dollars have to support your children. Birth control is available for FREE in all states. This may sound cold and harsh. But...it's not the child’s fault. The child did not ask to be brought into this world. Their slacker parents did.
Be responsible.
http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/help/citizen/citizen.pdf
None of us is born acting responsibly. A responsible character is formed over time. It is made up of our outlook and daily habits associated with feelings, thoughts, and actions. Responsible people act the way they should whether or not anyone is watching. They do so because they understand that it's right and because they have the courage and self-control to act decently, even when tempted to do otherwise. As part of being responsible, children need to respect and show concern for the well-being of other people. Respect ranges from using basic manners to having compassion for the suffering of others. Compassion is developed by trying to see things from the point of view of others, and learning that their feelings resemble our own. Respect for others also includes the habit of treating people fairly as individuals, regardless of race, sex, or ethnic group. As we mature, respect includes realizing that not all our obligations to others, such as caring for a family member who is sick, are chosen freely. And it includes tolerance for people who do not share our beliefs or likes or dislikes, as long as they do not harm others. These habits are especially important because many of the wrongs people commit result from indifference to the suffering they cause.
Courage is taking a position and doing what is right, even at the risk of some loss. It means being neither reckless nor cowardly, but faring up to our duties. It includes physical courage, intellectual courage to make decisions on the basis of evidence, and moral courage to stand up for our principles. Courage does not mean never being afraid. It can involve trying to overcome our fears, such as a fear of the dark.
Self-control is the ability to resist inappropriate behavior in order to act responsibly. It relates to all of the different aspects of responsibility mentioned so far, including respect and compassion for others, honesty, and courage. It involves persistence and sticking to long-term commitments. It also includes dealing effectively with emotions, such as anger, and developing patience.
People with self-respect take satisfaction in appropriate behavior and hard-won accomplishments. They don't need to put others down or have a lot of money in order to respect themselves. People who respect themselves also view selfishness, loss of self-control, recklessness, cowardice, and dishonesty as wrong and unworthy of them. As they mature, if they have learned the lessons of responsibility, they will develop a good conscience to guide them.
We are always teaching our children something by our words and actions. They learn from seeing. They learn from hearing. They learn from overhearing. They learn from us, from each other, from other adults, and by themselves.
All of us acquire habits by doing things over and over again.
http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/release/2007/0905.asp
A new Parents Television Council study of Family Hour programming conclusively shows that children watching television during the first hour of prime time are assaulted by violence, profanity or sexual content once every 3.5 minutes of non-commercial airtime. During the 2006-2007 study period, almost 90% of the 208 television shows reviewed contained objectionable content.
It is the parent's responsibility to raise their children - no one else's. While schools are funded to teach children how to read, write and do arithmetic, I don't believe it to be the school's responsibility to raise these children. Parent's need to stop relying on the government to raise our children. Parents must become more involved with their children's lives. The schools should provide an environment in which children can learn and enjoy the learning process.
I know some of you have made some points about parent responsibility but those that are just saying “no child left behind is a joke” or “it sucks” should realize that if parents did their jobs of educating their children at home and making sure they’re reading and writing instead of playing video games and watching tv, then we wouldn’t need any government program for education.
Joe V.
Wow. He tied Bush into this too? Let it go, PAD, otherwise see a psychologist to deal with your Bush obsession.
So let us sink another drink
Because it will give me time to think
If I had the chance
I would ask the multitudes to dance
--Billy Idol, Song of Dancing with Myself
I think when it comes to any national discussion of being unable to express coherent thought, Bush's name just readily comes to the fore.
PAD
I do not want the multitudes
When I think about you I touch myself
--The Divinyls, I Touch the Song of Myself
"I'd feel bad for the girl, except that she is an absolutely shining example of how messed up the U.S, and to a smaller degree Canadian, educational system is."
I'm baffled by this. She froze on stage...clearly, something every fifth grader should be able to avoid based on public education.
Her failure to respond to a question during a pagent has no bearing whatsoever on her level and quality of education. Maybe if you were referring to Jessica Simpson's many, many remarks that display a lack of experience and education, you'd have a point. Then again, Simpson isn't really a product of the US educational system.
You know i have doubts that that many people can't find the states on a world map...
of course then again i just found out yesterday my roommate didn't know Alaska was a part of the U.S.(ugh)
why the hell do we expect beauty pageant contestants to be smart?
do we criticize spelling bee contestants on there fashion choices?
The sad fact is that shes obviously very southern which will just play even more into stereotypes.
i also think that question is incredibly hard for anyone to be able to spin into a positive way on the spot so i feel sorry for her a wee bit.
When I was moving back to PA from Albuquerque, NM, a friend was helping me pack, and his girlfriend watched. She said that she bet I couldn't wait to hit the beaches when I got to here. I asked what she meant, and she replied, "Isn't Pennsylvania next to Florida?"
curefreak: "why the hell do we expect beauty pageant contestants to be smart?"
A better question to ask would be why we set expectations based on any superficial characteristics. Expecting beauty pageant contestants to be stupid is no less irrational than expecting them to be smart.
"A better question to ask would be why we set expectations based on any superficial characteristics. Expecting beauty pageant contestants to be stupid is no less irrational than expecting them to be smart."
Well most people don't expect Beauty contestants to be smart anyways and its always a plus to have one that is intelligent,
but lets face facts here it's a beauty contest not a talent contest or a brains and cuteness contest.
I dont get why we expect beauty pageant winners to solver world hunger or promote world peace..
it seems to me they want to have it both ways : swimsuit contests (mostly for the guys) but questions to show that they posses some semblance of grey matter...
most people are lucky to have one or the other so why do we expect these women to be so abnormally perfect?
why cant they just be pretty? whats wrong with that? is it because people are self-conscious of the vacuousness of it all?
most of the women on there usually give stock "feel good" answers anyways.
i think we are beginning to see a sea change in how these things work with that miss america pageant winner who got caught partying too much.
tho i'm not sure in what way they are going to change, i think a lot of these shows are dated and boring and old fashioned and the ratings have shown it where the miss america pageant for the first time wasn't shown on regular tv but was shown on tnn.
they are either going to have to change with the times or end up being completely irrelevant and fall by the wayside.
Curefreak,
And all of what you say about the intellect of others might come off a little better if you yourself applied proper punctuation, capitalization and spell check to your posts.
Just a friendly suggestion submitted for your consideration.
~8?)`
curefreak: "why cant they just be pretty? whats wrong with that?"
Because reality is under no obligation to limit itself to fitting within your preconceived notions.
A better question to ask would be why we set expectations based on any superficial characteristics.
Because most people only know to conform to a role, even at the neglect of their own intuition and feelings, and they have no tolerance of non-conformity.
It seems to me that we have here several inter related problems (not in any specific order):
1) We have a prejudice of beauty associated with stupidity, which is narrow minded annd petty.
2) We have a society in which beauty and sexiness are extremely valued, to the point that they are considered measures of people's value.
3) This has also lead to beauty and sexiness becoming commodities. Is this a bad thing in and of itself? I don't know.
4) So what we have is a society obsessed with beauty which puts down people for not being beautiful while also promoting a prejudice tying stupidity and beauty together, thus encouraging women to behave stupid if they want to be beaautiful/sexy, i.e. successful.
5) Then we have competitions of beauty -- I don't know why but I find this more troubling than the existence of the general 'beauty' industry. But these competitions are all about beauty, but in order to pretend that they are not only about beauty they have questions, which ironically became the most familiar example of the sillyness of beauty competitions (world peace etc.) Although in this case the question was serious, which was why it would have been difficult to answer it even without the pressure of the rest of the competition. It is also reasonable to assume that the young woman in question was better prepared for the kind of answers that are appropriate for beauty pageants and only for them.
6) Not only that, but the demand for beauty is so great that they can't wait until young women become adults, so we have increasy younger beauty pageants.
""curefreak: "why cant they just be pretty? whats wrong with that?"
Because reality is under no obligation to limit itself to fitting within your preconceived notions."
I think curefreak's point was why do the women in those competition have to be anything but pretty in the context of the competition, not in general.
Then we have competitions of beauty -- I don't know why but I find this more troubling than the existence of the general 'beauty' industry. But these competitions are all about beauty, but in order to pretend that they are not only about beauty they have questions, which ironically became the most familiar example of the sillyness of beauty competitions (world peace etc.)
I have to disagree with the notion, expressed by several people here, that the non-beauty portions of the pageants are just for show and the winner will simply be the best looking one. I almost wish that WERE the case--my niece would have easily been in the top 5.
My experience with the Miss New York pageant was quite different. The winner of the last one I went to (this was several years ago) was by no means the most beautiful (she had a real person's nose, for one thing, which led to some of the supporters of the runnerups making rather low class comments in the pageant blogs) but she had incredible charisma that really came out in her talent portion--she had the audience in the palm of her hand. Some of the contestants--and remember, they had to win just to get there--were altogether unremarkable in the looks department--one could easily have found more attractive women during any 10 minutes of lunch hour in Manhattan. They were all, however (with a very few notable exceptions) lovely and decent young ladies.
The runnerup was far better looking by any measure than the winner but the announcement of the actual winner brought the crowd to its feet.
My only complaint was that the talent portion is almost impossible to judge. What's better--a well delivered aria or dancing en pointe? How do you determine these things?
I think charisma is a factor of attractiveness.
Maybe the questions and talent shows are used to measure a person's charisma more than their skill or wisdom. since such characteristics are more apparent through interaction than in the usual pacing around of pageants and or fashion shows (you can also see it in the difference between a photo shoot and fashion shows).
But still, I can help but feel that the skill/knowledge/wisdom aspect here is more a facade, to make it seem that their is more to the competition than attractiveness. Similarly photoshoots might try to create the impression that a model is doing something -- particiupating in a party and so forth, in order for charisma to emerge. But the party or whatever is just a facade.
Like any other privilege, being considered beautiful shelters flabbiness in thinking and feeling. It's wrong to think that all subjects indulge in this privilege, but people aren't robots who can decide to refuse the easy path -- and even if they could that doesn't make such a decision the best one.
My only complaint was that the talent portion is almost impossible to judge. What's better--a well delivered aria or dancing en pointe? How do you determine these things?
If it's like Odyssey of the Mind, the contestants set their own creative benchmarks, and the judges don't take their own initiative rewarding them. In the 1988 OM, the Chinese team launched a rubberband-powered plane that astounded everyone by circling the auditorium. But because it failed to pass through a set of goalposts, the judges had to create a special award for them to keep them from leaving emptyhanded.
I think charisma is a factor of attractiveness.
That's a good point. But I think that we are underestimating the skills and talent it takes to pull that off. Attractiveness can be a lot more than simple beauty. Class, charm, intelligence, all these things and more will take you pretty far.
Now whether or not the pageants do a good job of determining that is open for debate. But there's no doubt that just being the best looking will not be enough (some of the talent on display at the New York pageant was very very impressive and the majority of question and answer results were thoughtful and well spoken. Go the pageant with nothing more than a pretty face and you'll go home the prettiest loser. At least in New York.)
It was not my intention to put down the participants of beauty pageants. There are larger questions about what such competitions tell us about our society, but I don't think these questions should cause us to look down and the women themselves.
"But I think that we are underestimating the skills and talent it takes to pull that off. Attractiveness can be a lot more than simple beauty. Class, charm, intelligence, all these things and more will take you pretty far."
Some people look down at models as opposed to athletes, musicians or scientists for example, because supposedly models only have simple beauty while the others worked for their success. However, it seems to me that any of these accomplishments are a combination of natural talents and hard work.
The thing is, there is no simple, obvious or one size fits all answers to any of the question/points that either of you (Bill and Micha) are making. Beauty pageant contestants are like anybody else you come across in life in that you have to take them and judge them individually.
I've known and met more then a few c