Are We Getting Dumber As A Nation?
Posted on May 21, 2009 - 8:23pm by Linda Sunkle-Pierucki in Trucking
I’ve read several articles lately about the fact the Americans are seemingly getting dumber. It seems the age of SMS and Twitter has reduced the IQ of many in the electronic age to understanding very little of what they read and their ability to communicate has been reduced to the garbled 160 characters of a SMS message. Donna wrote a couple of weeks ago about the comment made by the CEO of Professional Drivers Medical Depots when he said, “It’s truckers that spread things when there’s something of pandemic or epidemic proportions.” She was worried that he was spreading distrust. She sure got that right-apparently some scrap smelter in Kentucky took his words to heart!
Today’s Landline news updates brought a story to my mailbox that kind of blew my mind. . .or maybe not: I’ve seen stupid and intrusive before. This one however, is not only insulting, it’s dangerous!
Taking the Temperature of the Nation
A driver named Paul-an OOIDA member-called OOIDA to complain that he attempted to deliver load of used aluminum cans to a smelter in Kentucky. The receiver demanded a temperature reading and a signed release form before he would be allowed into the plant! This long-time driver did what you’d expect any experienced trucker to do under the circumstances-he told the receiver where to stick it. . .and I doubt he meant the thermometer! Another driver had to come in and make the delivery-apparently one who had fewer qualms about allowing some idiot receiver to make physical impositions on him. Somehow, I doubt if they had a trained health professional doing the dastardly deed. You’d better hope no fast-spreading prostate virus hits the papers!
For the carrier’s part, they showed about as much concern for the outrageous behavior on the part of the shipper as most do-they told him he’d “get a black mark on his record!” Ah-the dreaded load failure-usually somebody else’s fault, always blamed on the driver. And these carriers wonder why drivers don’t feel very warm and fuzzy toward either receivers or carriers?
This leaves you to wonder-did this receiver read the quote from McElligot? Or, is this another one of those elegantly brilliant security suggestions from Homeland Security (the same idiots responsible for telling distribution warehouses to remove their name and address ‘for increased security’ and caused consistently late deliveries for years. . .because nobody can find the darned place anymore)? Did it come in the form of a text message from that famous Blackberry in Washington? Dnt lt ny drs in w temp?
Just Sweep Out The White Power and Keep Your Mouth Shut!
One of the best examples of shippers, drivers, carriers and disease was a qualcomm message I got shortly after the anthrax scare. It said, “Shprs r concerned about unknown substances. Plz check your trailer b4 del-if theres any white residue in it, sweep it out b4 u get 2 the shipper”. I and several shippers had a really big laugh over that-and shippers started to understand that drivers rated right up there next to pond scum with their employers. I had fun with it though-I added it to the bottom of every email I sent my dispatcher for a couple of years!
Mostly we laugh-it doesn’t look good for a big, tough trucker to cry. And it probably beats taking a tire thumper to the rent-a-cop at the gate. But, it’s for this reason that my heart wasn’t broken when I saw that Professional Drivers Medical Depots was forced to close last week-something about the bank loan. There’s a lesson in all this somewhere: Don’t bite the hand that feeds you!
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Are we getting dumber as a nation?
Short answer…no. I have two grandkids who can prove it. I have multiple acquaintances whose kids prove it also. Some are almost frighteningly bright. The incidence of “child genius” is increasing. Normal kids know more today than ever before.
Any individual, almost anywhere, almost anytime can find out just about anything. Google is your friend.
Our institutions, however, are stupid.
As I mention in a post of my own. They are…. “Bug-Frikin Nutz”. Insane. They haven’t yet emerged into the twentieth, much less the twenty first, century. They’re still operating on medieval principles.
Why are we just now noticing?
High Speed, ubiquitous information exchange. i.e. “it happens….and almost instantly…anyone who cares to know….does”. Consequently the stupidity of our major organizations is becoming obvious.
You’re right Everett-kids are NOT getting dumber, at least not in terms of intelligence. But they are in terms of actual reasoning ability. And it’s the fault of our institutions. Kids have instant access to all sorts of information these days-but the test scores show they dont know how to evaluate it or extrapolate a supposition from it. I do some on-line question-answering thing for a company that will remain nameless-and who pays such a pittance they are losing my services: they answer any question “texted” to them. I do homework constantly. Most questions are from the 13-25yr old crowd. I know it’s homework because they put in the exact question they are asked on their homework-I can c/c/p it and find the exact question-and the answer online from the canned curricula all these teachers are using. I answer questions that obviously come from pharmacology students and medical students-now, I’m afraid to go to a new, young doctor. Did he cheat his way to a medical degree using his cell phone? A friend of mine-Asst Prof-says she’s appalled at the fact her students feel cheating is fine and the real goal is to get the answer, not know the material. One University sophomore told her he couldnt be expected to know those big words-they were specific to his major, by the way. Vocabulary? It all comes out of Urban Dictionary. They cant begin to spell anything-not even close. Because they cant sound a word out, they might get the first letter right and the rest is gibberish-you have to figure it out from the context.
They use technology but dont understand the basic principles behind it. Consequently, they cant problem solve. They also cant read a complicated paragraph. Cant understand that spell-check may give them a wrong spelling due to context. They do trigonometry in the fifth grade- but they never learn their multiplication tables (and I mean never-its not taught anymore)-they dont have the math proficiency to estimate a rounded answer from a column of triple-digits three figures long. They cant make change-because they dont have the basic understanding of numbers to count ‘up’. They all have cell phones-but cant read the manual (I do it for them-constantly). Case in point: a kid-maybe 15yr-old-asked me the other day for the answer to 7X28X2. I check the history-first question was, where could she get the ‘morning after’ pill. second question: what does (obscene ghetto-slang word for perverted sex act-some of their favorite questions, by the way) mean. And she cant figure out a relatively simple multiplication problem. Ethics: I get all sorts of questions like “how can I get so-and-so’s password for his **** account?” “Can the police find out who I am if I use *69?”"Give me (some rock star, movie star, rapper’s) cell phone number”-they ask the same question over and over even though you tell them it’s unlisted. And they firmly believe all knowledge is available online so why should the ever bother to learn it-they can just look it up.
I could go on and on forever about the gaping holes in their basic knowledge. But the problem isnt the kids themselves-its our institutions. There’s a good reason why they keep having to lower the standards on testing so they pass. And a reason why we cant graduate engineering students in this country from among our own bright kids. They may be extremely bright but they cant function in the real world because they were never taught the basics so they could think for themselves. It’s why so many people nowadays home school. I’ll PO everyone here whose wife or sister is a teacher-but our education system sucks! They’re doing our kids a real dis-service and crippling them for life! And its not even the teacher’s fault-its the screwed-up curriculum they’re forced to teach.
God save us from whole-word, look-see reading and fuzzy,new math!
Hmmmm……well my grandkids WERE homeschooled until about Jr. High.
Everett-if your granddaughter was homeschooled until the eighth grade, then she got all the basics she’ll need to ace high school-and college! Congratulations on a great couple of grandkids!