Ignorance of America’s Youth Many agree that our generation could quite possibly be the dumbest in American history.
This is believed to be the most serious problem in society at the moment because the current youth of America are essentially hitting rock bottom, and they show no sign of improvement rather they display signals of ignorance and soon the ignorant teens will become ignorant adults. I predict a collapse in American society due to the soon to be careless adults. American teens today are often seen as lazy, and most don’t spend near enough time outside. Teens today lack the basic skills of their fathers such as identifying basic plants, the ability to handle tools or build anything at all.
American teens could not possibly become more ignorant. In a survey by the New York Times, fewer than half of the American teens who were asked basic questions about history and literature during a telephone survey did not know when the civil war was fought, and one quarter thought that Christopher Columbus sailed to the new world around 1750 rather than in 1492(New York). The article further goes on to describe ignorance and intelligence in teens. It suggests that ignorance of the American teens is due learning only the basics of a course, due to the standardized tests, most of the time the standards are followed, but a subject is hardly researched in depth. Because this issue is so wide in subject, there are many solutions.
The first, supposedly most effective and the easiest to think of is to create an educationally challenging environment for the students. This would be affective towards some teens but of course the plan has its flaws as well. There would always be a couple kids that this would cause to fail in school, and even in worse case discourage them from future education. This is where possible conflict could emerge; George Bush no child left behind program gives those who are “ slower” a chance to do well in school. But perhaps this is the problem.
Perhaps more intelligent students are being held back, and should be able to work their hardest. Whatever the answer, until a new president is elected there is little that can be done about the no child left behind program. Another option is to increase children’s incentive to do better. May be there should be more rewards for children with very high grade point averages in school while those with more poor grades receive nothing extra.
In this plan there are also possible flaws that need to be accounted for. For example, many parents would complain if their student received nothing even though they hard truly worked hard. Teens would also do well to try to accomplish the smaller things at home, such as learning how to change oil, even building a small bird house, anything that could teach them the basic skills their fathers were so accustomed to when they were teenagers. In conclusion, the current youth of America has indeed has shown less diligence towards education, and towards striving to become more intelligent. Though it has been proven many a time, there is still hope for our generation, whether it is an educational program that stimulates overall improvement in teens, or whether it be an epiphany that strikes the youth of the nation.
Either way, something needs to be done quickly.