Visible Evidence

The evidence is not invisible. Ask anyone. There are problems in America today. It is held as true that knowledge is a virtue. Intelligence is valued. And wisdom is admired. But as a nation we’ve peaked, and from here it seems we are becoming more grotesquely unintelligent every year.
There was a young man in my English 102 class, the prerequisite for which was English 101. This man couldn’t read. He wasn’t dyslexic (I know because I asked him, and he’d been tested), he wasn’t mentally handicapped, he told me in his thick southern accent that he just “never thought it was important”. This was English 102 at a Metropolitan Community College! That means he PASSED English 101 without being able to read.
Please allow me to clarify, my problem is not with the gentleman who can’t read. Perhaps there was some hidden mental handicap manifesting itself through this inability. Or maybe he developed an aversion to reading for some other deep rooted psychological reason. My anger is aimed at the educational system. The dumbing down of the curriculum, and the ease of passing lend themselves only to line the pockets of the elite with cash, and work against furthering the knowledge of next generation’s proletariats.
It’s because of capitalism that America cannot compete intellectually with most other 1st world countries. Ask anyone from conservative to liberal and they will tell you that school is being dumbed down. But they will not be able to tell you why, or at least they don’t want to admit it.
It is because the schools are being run as a profitable business. I’m speaking mostly of colleges and universities. If a student pays $1,200 for a semester and he or she fails all her classes because they were taught correctly and at speed then he/she is liable to drop out and not return for the following semester, costing the college a potential $1,200 per student. So they cater to the bottom line, lower the standards and make classes easy so the dumb kids can feel smart and continue spending money for further affirmation of their wannabe intelligence.
I personally can attest to this because there were several classes I took in college that I simply did not attend. One in particular, I showed up for every test day and two or three of the lectures in between. I skipped the rest. I should have been dropped because I missed more than 33% of the semester, but I wasn’t. And the tests we’re mostly essay answer tests so there was little right/wrong value to them. I managed a 96% in that class. It’s pathetic.
I demand real education from real educators who care to see me achieve success. Who want me to earn a good grade as a result of their teaching not as a result of the easy curriculum. I want to see education and institutions designed to educate not these buildings they call schools, that are designed to make naïve kids feel smart for bringing home a “good grade”, when any freshmen from a decent high school could manage the same thing. What this leads to is a people who have Associate’s Degrees, and a high school education. And I cannot stand for this. I cannot condone the practice of robbing people of knowledge just to make a buck. You are stunting the growth of America and you’re shooting yourself in the foot! You’re capitalist regime will collapse onto itself, because the only people smart enough to perpetuate it are going to be wise to its inherent corruption! And on the day it fails I will point and laugh, and say with a smirk, “I told you so.”