Day 261 - yet another Monday in September

 Today is the 2nd day of the 38th week, the 18 day of September, the 261st day of 2023, and:

• Air Force Birthday
• Chiropractic Founders Day - supposedly DD Palmer performed the first act in 1895
• First Love Day - in so many ways, I envy those who can say "they were my first and only love" even while knowing that you can deeply love many people in the course of your lifetime
• Hug a Greeting Card Writer Day
• International Equal Pay Day
• International Read an Ebook Day
• National Ceiling Fan Day
• National Cheeseburger Day - I might have to order from Five Guys today....
• National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day
• National Respect Day
• Rice Krispies Treats Day
• World Bamboo Day
• World Water Monitoring Day
• apparently the moon became full at 10:36 PM EDT yesterday
• and 

Quote of the day:

"I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience." 

~  David Foster Wallace, This is Water

In all phases of our education process in this country, the liberal arts have fallen into disfavor, altho one hears more about it on the college level than anywhere else.  Even while reading levels plummet, it is the math and science scores that seem to worry folks the most, whereas teachers continue to point out that if kids can't read and think critically, their future advancement is in doubt.

When I went back to update my teacher's certification in 1980, with an eye to actually teaching, I was surprised that I needed to take two courses on how to teach kids to read even tho I was a junior high [think middle school these days] social studies teacher.  We learned how to alter our presentations to make them more "readable" and I was astounded to find that our grandparents were reading what was then considered college level texts in their 8th grade classes and concluded it was no wonder so many declined to go to high school.  Textbooks from my parents' era tested out showing that they were reading on that level by the end of the 12th grade, explaining why college was considered a luxury for the most part by that generation.   I took my perplexity to Grandmom Hughes and we discussed it at great length, trying to puzzle out why the standards seem to have gone down and it takes longer it acquire the same amount of savvy.  I don't think we are dumber than we were a century ago, and we have so many more resources available to us now, so....  

What changed?  

How did we go from a society where educators were respected and admired to blaming teachers when our kids fail to learn?  

I lived through it, I watched it happen, and I don't understand it. 

Could it be that by making it easier, lowering the expectations of what a kid can absorb has made them less likely to soak up the vocabulary and knowledge imparted?  Who's bright idea was it to make things more 'readable' anyway?  

I don't know.   I do know that studying to expand your mind has gone out of fashion.  Why?  because that won't get you a job afterwards.  

Nowadays, the value of a degree is supposedly to make you more hirable, at least that is what the hoi polloi is being told.  True education, the induction into reasoning and questioning that is so necessary for critical thinking, has become a luxury that is apparently only available to the very well-to-do.  And this income inequity is shown clearly in the prevailing attitude towards student loan leniency.  The furor fueled by those in power  proves to me the 1% intend on keeping their monopoly on advanced education, and thus their positions of power and prestige, while encouraging the formation of a subservient, ill-informed [therefore more susceptible to manipulation and acceptance of disinformation] worker class.  I feel the decline in the value of education, and the status of teachers/professors, mirrors the decline of the once robust middle class.  

Now, how to fix the problem?  

Like so many other issues, this one boggles my mind and I don't know where to start, it doesn't seem to be either within the sphere of my influence or the realm of my control.  So it sits on in that worry burden, that lives on the edge of one's awareness, and bubbles up to the surface now and then when nudged by something you've read or seen...

Monday's musings always tend to be a bit ....   dark, neh?