Movie Endorsement

Idiocracy came out in 2006 and unfortunately was only a minor hit. It is a favorite though among middle and high school teachers who see the film as a frightening prediction of where the world is headed, with a gradual drop in IQ and morals. Here is a clip-- http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1526530841/

What does this have to do with education? Schools are fighting the 24/7 onslaught of media. Some students-- maybe 20-25% are spending more time every day and week on-line, texting, gaming, and watching TV than they are reading, studying, practicing a sport or dance, or basically challenging or developing themselves.

Graduation rates are abysmal all across America, not just in large metropolitan areas but in school districts of every size. This link-- http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/0609/p02s13-usgn.html is a Christian Science Monitor (CSM) article that quotes a study called Diplomas Count 2009 that states there actually is a modest improvement in the worst/lowest school districts but that overall the US is "flat-lining". Quoting from the above CSM article, "in 1996, the national on-time graduation rate was 66.4 percent; by 2006, that figure had risen to 69.2 percent. Much greater gains were made by thousands of school districts, including some struggling with high levels of poverty." While it has improved, a 30% failure rate is beyond unacceptable. Would it be okay if 30% of our doctors or the mechanics who fix our brakes, cheated their way through school and really just kind of "faked it" when doing their jobs?

Overall, with a one parent family commonplace, many undisciplined kids have so much unsupervised free time that we are turning out a reverse Lake Wobegon generation, where all the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are BELOW average. Can a person at a critical time in their live afford to give up a year (or three) and then get it "together" years later without consequence? Some probably can but others are sowing a slacker lifestyle that may stay with them for life.

I always thought that what the US needed was a spiritual rebirth, and that it could be led by the President. I first thought that Bill Clinton during his first administration could - should have tried to lead us in this direction. Of course the ACLU would have been all over that, protesting we need to have separation of church and state.

Watch Idiocracy and laugh, and then go to bed and realize it's a scary and prophetic look at the future of the human race. And fat and uneducated Americans, the envy of so much of the world with it's prosperity, are leading the way. I have said too much, I have Jerry Springer re-runs to catch up on.

But a final thought. About 20 years ago an old college girlfriend (Joyce) and I were exchanging letters (before email) and I said at the time I couldn't imagine bringing children into such a troubled world. She said that since drug addicts and other criminals were still pouring out babies with reckless abandon, that us (as educated people who try to do the right thing) should also have babies as a way to fight against the decline we see all around.

And one more old girlfriend anecdote, this time from Katie. She told me she wanted to have a boy baby if she got to choose the gender of her future off-spring. "Why", I asked. "Because I think the world could use a few more good men."

Agreed.