Don T Be Dumb Summary

There is no doubt of how important education is in a free society. Articles like “America Skips School” by Benjamin R. Barber and “The Dumbest Generation? Don’t Be Dumb” by Sharon Begley and Jeneen Interlandi, discuss the education that younger generations are receiving, and its effectiveness. In a free society every individual should be able to combine their creativity with their resources to strengthen knowledge, which is where the importance of education comes in. Education is one of the many services that the market is able to offer. In our culture today, there is a greater importance on education, especially higher education. However, the question of what it means to have a higher education have arisen. Barber, Begley, and Interlandi,

reveal a great concern about the education on younger generations. Both articles question if there is a possibility that the lack of knowledge is due to stupidity or failure of the school system and society. Although these articles do a fine job comparing younger generations to older generations, it lacks research on the behind the scenes of who actually runs the school system and who it is to blame.
Because both articles are addressing this issue, it is easy to say that there is a problem with the educational system. Younger generations will be influenced and will learn from what the society has to offer. And that is where the educational system will start to crumble, in the hypocrisy that runs through society. As benjamin Barber states, “they know that if we really valued schooling, we’d pay teachers what we pay stockbrokers; is we valued books, we’d spend a little something on the libraries so that adults could read, too; if we valued citizenship, we’d give national service and civic education more than pilot status; if we valued children, we wouldn’t let them be abused, manipulated, impoverished, and killed in their beds by gang-war cross fire and stray bullets” (3). Schools are doing their jobs of teaching younger generations what they need to be successful in life, but the teachers jobs are completely ignored when society does the complete opposite, and it is then where schooling will not make much difference.
The article “The Dumbest Generation? Don’t Be Dumb” provides examples of the decline in knowledge of younger generations; “Two thirds of high-school seniors in 2006 couldn’t explain an old photo of a sign over a theater door reading COLORED ENTRANCE. In 2001, 52 percent identified Germany, Japan or Italy, not the Soviet Union, as America’s World War II ally. On quarter of 18-to-24-year-olds in a 2004 survey drew a blank on Dick Cheney, and 28 percent didn’t know William Rehnquist. The world’s most heavily defended border? Mexico’s with the United States, according to 30 percent of the same age group. We doubt that 30 percent were boastful delusional Minutemen” (1). This is just some evidence of decline in adult literacy. But then again, all these knowledge is what a good education should be providing.
Statistical evidence will continue to show the decline of knowledge in younger generations, which is why it is important to take a further look at what the real problem is.

Both articles agree that it is all a consequence of the school systems, which are run by grown-ups. And yet, we keep on comparing grown-ups to teenagers. For example, “from evidence such as a decline in adult literacy (40 percent of high-school grads had it in 1992; only 31 percent did in 2003) and a rise in geographic cluelessness (47 percent of the grads in 1950 could name the largest lake in North America, compared with a 38 percent in 2002)” (Begley and Interlandi 1). So how is it that there is a concern with the kids education when they are being educated by experts and with people who they are being compared to in the different statistics? Only once in the article “The Dumbest Generation? Don’t Be Dumb” it is mentioned that kids are developing other strengths; “first, IQ scores in every country that measures them, including the United States, have been rising since the 1930s. Since the test measure not knowledge but pure thinking capacity-what cognitive scientists call fluid intelligence in that it can be applied to problems in any domain-” (2). Both articles do not hesitate to find someone or something that is at fault and fail to recognize that all the education systems are formed by grown-ups who are supposed to have a greater knowledge. The article written by Sharon Begley and Jeneen Interlandi, introduces a different approach about the matter but lacks research and enough information to construct a

claim.