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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| How America made its children crazy |
| 2012-02-12 |
| ...Our children do not read; they only surf. They do not write; they only text. They do not plan and strategize in games; they react to visual and aural stimuli while inflicting simulated mayhem. They do not follow a plot: they cut among disjoined images in the style of rap videos. And when they fail to concentrate, we give them Adderall and Ritalin. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #3 I grew up without a television, Anguper Hupomosing9418, in exactly the kind of enriched environment the developmental psychologists recommend. While I found it wonderful, as a result I am not really connected to the popular culture of my age mates, and my outlook is bit eccentric. So Mr. Wife and I made a point of watching some television with the trailing daughters, even getting recordings of popular children's shows for the tds when we lived abroad, in addition to the enriching. They have definite opinions now about popular culture, but it is enough part of them that they never feel foreign, though they feel at home wherever in the world they might find themselves. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2012-02-12 23:26 |
| #2 An alternative to TV for WHAT? |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2012-02-12 22:54 |
| #1 Spengler has some good points, but he paints with too broad a brush & ignores key aspects of American culture. Learning how to learn is the point of education. That's an ideal, but very seldom happens. Many people have acquired habits that prevent them from learning specific things, key point would be to change those habits. Some possess erroneous information which also prevents them from learning - they need to be informed. The point of US primary & secondary education is to keep the teachers & administrators employed, ultimately to be pensioned off, and to keep most children off the streets & out of trouble. The usual recommendation to improve basic education is to spend more money. Waldorf schools require parents to promise to forbid television to their children in any form through elementary school. That would be a help if there happened to be an alternative to TV everywhere, but in the vast majority of homes, that's no longer true. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-02-12 21:44 |