US adults are dumber than the average human

[halocog]

I didn't even have the opportunity to learn a second language in school. A huge problem that I've noticed in the south is the whole "country" mentality. Around here, it's apparently cool to be an uneducated "country boy". It's sickening. We have this horrible country music that romanticizes being a complete moron that does nothing but "hunt, fish, drink beer and drive a pickup truck by god." And of course young kids pick up on that crap.

[heders]

As someone in school I think a good explanation is that we are taught to memorize memorize memorize. Remember that Napoleon lost on this date, blue and yellow make green, USA was established july 4 1776. I believe in most other countries standardized testing never really took a strong hold. Sit and listen and apply that knowledge when it is applicable. The testing system is what drives most students insane and encourages them to quit so their low scores are dropped out of the average. And after having facts written and written and written to memorize, actually learning something isnt something we grasp. There are no classes that teach you how to think logically or how to apply different areas of knowledge to form a new idea. That and most of your fellow peers in school are absolute dipshits who would rather talk about "swag" and "broing out."

Agreed. It's the same in Sweden as well though.

I honestly think kids of today need some good ol' whippin'. The rules are way to loose in school and at home now, and the kids can do what the hell they want without consequences. In my school, I spent three years with swaggy idiots disrupting EVERY single lesson we had (except for the ones they skipped), and the teachers didn't do shit. Sometimes they completely cancelled the whole class and told every one to go home because she couldn't handle it, and others, the principal got called in to talk with the ones it was concerning, but none of it had any effect. Thanks to them my grades pretty much sucked, even though I had the energy and interest to learn and listen. The next generation will turn out even worse if this continues, I mean, little kids are telling young men and adults to go to hell, and it seems to be the norm. When I was little I was dead afraid of the older kids. If I would have done that I would have gotten my ass kicked. I don't know what the hell has happened. Those little bastards even have knifes now, lol.

[lxskllr]

I didn't even have the opportunity to learn a second language in school. A huge problem that I've noticed in the south is the whole "country" mentality. Around here, it's apparently cool to be an uneducated "country boy". It's sickening. We have this horrible country music that romanticizes being a complete moron that does nothing but "hunt, fish, drink beer and drive a pickup truck by god." And of course young kids pick up on that crap.

[Thunder_Snus]

I didn't even have the opportunity to learn a second language in school. A huge problem that I've noticed in the south is the whole "country" mentality. Around here, it's apparently cool to be an uneducated "country boy". It's sickening. We have this horrible country music that romanticizes being a complete moron that does nothing but "hunt, fish, drink beer and drive a pickup truck by god." And of course young kids pick up on that crap.

I went to school for a year in the exact same situation. Except everyone lived in a 400k+ house and just wanted to pretend they were "country." And honestly, I'm not trying to put down anyones beliefs, but the south has a church to school ratio of like 5:1. And it transfers over into the schools. If you teach a kid that everything in life is handled by god instead of by psychics, logic, meteorology, math, fission, biology, reason, etc you are setting them up for a life of not giving a shit. Oh shit nuclear waste form Japans meltdown could harm us and kill us all? nah god said he would never destroy the earth again. People get taught that dinosaurs lived with humans and that they were all made roughly 3000 years ago and that the earth isnt billions of years old and that evolution is a hoax. Humans just appeared on Earth instantly and spoke fluent....probably sumerian i guess? All of this is not true and yet children are being taught this because someone may be offended that you said "ummm no god didnt do that." We went from a country that openly mocked minorities in the 60's to a country full of vaginas saying "Oh lets not call them the washington red skins that could be offensive to native americans, and lets not call them the colts it could be offensive to horses"

Noone is willing to make a balance. Sure we shouldnt be using racial slurs towards other people but maybe we should tell people to get over it when the truth needs to be taught. Think of how many great scientific thinkers there could have been had they not been taught "god made the sun and the moon and earth was just kind of there through no outside help from other collisions of comets" Maybe little dipshit swaggy mcbroersin should be left behind and forced to repeat a grade, maybe some kid should have his ass beaten if he is being a little shit because how else is he going to learn, he gets attention by being disruptive and he craves more, beat him with a stick and i guarantee he will start taking notes and learning.

[Thunder_Snus]

Agreed. It's the same in Sweden as well though.

I honestly think kids of today need some good ol' whippin'. The rules are way to loose in school and at home now, and the kids can do what the hell they want without consequences. In my school, I spent three years with swaggy idiots disrupting EVERY single lesson we had (except for the ones they skipped), and the teachers didn't do shit. Sometimes they completely cancelled the whole class and told every one to go home because she couldn't handle it, and others, the principal got called in to talk with the ones it was concerning, but none of it had any effect. Thanks to them my grades pretty much sucked, even though I had the energy and interest to learn and listen. The next generation will turn out even worse if this continues, I mean, little kids are telling young men and adults to go to hell, and it seems to be the norm. When I was little I was dead afraid of the older kids. If I would have done that I would have gotten my ass kicked. I don't know what the hell has happened. Those little bastards even have knifes now, lol.

Heders i believe you're from sweden? So something else to consider about the U.S is that I will graduate with about 15k in student loans and people are jealous of that fact, because they're topping 60-80k. I know sweden isnt exactly norway but i believe you guys get paid to go to school because if you can get a better job the government will make that money back in the form of taxes? Here we take people like me who have wealthy parents and a bright future and we force them to pay an ass ton of money so that people who are lazy and just don't feel like entering the workforce for 4 more years can get a degree in sports science or library science or 4th century Roman women's literature. For every person like me paying 7k a semester there is someone else the school is paying 5k a semester as well as free tuition to get a useless degree.

[halocog]

I will graduate with about 15k in student loans and people are jealous of that fact, because they're topping 60-80k.

About $30K here, and that's an undergrad degree.

[Thunder_Snus]

About $30K here, and that's an undergrad degree.

Well my work pays about 5200 a year in tuition reimbursement so if i use student loans and pay a few thousand each semester i only add on about 2k a semester. I was thinking grad school when I first started but all i saw was miserable people stuck in a computer lab all day and it all really doesn't seem worth it to me. I hated it so much I have changed my major 3 times, I used to listen to older people talk about switching majors and i always thought it was such a terrible move but holy shit....sometimes you just realize how miserable you are in something. I decided I would just get my degree in general insurance since I already have a producers license and a cpcu which is pretty much all they train you to do in that. All the company really cares about is a degree no matter what it is so I'll just see where that gets me in a year and a half.

Side note: People in Germany usually don't go to school until much later after they leave high school. Had some people visiting my school from Germany and I took them out to some bars, they pay 400 Euros a semester to go to college and they are usually like 22 or 23 when they start.

[Skell18]

Well my work pays about 5200 a year in tuition reimbursement so if i use student loans and pay a few thousand each semester i only add on about 2k a semester. I was thinking grad school when I first started but all i saw was miserable people stuck in a computer lab all day and it all really doesn't seem worth it to me. I hated it so much I have changed my major 3 times, I used to listen to older people talk about switching majors and i always thought it was such a terrible move but holy shit....sometimes you just realize how miserable you are in something. I decided I would just get my degree in general insurance since I already have a producers license and a cpcu which is pretty much all they train you to do in that. All the company really cares about is a degree no matter what it is so I'll just see where that gets me in a year and a half.

Side note: People in Germany usually don't go to school until much later after they leave high school. Had some people visiting my school from Germany and I took them out to some bars, they pay 400 Euros a semester to go to college and they are usually like 22 or 23 when they start.

In Germany, from what I know, there is a lot of value and prestige placed on vocational careers, so they only tend to go the uni for professional degrees or to get trained further for their existing jobs, or if sciences research degrees etc, engineering is big there too.

Believe it or not, I still have student debt and I graduated 13 years ago! Paid off law school but my undergrad degree loan is still being paid back. Then again I left uni with less than £5k of debt as the fees then were considerably less than £1k a year.

[Frosted]

In Germany, from what I know, there is a lot of value and prestige placed on vocational careers, so they only tend to go the uni for professional degrees or to get trained further for their existing jobs, or if sciences research degrees etc, engineering is big there too.

Believe it or not, I still have student debt and I graduated 13 years ago! Paid off law school but my undergrad degree loan is still being paid back. Then again I left uni with less than £5k of debt as the fees then were considerably less than £1k a year.

You do have to admire German intelligence. Britain needs to have a proper apprenticeship system in place. When I was growing up there was an immense amount of snobbery towards vocational careers - you were pushed to go to university. In my case, I went to Grammar School and was automatically shoved into university, but that wasn't for me - I hated academic work even though I could do it, so I left. I should have been pushed towards other things as I prefer to work with my hands, be outdoors, whatever, but there were no proper systems in place, that and the snobbery made me miss that boat. The guys I knew that didn't go to university but put the hard work in to become a plumber or a sparky for instance, are doing very very well. We need to change that attitude and have proper courses and job placements.

[Premium Parrots]

The way the US is going soon no one will have to go to a university, tech school or go to work. It seems like they simply want the government to take care of them.

[Skell18]

The way the US is going soon no one will have to go to a university, tech school or go to work. It seems like they simply want the government to take care of them.

The doleite mentality is infecting your side of the pond too!

[Thunder_Snus]

You do have to admire German intelligence. Britain needs to have a proper apprenticeship system in place. When I was growing up there was an immense amount of snobbery towards vocational careers - you were pushed to go to university. In my case, I went to Grammar School and was automatically shoved into university, but that wasn't for me - I hated academic work even though I could do it, so I left. I should have been pushed towards other things as I prefer to work with my hands, be outdoors, whatever, but there were no proper systems in place, that and the snobbery made me miss that boat. The guys I knew that didn't go to university but put the hard work in to become a plumber or a sparky for instance, are doing very very well. We need to change that attitude and have proper courses and job placements.

You have my interest....what is a sparky?

[Darwin]

My guess is that sparky means electrician.

[Thunder_Snus]

The doleite mentality is infecting your side of the pond too!

A lot of people grow up thinking that someone will come along some day and say.....hey wanna make 400k a year doing nothing? They wait and wait and wait and the opportunity never comes and they get confused.

Anyways back to school systems I remember when I was in first grade i was placed in the "advanced" 1st grader section of the class. We read bigger books and went past the hundreds in counting, and maybe learned a little more science than the others. I believe right after that was Bush's "no child left behind." I don't think that's correct because I don't think Bush was president yet...anyways right after that year parents started complaining because obviously their child was the brightest ever and was not put into that advanced system. So from then on everyone learned the same thing at the same pace. I basically repeated first grade by going to second grade. There was talks of me and a few other students being moved on to third grade early but of course there was a uproar over that too because clearly everyone else's child should be too. I went through middle school learning that the roman empire suddenly collapsed because learning about the byzantine empire was too much for anyone to handle for anyone.

By the time I reached high school I was so bored. I was learning math i learned on my own earlier on, history was a joke of inaccurate information, no Constantine starting to slowly get the ball rolling on Christianity, no vikings at all, no Frankish or Islamic empire taking over the Byzantines, science was just a shit storm of really slow paced stuff. I gave up and did nothing instead. I could get an 80 in one semester then a 0 in the other and it was just the letter grades that were averaged so i passed with a D. I missed the opportunity to take advanced placement classes that would have given me college credit which could have helped me avoid almost an entire year of college courses. I was forced to learn at the same pace as everyone else despite the fact that I could clearly learn more. The school system is a joke. Teachers pile on loads of homework and schedule tests at random times without ever consulting each other to make sure you don't have a paper due in multiple courses on the same day. A 3 day span of nothing is followed by a night where you sit from 3pm-2am getting things done in all of your classes.

Standardized testing is a joke and is just used as a tool to make an excuse why the government doesn't give schools more money. You spend weeks memorizing the correct answers leading up to it rather than being taught how the right answer can be found. A huge string of teachers erasing test answers and filling in the correct answers in Chicago was a huge news article a few years ago. We roll over as soon a parent complains that their child is in a slower learning section of the class because they don't want to hear that their child isnt the greatest scientific mind to ever hit the planet and noone is willing to tell them tough shit.

[wa3zrm]

I have a BS and MS plus 38 additional graduate credits, which in our educational system is equal to a PhD.
My BS and MS combined cost me less than $15K - circa 1970's. My additional credits were free because I was on university staff.
My daughter just began college this year - $50K per year!!!!!!!!! THIS IS INSANE!

When I tried to talk her into taking her first two years at a Community College, she looked at me as if I were insane.
These kids today have no concept of long term debt. Sad.