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outlier_lynn

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Friday, May 27th, 2011 08:34 am
I read a LA Times story headlined " Judge strikes down Wisconsin's anti-union law."

The article gives short shrift to the story opting to fill the column inches with loose background information. The average reader of that article isn't going to understand a damn thing about the judge's decision. The Judge did merits of the law, but rather the manner in which it was passed.

And that points directly to a concern I've had about America's schools. Somewhere around the 2nd or 3rd grade, we go right off the rails.

In the beginning we teach skills like reading and simple arithmetic. Then we start in on facts. And that is the end of education in America. Grades 4-12 are mostly a waste of time. Still some skills, but mostly crap. Really good teachers find a way to put skill building into their classes, but most teachers don't because they aren't well educated either.

And we don't teach what is important. It is important to know how our governance systems work. It is important to understand the criminal and civil justice system and appellate system work. It is important to be able to read a decision from an appeals court or the Supreme Court and understand it. It directly affects our liberties. Nothing has a more lasting effect in American freedoms than SCOTUS decisions.

The law has a profound effect on every single American and we teach rarely teach anything about it in most schools through college. It is a sad state of affairs.

It can not change, though. It is not in the interest of the political parties and those who control them to have an educated electorate. How could the tea party exist if Americans understood America? It could not.

We don't teach our children how to discern fact and fiction (opinion). We don't teach how to tell when rhetoric is empty and when it isn't.

Americans are woefully ignorant about those things that are vitally important but don't involve immediate response. It is pitifully low-brain existence.

Wake up and smell the manipulations, lies, deceits. Learn to spot malefactors. Learn to tell stupid from ignorant.

Bah.

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