The salon topics are in for this Friday! As always, I SO appreciate your input. I like to take your (my personal community's) ideas to the salon where they are genuinely heard by the salon community and then by each individual's personal community, as that person carries our ideas home.
Discussion topics for October 5, 2007:
1. Is "dumbing down" inevitable in a democracy?*
2. Does a society's treatment of its incarcerated reflect its values?
3. What is the future of the book?
*We've already talked about #1 here, but haven't addressed it at the salon yet. Posted in the comments are your initial thoughts on #1. Please feel free to add to/tweak your ideas. The rest are new topics this week!
Enjoy!
2 comments:
Last month we said the following about topic #1:
Christine said - Wow. I like this question. Like you, I'd like a definition of "dumbing down." I interpret it to mean, since we're talking specifically about democracy, that we need to dumb down our politics and policies into sound bites so, as you put it, the normal Joe can understand. I actually see it heading in two opposite directions: media presents over-simplified versions of stories and discussions of topics, while at the same time lawyers write up laws that even college educated people can't understand. Jamie and I together every year hit at least one part of the tax forms that we read and reread and just end up guessing on. How is normal Joe supposed to figure it out?
This is a scary trend, though, because it means that the political process is becoming more exclusionary at the same time that the voters are becoming less involved.
I didn't answer the question... I don't think it is inevitable. I think a certain amount of pandering is inevitable, just based on that fact that there are a good number of average IQ folks out there who don't want or need all that detail. But I say that if you dumb it down that way for everyone, you alienate the voters, the root of democracy, and you actually set that democracy up to fail.
Neal said - We're Already there. Read John Taylor Gatto's "Dumbing Us Down." I can only say this to fellow teachers because I have been one too, but the institutional education system in the US does exactly what it is supposed to do (and very efficiently, I might add): Produce mediocre-mindless-follower-sheep to feed the capitalist system and not rock the boat.
Amira said - I don't think it's inevitable in democracy, so much as inevitable in democracy wrapped around capitalism and rampant consumerism. But, I also don't think that it would last. I don't know how many people are like me, but being a vapid shell of a human being gets really boring after a while. And even if the government dumbs down the nation, I'm not sure it really matters. You don't need the most amazing education in the world to ask questions. But I guess if we're talking about people being too stupid to ask questions, then those who are susceptible to being dumbed down already have been, and the rest of us just have to resist. But people who are going to be stupid have always been stupid, and those who haven't always been dumb are just being lazy. But the moment there's something that raises interest, people start asking questions again, so I really don't worry about a "dumbing down."
Brooke said - Yeah, probably. I wouldn't like to think so, though. So my official stance will be "no."
Chelle said - Only if that society is not one that reads, a lot...and teaches future generations to read, and therefore, acquire knowledge.
Mark said - your democracy, like ours will continue to dumb down until it builds a new constitution out of the degenerate remains of a 17th century proto-scientific 'enlightenment'
I posed these questions to my students. Here are their thoughts:
2. They wanted some clarification on this topic. Are we talking about the American judicial system (as in prosecuted/judged/sentenced/rehabilitated/released), the actual treatment of the incarcerated (as in health care/food/accommodation), or are we talking about societies reaction to the incarcerated?
Thoughts: They feel that if a person is incarcerated, they are forevermore seen through a negative lens and it is much harder for the criminal to be rehabilitated because we don't offer many opportunities for forgiveness. They wondered what that said about our values. For example - an employer is reluctant to hire a person who has a record, which then pushes the offender back into a life of crime in order to support his/her family. It may become a cycle, even if the original crime was considered minor.
They think that we are hypocritical in our values because we believe in redemption, but don't offer it freely.
At the same time they were not sure it that was a bad thing because, depending on the crime, there are some criminals we do not want to invite back into our community. The kids wanted to know what the crime was before they had an opinion. I thought that was interesting.
3. The kids think books are becoming obsolete and said that they have better things to do than read. That put me on a soapbox for 20 minutes about how valuable reading is and how much it adds to people’s lives. My verbose commentary on reading books was met with eye-rolling, sighs, and one feeble voice in the back which said, “I read the Harry Potter books,” followed by several protests about not having time to read because of work. Sad.
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