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The only smart thing about some of them is their phone

841 views 17 replies 10 participants last post by  Prismseed 
#1 ·
Texas ninth-grade reading list, 1922

“Captains Courageous,” Rudyard Kipling: 8.0.
“Silas Marner,” George Eliot: 9.7

“The House of the Seven Gables,” Nathaniel Hawthworne: 11.0

“The Deerslayer,” James Fenimore Cooper: 11.2

“The Last of the Mohicans,” James Fenimore Cooper: 12.0

“Ivanhoe,” Walter Scott: 12.9

Now, fast forward to the present…

San Antonio ninth-grade reading list, 2015-16

“The House on Mango Street,” Sandra Cisneros: 4.5

“Artemis Fowl,” Eoin Colfer: 5.0

“The Chocolate War,” Robert Cormier: 5.4

“Freak the Mighty,” Rodman Philbrick: 5.5

“To Kill a Mockingbird,” Harper Lee: 5.6

“Beloved,” Toni Morrison: 6.0

“Harry Potter” series, J.K. Rowling: 6.7
 
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#4 ·
“Most children today are spending a majority of their time indoors and under the direct supervision of adults. We are dictating how children spend every waking hour both in school and outside of school. Even their play opportunities are often regulated and controlled by well-meaning adults. Hour-long recess sessions have been reduced to 20-minute rule-infested movement opportunities.

Children are told what they can and can’t play, with many of the traditional games like tag and kickball becoming something of the past. Play dates are organized by adults to keep children entertained, safe, and happy. And what was once a tradition for the kids in the neighborhood to independently walk down to the local water source to play a game of pond hockey, has become an all-consuming hockey travel team where children are ranked and judged based on skill.”

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/our-over-controlled-society-damaging-childrens-social-skills
 
#6 ·
Wisconsin waterparks have had a tough time locking down enough lifeguards to support their operations in recent years – even with the added help of temporary visa-holders. There simply haven't been enough local teenagers looking for lifeguarding gigs, in some cases leaving employers high and dry.

"Even though some teens still have summer jobs, the proportion of teens who participate in the labor force during the summer has dropped dramatically," Teresa Morisi, a branch chief at the Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wrote in a report published last year looking specifically at teen employment declines. "In July 2016, the teen labor force participation rate was 43.2 percent, down almost 30 percentage points from the high point of 71.8 percent in July 1978." I graduated HS in '78.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/22/the-death-of-the-summer-job.html
 
#7 ·
#8 ·
For young children ages six to eight, schooling increased from an average of five hours a day in 1981-82 to an average of seven hours a day in 2002-03. And for today’s teens, schooling consumes much more of their time than it did for previous generations, seeping into summertime and other historically school-free periods. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 42 percent of teens were enrolled in school during July 2016, compared to only 10 percent enrolled in July 1985.

In the case of teens, spending more time in school and school-like activities may be further separating them from the actual real world in which they previously came of age. As Business Insider reports: “Almost 60% of teens in 1979 had a job, compared to 34% in 2015.” Spending more time in the contrived reality of forced schooling and less time in authentic, multi-age, productive communities may be taking its toll on today’s youth.

http://ns.umich.edu/Releases/2004/Nov04/teen_time_report.pdf
 
#17 ·
Had a conversation something like this with my grandson when he came and stayed with us over spring break. He was 17 + 3 months and a sophomore in high school. At 17 + 5 months I had graduated and was working a full time job. I told him he had 2 months to catch up to his granny. LOL He's never had a summer job because he plays football and gets about 2 weeks off at the end of the school year before practice season starts. The amount of time they spend in school plus the amount of homework they have is crazy. I don't think they are better off for it.

I bet most of us have better memories of the long summers of our childhood rather than the time spent in school, at least I do. Most of the kids don't get to have that these days. My nephew won't even let his girls ride their bikes to their grandma's house which is maybe 1/2 mile away in a country setting, too worried someone would snatch them up in that half mile, not that I blame him. I wish kids could have the care free childhood that many of us knew.
 
#18 ·
Heard from a friend of a friend that when schools desegregated instead of giving blacks the same education as whites they chose to dumb down the entire school system. Not really sure how to investigate those claims though.

Back in 1922 a teacher could pop a kid with a yardstick, the principle kept a paddle hanging in the office, and if a student had issues with a teacher they could put gloves on and square off in the boxing ring.
 
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