Flatliners

The post called "Geographooey" (see below) drew quite a lot of comment on the "U.S. Politics" board at Beliefnet. Most of the respondents blamed students' lack of geographical and historical acuity on the current mania for standardized testing, and a number of them mentioned the No Child Left Behind Act, which vigorously promotes (but does not fund) such testing. They tended to claim that the constant anxiety over tests, and the habit of teaching to those tests, stifles creativity and inhibits rather than expands students' minds.

I don't disagree, but the main problem I saw in my own classrooms, both in my student days and my teaching days, was lack of curiosity. Incurious people won't learn geography or history or much of anything else, and you can't force it into them.

You can lead a fool to knowledge but you can't make him think.

A person has to be singularly dull, listless, intellectually flat, and boring not to be interested in the world in which he or she lives. The livelier students are initially fascinated by names -- Himalaya, Rajasthan, Ougoudougou, Mississippi, Walla Walla, New York, New Jersey, New Orleans (why new?), and then want to learn everything they can about those places -- who lives there, what the place looks like, etc.

What makes a person an intellectual flatliner? Lots of things can, and I'm sure some are born that way. But I really believe parking kids in front of the t.v. and feeding them junk food is probably the biggest culprit in our time.

By the time their little marshmallows turn 16 people are asking themselves why their kids are fat and stupid. This as a six-foot 250-pound adolescent emerges from the bedroom to microwave a couple more cheese pockets, then retreats to the barricaded inner sanctum for another exciting round of Grand Theft Auto.

I'm not sure whether this is a political topic or not, but it damn well should be.