eagleye13 Loc: Fl

ADHD is the new education
by Jon Rappoport
May 18, 2016

"There is a form of mind control that is really mind-chaos. It shatters the processes of thought into, at best, vaguely related fragments. There is no direction, no development, no progress along a line of reasoning. This is how you disable a person. You disrupt his ability to move from A to B to C. At that point, he becomes passive. He's willing to be programmed, because it's easier. He wants to be programmed." (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)

"I learned twenty-four new things today at school," the child said. "One right after the other. I felt so happy. My teacher told me I was learning accelerated. I wrote on my iPad. I saw pictures. I did group harmony. I added. I divided. I heard about architecture. The teacher said we were filled with wonder at the universe. We solved a problem. We're all together. I ate cheese. A factory makes cheese."

The new education is ADHD.

It's a method of teaching that surrenders ground on each key concept, deserting it before it's firmly fixed in the mind of the student.

It hops around from idea to idea, because parents, teachers, administrators, students, departments of education, and educational publishers have given up on the traditional practice of repetition.

Repetition was old-world. For decades, even centuries, the time-honored method of instruction was: introduce an idea or concept or method, and then provide numerous examples the student had to practice, solve, and demonstrate with proficiency.

There was no getting around it. If the student balked, he failed.

There were no excuses or fairy tales floated to explain away the inability of the student to carry out the work.

Now, these days, if you want to induce ADHD, teach a course in which each new concept is given short shrift. Then pass every student on to the next grade, because it's "humane."

Think of it this way. Suppose you want to climb the sheer face of a high rock. You know nothing about climbing. You engage an instructor. He teaches you a little bit about ropes and spikes and handholds. He briefly highlights each aspect and then skips to the next.

So later...while you're falling five hundred feet to the ravine below, you can invent stories about why the experiment didn't work out.

Since the advent of organized education on the planet, there has been one way of teaching young children...until recently. Explain a new idea, produce scores of examples of that idea, and get the students to work on those examples and come up with the right answers.

Subtraction, division, decimals, spelling, reading---it all works the same basic way.

For the last hundred years or so, however, we've seen the gradual intrusion of Teacher ADHD.

School text ADHD.

Not enough examples. Not enough exercises.

Education has nothing to do with a full frontal attack to "improve the self-esteem" of the student. It has nothing to do with telling children they're valuable. And it certainly has nothing to do with trying to embed social values and team spirit in children.

No matter how many fantasies educators spin, schools can't replace parents.

If what I'm writing here seems cruel and uncaring...look at the other side of the picture. Look at what happens when a student emerges from school with a half-baked, "dumbed-down" education.

He can sort of read. He can sort of write. He sort of understands arithmetic. He tries to skate through the rest of his life. He fakes it. He adopts a front to conceal the large territory of what he doesn't know.

He certainly can't think straight. Give him three ideas in succession and he's lost. He goes on overload.

He operates on association. You say A and he goes to G right away. You go back to A and he responds with R. He's up the creek without a paddle.

That's what's cruel.

Forty years ago, I was on the verge of landing a lucrative job with a remedial education company. The owner gave me a lesson plan and told me to write a sample program.

I did. He looked at it and said, "There are too many examples and exercises here. You have to move things along faster."

I told him the students would never comprehend the program that way. They had to work on at least 20 exercises for each new concept.

He was shocked. "That's not how it's done now," he said.

"Oh," I said, "you mean now the student and teacher both fake it?"

And that was the end of that.

Several years ago, I explained much of what's in this article to a sociologist at a US university. His response: "Children are different now. They don't have patience. There are too many distractions. We have to operate from a new psychology."

I asked him what that psychology was.

"Children are consumers. They pick and choose. We have to accommodate them."

While I was laughing at his assessment, he capped his display of wisdom with this: "There is no longer a division between opinion and fact."

Perfect.

mcmlx

I learned by rote. Rote and memorization. No, the multiplication tables were not fun to have to recite to my mother and teacher every single day. I don't even own a calculator and am teaching my granddaughter long math.
With all the "decrees" King O is giving out, our society will eventually get back to the basics. Probably not soon enough.

speed 1

I learned by doing things over and over until I got it right, if I made a mistake I learned from it. if I did not know how do something, I found someone or some book that could show me how. that's what learning is all about, was then, is now.asme 66 bsba 70 am still seeking.

mcmlx

Practicing something over and over is rote. Whether it be sports, music or any other art, perfect practice makes perfect.
What is ".asme 66 bsba 70 am still seeking"?

jim keris

ASME= American society of Mechanical Engineers

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

That's also called "online syndrome" or "social media addiction". Those of us not suffering from either are task oriented, in that we use whatever tools are required to complete a task, whether self assigned or assigned by another, and continue until that task is done - then move on to the next task. Children are not the only victims, but are the most susceptible due to their developing brains. Adults are prone to multi - tasking, but normal adults limit the number of tasks attempted at any one time, children have no such filters and must be taught that skill.

Children not forced to keep on task for a sufficient length of time to complete that task, never learn the skills necessary to complete ANY task, as they are constantly distracted by the next "thing". I watched a young adult counting my change at a checkout, where I was due $1.55. The young man began with a dollar bill, then while searching the cash drawer for the correct coins, began a conversation with a coworker. Coming back to the task at hand, the clerk looked at the register screen seeing he owed me $1.55 and started with a dollar bill. While searching for the correct coins, his phone vibrated and he answered. To make a long story shorter than the 15 minutes it took for me to get my change, I received $3.15 in change. When I tried to return the extra $1.60, he became extremely flustered and could not understand why I was returning money. Don't blame the young man just yet. He called for a manager, to whom I explained the change issue and why I was returning $1.60 - and the manager asked me " so, how much do we owe you?". The manager was at least 10 years older then the cashier, but still not capable of concentrating long enough to comprehend a 10 second conversation. Before he asked me that stupid question and after my explanation, he called for another cashier to come to the front, telling me he had stopped listening after 5 seconds.

I gave up - which is what the teachers are doing.

mcmlx

Wow. You open a really big can of worms on this one. Pure stupidity is what our government is breeding.
Dumb them down. Keep them stupid and keep tell that parents are wrong.
My heart breaks.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

IMO - The first big step in dumbing down the kids was using "rote"!!!!
Not teaching phonics. The building blocks for reading.

mcmlx

[quote=eagleye13]IMO - The first big step in dumbing down the kids was using "rote"!!!!
Not teaching phonics. The building blocks for reading.[/quote

If you ever catch me not being phonetically incorrect, please call me out.
My daughter and granddaughter were reading at three because of phonics.
" Rote for dummies " was never in my teaching.
Mathematics and music require rote.
Believe you me, when the term "Ebonics" came on the scene....

Louie27 Loc: Peoria, AZ

Isn't the old teaching of math the shortest way to the answer. The answer is yes. That is not how they teach math now. My kids have always been amazed at my ability to count and add numbers at a glance. I would have them flash cards to me one at a time at their speed and then count the total of numbers on the cards. I taught my kids how to achieve this and they became very efficient in math. They could then add in their own mind instead of having to use a calculator.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

Is this hard for any grown up to understand???
[quote=mcmlx][quote=eagleye13]IMO - The first big step in dumbing down the kids was using "rote"!!!!
Not teaching phonics. The building blocks for reading.[/quote

If you ever catch me not being phonetically incorrect, please call me out.
My daughter and granddaughter were reading at three because of phonics.
" Rote for dummies " was never in my teaching.
Mathematics and music require rote.
Believe you me, when the term "Ebonics" came on the scene....[/quote]