Why has America declined so much academically? Today our academic standards are not even close to what they were in the 17th century. The public schools are a mess, because WAY too many people are there that should not be, and because education has been dumbed down. I used to attend a public high school, but I currently go to a decent Catholic high school in my city.(the teachers are great, but the students are the same as public schoolers, they don’t care about their academics) It amazes me how much better the academics are in private school than in public school. In Honors English 9 at public school the only full book I read was “Speak” a dumb book about a girl in high school. In Honors English 10 at my Catholic school I have read the Iliad, The Aeneid, Antigone, The Unvanquished, Huckleberry Fin. I also take an Honors Philosophy class which only has 3 students. We study Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle’s works very deeply. This option would never have been available to me in public school. I don’t even go to the top prep school in my city, and it’s still way better than public school. I study Latin in school, and Greek and Hebrew independently. If you look at my other thread, there was a poster who said that these were dead languages. That is wrong. Latin is not a “dead” language. Students who take Latin score higher on their LSAT. There is a lot of Latin in law and quite a bit of Greek in medicine. I am not denying that Harvard is rigorous (it is probably one of the most rigorous schools in America TODAY) but Latin and Greek are NOT easy to learn. I currently take Latin in school, and study Greek and Hebrew independently. I would bet you all the money in the world that if your average public school kid today had to take Latin and Greek together (with no multiple choice tests) they would fail miserably. I used to go to public school. In America today, most kids care more about athletics than academics. This was MOST CERTAINLY NOT the case in the 17th century. Being “cool” back then meant doing well academically. Now in order to be respected in schools, one must be fluent in the “Urban Dictionary slang version of English” (which I abhor) and be a good athlete. Don’t tell me that kids today are eve close academically to what kids were like in the 17th century. I sometimes watch reruns of old show called “College Bowl”, (where colleges would compete against one another on national TV in academic competitions) and it deeply saddens me that we do not have something like this today. Today people chear for thier college football teams, not their academic teams. They still have something like the College Bowl in England, and Oxford and Cambridge compete against each other all the time. That is a million times better than some college sporting event. It amuses me when people today act like society is SO much smarter than it used to be. It is actually a lot dumber. I’m an old fashioned conservative guy who loves academics, politics, theology, philosophy, classical music, fishing, gardening, and rowing. I listen to classical music all the time, and I am mocked by my peers.(it’s funny that in my other thread, I was made fun of for a small spelling mistake that anyone could make) If you want to attack me for being old fashioned, go right ahead, but it does not phase me in the least. And for all of you science guys out there, remember that Theology is the queen of the sciences.
@Harvard_Berkley, I know that most people weren’t educated in the 17th century, and that’s how it should be. Education is a PRIVILEGE not a right. I would say that the majority of teens today don’t take school seriously, and that is really hurting our schools especially the public schools. Why do you think the national average SAT is 1500? A LOT of people do not belong in school. We should have much more vocation education. There should be seperate academies for those interested in arts/crafts, music, agriculture, technology, and most certainly separate schools for those interested in athletics. . That way the people who are ACTUALLY interested in academics can have a seperate competitive academic environment.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
This is a merely continuation of a thread I closed because it was going around in circles. I’m preemptively closing this as a result.