I teach in the inner city, and sometimes I have to ask myself, the ability to learn what? They want us to encourage critical thinking, but most of these kids cannot repeat back what you say to them, much less tell you what it means or take it to a higher level. Many are downright hostile to learning. They gripe about reading a 2 page article. I asked an Econ class to calculate 5% of $10,000 and many could not do it.

Here’s something to think about. Fifty years ago, or one hundred, or more, most people did some type of manual labor. Many weren’t very educated (i.e., they didn’t receive much schooling) because they didn’t need it. Now that our agriculture is highly mechanized and many of our manufacturing jobs have gone overseas, there is little left for which these individuals are qualified. However, people did not just become more intelligent or more educable just because the jobs for which they would naturally have been fit went away.

This problem is compounded by the fact that the American education establishment is hellbent on forcing everyone to go to college. College is not for everyone. Yet, when they don’t teach kids that there are other options (such as trade school), and when kids know that they are not college material, they give up. They quit trying, become hostile, create disruptions, and often drop out. Kids who want to learn are deprived of the opportunity because so much time, effort, and money is spent on remediation and behavior issues. The bright kids are the ones we should be spending money on, not the idiots who don’t want to learn. But, instead we let the smart kids fall by the wayside, and that hurts us all.