Change our electorate?
I'm sorry, I don't have any quotes for you, or even timely references to pin this diary to, but it seems to me that, basically, our electorate doesn't have a clue what government is. Civics used to be a semester long course in high school. When education is done right, (I know, All Children Left Behind kinda killed a class like this), there are no right answers; only long thoughtful ones called essays in which the student has to develop a theme and support it with facts (may I again apologize for not having any of those?), and teachers have to read them and think about them before they can give them a reasonable grade.
It just seems to me that most of the idiots that make it onto my radar (admittedly a limited one) seem to think that they don't need things like stop lights and courts so they can challenge the jerkwad cop who gave them the ticket, or the cop who put the theif behind bars, or or or yaknowadimean? They seem to think that children will educate themselves or that all parents can afford to homeschool their kids (because who needs to spend a dollar in taxes on educating some else's kids?), and no one needs health insurance provided by an industry that has health as its goal instead of profits.
It seems to me that everyone past the age of 18 years old should, at the very least, have spent at least a few months thinking about what a collective body NEEDS in order to remain an organized society. We are devolving into subsets of warring factions who seem willing to nuke the whole thing (if the teabaggers nuke the repugs for a few electoral seasons, I'm fine with it, but if we as a society nuke our country for the few remaining decades we have left on this planet-because we have already nuked the planet- I'm definitely not ok with it) because they can't imagine an interest beyond me, my, mine.
I understand that this class requires teachers who have the mandate to think and teach and reading/grading all those essays in which there is no "right" answer, only thoughtful arguments supported by facts (again, mea culpa)is very time consuming and they are generally not paid for that time, but isn't that what education should produce? Shouldn't it include turning out adults that don't poop (intellectually speaking) in their food bowl?
I'm just so tired teh stupid.
The end result of the scantron is less education. How ironic that "improved" grading produces a less educated populace.
Is anyone trying to put civics back in our schools?
If anyone actually reads this diary on a gorgeous Friday night, many thanks
c