Dumbing down our children–Day 405

 

Between the 23rd of July to the 3rd of August there were 2 articles published on the Daily mail. 

The one article showing how the Smartphones generation is dumbing down the children and within that the important of Vocabulary and Language and the second article about why teaching children how to spell is no longer require in an area where the smartphone auto-correct the user's spelling.

 

Here is the reference:

 

1. iPad generation 'will learn fewer words' as oral tradition of passing on knowledge is dying out

 

"Text messages, emails and using computers to learn could be stunting children’s vocabulary, experts fear.

 

That is because our brains are hardwired to learn new words when we hear others use them in everyday conversation.

 

But learning with smartphones, tablets and computers, instead of listening to a teacher or parent, means young people are not being given the chance to hear a wide range of words, experts say…"

 

"…Dr Catani’s research suggests that children who learn from on-screen images, rather than listening to conversation, will also find it harder to take in vocabulary"

 

 

2. Stop teaching children how to spell because smartphones can do it for them, says academic in attack on traditional teaching

 

"…Spelling lessons should be scrapped because children can correct mistakes on their mobile phone or computer, a university professor has claimed.

 

Professor Mitra said in an interview with the Times that emphasising spelling and grammar in the classroom is: 'a bit unnecessary because they are skills that were very essential maybe 100 years ago but they are not right now…"

 

 

The children are the products of what we as society accept and allow and we as a society are directly responsible for the dumbing down of our children. Here understand, there are multiple dimensions involves for instance, you cannot expect a parent to not stand in alignment to the society accepted codes as that would affect their children's social status and we all know how mean children can be to one another. That means that if in a class of 30 kids for instance, a parent put their foot down and would not buy their child the I-pad that everyone else have, the child would feel lacking in comparison to their peers and in many cases, the majority would take down the kid that is lacking and that would cause psychological issues that would influence the child for their entire life on a subconscious level.

 

So we as a society, have embarrassed the I-pad as unconditional part of our lives as if we cannot even consider a life without it. Despite of the understanding that these gadgets are not effective nor supportive for the development of a child personal character, we give it to our children and further perpetuate the dumbing down process of our children.

 

We as individual parents cannot do anything about it because the I-pad/smartphones epidemic has already went to a point of no return. We hope, pray and trust  that the educational system would compensate for our ineffective parenting skills, though as the result shows, the educational system is deliberately designed to dumbing down the children.

 

The parents believe that they are powerless and thus convinced themselves that the education system is trustworthy because someone who is qualified had said so. We trust the words of our corrupted Politicians more than we trust ourselves and because of that, we cannot even consider for one moment that if we want to see a change, we must become the change.

 

It has been no secret that we are having an educational crisis all over the world; It has been no secret that the educational system dumbing down our children. If I may ask - Doesn't that makes us, parents, even dumber if we know that there is a problem, we know the problem manifests consequences on the behalf of our children and we know that we must become more involved and take our responsibility in making sure that our children would become the utmost effective human being that can be? and yet, we do nothing to correct the problem.

 

So parents - are we going to wait or are we going to be what our children expect and need us to be?

 

More to come…