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Monday, November 22, 2010

Glenn Beck, George Soros, FOX News, Florida, and Education

The other day, after my regular softball game, I heard two of the people I play with discussing George Soros. This was astonishing to say the least, because the people I play softball with are very unlikely to have ever heard of George Soros. I live in Florida where discussions of political issues are simplistic to say the least. But there it was. The issue was how Soros was undermining the country. I found this weird. I thought this was guy who tried to do good with his money.

It all became clearer when I heard that Glenn Beck had made one of his weird rants, and then I realized that the guys I had overheard were simply parroting what Beck had said and, more importantly, believing it word for word.

When you think about education, think about this. We have made people so stupid through our absurd system of memorizing nonsense and repeating it back on a multiple choice tests that we have set the stage for FOX News to simply say what it wants to say, and having millions of people believe it, because no one ever taught them how to construct or refute an argument.

We are creating a nation of people who can't think and who simply believe what they are told.

Yet we continue to obsess about test scores.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just curious. Did you research what was said about Soros to find out for yourself, or just figure if it came from Glen Beck, it must be wrong? Is it a case of differing opinions or did your friend have facts wrong?

Roger Schank said...

I heard what Beck said, but that is hardly the point. These two men could not have analyzed the truth or falsity of Beck's remarks because they are not capable of it, MY comment is not about Beck but about the inability of most people to be able to know what is true and what is not. We do not teach people how to do careful reasoning. In an era of TV pundits like Beck this has dangerous consequences.