Poll: 55% of Americans have critical thinking skills of 6th graders

No not really, but I remember an article from last week that showed the fact Obama's famous yes we can speech when analyzed had the English skills that should be apparent in 7th graders, while his speech last month from the oval office on energy was in a headline CNN article criticized for being too technical and over the heads of normal people. English experts ranked it at a 10th grade level. But anyways:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...ercent-of-voters-think-obamas-a-socialist.php

 

At least they're 'smarter than a 5th grader'

 

The TEA in Tea Party stands for Terribly Educated Americans. Just how stupid can a group of people be to chant "drill baby drill" as the oil washes ashore destroying their environment and their way of life?

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never worry, a vast majority of Italian folks are getting as dumb as bricks too thanks to twenty years and more of systematic destruction of the public school system and the beastly berlusconi's TV and media propaganda based on lies, hate and lots of naked female flesh. sociologists started to discuss about this matter talking about the barbarizing of our society. take a deep look and find out that you're not fucked up as bad as you believe, there are many in front of you in the road to Idiocracy.

 

It's not really up to marketers to determine the outcomes. They'd like to think so, but I think when the ordeinary outcomes of working people don't meet those of those on Wall St. profitting by the labor of others, that are selling and producing products, eventually the model will fall apart. For now a handful of people stand to make a boatload of money off the travail of working people, without breaking a sweat...someday that will change. It was the "change" I voted for but I haven't seen much evidence that anyone finds it important. Thus we have a British firm in control the pollution of our Gulf...makes sense to whom? They tell us who can take pictures and who can wallk our own beaches Yet their intent was never to provide oil to the citizens of the US, no they were going to cap this well and sit on it until the prices went up...so why should we allow drilling, if they are only going to cap the wells? Who exactly profits from that?

And should one of their wells become a hazard who really controls them?

 

And how many of these 55% can describe Socialism other than as "Sumptin' UnAmurikin?"

 

Standard American in parts of the country: "Obama supports socialism security and doesn't want to privatize it, COMMUNIST!"

 

They can't they are too busy jacking off to pictures of Sarah Palin. They don't understand politics, they only understand marketing. And for them she's "hot". It's a hard battle to fight. Much like the one California fought when the governator was installed, even after a valid statewide election that re-elected Gray Davis while Bush and Cheney told us we had to solve our own problems while Enron raped and pillaged. Funny thing neither Bush/Cheney or Schwartzenhegger stopped the rape of average citizens. Funny thing what republican recall and all the special elections after it never led to a profitable state. Can they even tell you what those elections cost?

Now we are expected to think Whitney and her ebay friends have a solution...how is that when ebay under Whitney became less than what it once was. We all had to pay taxes on our ebay accounts. Funny how when the little guy has to report and pay taxes it's never reported. Wasn't she in power with ebay when Cheney installed his taxes on sales by individuals?

Hey talk about instituting capital gains or inheritance and the whole lobbying network kicks into place. But people selling yard sale items online taxing them...that's allowable. Used items paid for listings hey that's taxable, but don't tax the rich guys. What they inherited from grandpa that's sacred as long as they aren't selling it on ebay. They are supposed to be the ones creating jobs...only thing is they don't. But what we inherit from Grandma and Grandpa is fully taxable if we sell it on ebay???

Inherit billions you don't have to pay taxes, try and sell Grandpa's radio or watch on line and be prepared to pay taxes.

 

As a voter these marketers better be addressing my issues. They may list me as as sixth grader, but they better be aware that my vote matters as much as each of those Wall St. voters they are paid by.

I vote, I am not sure their Wall St. cronies do, that's something they would have to schedule. And if you can't promise them a return, they aren't going to return from their vacation outposts to vote.

 

I watched privatization and de-regulation in California. Enron did such a good job?...some made a bundle but it wasn't citizens of this state or elected officials. The Governator was supposed to solve the problem..hows he doing? Haven't seen much from him but special, expensive elections...is that we want for our nation?

 

What exactly is it he doesn't want to privatize? socialism or security? Does that make him a communist? I am thinking just the opposite.

Didn't he just mandate health insurance, isn't that socialist in nature? Every citizen has to purchase health insurance...how is that not a socialist agenda? Who profits, the insurance industry? Fact is the insurance industry doesn't promise any return. Does the private medical insurance industry stand up and say they are going to provide for coverage without recompense?...where exactly is the private sector? No what they have done since it's passage is raise rates.

Wasn't that what the industry wanted him to do?

 

let's put all this another way.

i did research back in may of 2009 for a debate i had going down between me and liberty lobby reactionary; in other words, a pre-teabagger.
i use my data from the 2000 census long form, for people age 25 and older.

89% of americans have a high school deploma or a GED. the u.s.a. has the highest level of high school grads, of any nation in the world.:cheers2:

21% of americans had taken some college courses but, had not earned a degree in 2000, compared with 18.7% in 1990.

15.5 had earned a bachelors degree in 2000, compaired with 13.1% in 1990.

8.9% had earned a graduate or professional degrees in 2000, compaired with 7.2% in 1990.

only norway had a higher level of people who have a college, graduate or, professional degree in the world.

wow! socialist norway is better educated then the capitalist u.s.a.
so much for the tea party propaganda of socialism making people stupid.

here is the problem with people who have only a high school degree or GED.
from nursery school through high school, people are only taught WHAT TO THINK.
not untill college are people taught HOW TO THINK.
and that is one hell of a big if of 'how to think.' if people do not take any courses in critical thinking skills which, most do not; then only around something like 15% of all americans, have critical thinking skills above the high school level.
a case in point. when i entered college, i had to take a reading test.
i scored 11th. grade and 6 months. which i learned is way, way, way, fucking good indeed!
the average person entering college in the u.s.a. makes a reading score of 5th. grade and 2 months.
i was in the top 10%... no wonder 60% of people drop out of college in the first year!


most americans are good common folk... they just don't thinking skills for understanding a complex culture we live in today.
maybe in the 19th. and early 20th. centuries in a farming culture, most people could get by piss poor critical thinking skills.
NO WAY THAT CAN THAT SHIT FLY IN THE 21ST. CENTURY!

 

http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=1653

Our actual graduation of high school rates is actually pretty low, it's GEDs that bring up the total, but it's still a serious problem when near 30% of your kids can't make it to the 12th grade.

 

I don't remember FDR ever checking with a maketing firm before he addressed the US public.

"So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear. . .is fear itself. . . nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels: taxes have risen, our ability to pay has fallen, government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income, the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade, the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side, farmers find no markets for their produce, the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.

Primarily, this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failures and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men."

Amazing isn't it how the market can control the message. I've yet to be impressed with Obama and voted for him. I voted for change and a concern for average citizens. What I've witnessed has been a caving into financial interests and corporations with little emphasis on average citizens. I am sorry but celebrity wears thin when it fails to deliver. "Great Orator" I think not. FDR was a great orator, a rich white man that followed up his words with legislation. Not anything like we are seeing today.

A Nobel Prize Peace winner that escalates a war. Not a person I would tell my grandkids was am example Not really better than Clinton was. A man that took advantage of an intern while holding the highest office in this country. And this is the new milenium. Change...not seeing any real change but a really toxic/filthy gulf coast with corporate flunkies deciding the time tables, and establishing the regulations. If that's the change we voted for I think most of us were mislead.

 

Blackcat

I agree to a point (although I got lost with your ‘case in point’ about reading skills).

But there are a lot of factors involved from culture down to the personality of individual teachers. But is the formal educational system only a reflection of society?

Education doesn’t begin and end at the school gates, the type of parents you have the type of television you watch (or don’t), the friends you have, the environment you are brought up in, being religious and the type of religion and so on. Our education goes on all the time often in subtle ways we never even notice and views can become so entrenched that even those that believe they are questioning their ideas may be subconsciously wording the questioning to conform to their prejudices.

A big problem is that before being able to make an informed decision you need to be informed, and there are few subjects were some kind of bias doesn’t creep in.

One of the best methods of stimulating thinking is open and honest debate, but that can be hard to achieve, especially amongst a large group of school children, or in a place where there are few alternative voices.

And then you have the difficulty of defining what is ‘critical thinking’ I’m an atheist and to me belief in a god is irrational, but the thing is does ‘belief’ trump ‘critical thinking’? Some people seem to think so.

This is often the problem I’ve meet here, some people hold there political views as if they were religious views, to them it is more a matter of faith than judgement. And so they can become offended when someone questions their views as if they were attacking something sacred and sacrosanct.

Take the idea of the 1st Amendment ‘freedom of speech’, a lot of American seem to feel this gives them a ‘right’ to say whatever they want without being criticized.

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What I’m saying is that although education is a good target is it the real problem or is it just a symptom of something wider.

 

You're mixing metaphors here. A GED is not equivalent to a H.S. diploma. A diploma says "I stay with the job to the finish line," while a GED, "I do the least possible." Is that the highest level, or the highest number? H.S. grads in other countries are far more knowledgeable than the U.S.

Wouldn't want to do more than we have to, would we?

This shows a little hope and a little improvement.

The only purpose of the public schools is to teach a minimum base of knowledge. Math and Social Sciences does teach a child to think, albeit only minimally; and they do not teach children what to think, that's what parents are for.

Contrary to popular American beliefs parents are supposed to teach their children these skills. My parents taught me and I taught my children to think for themselves.

Not true. The English 102 Research Paper is the beginning of critical thought and every research paper that follows is a lesson in independent thinking. Required courses include Philosophy and Social Sciences, which require critical thinking; and some elective courses can demand outside the box research skills.

Then, a lot of this depends on the college, ie, I would expect much less from a religious school than a real college.

You also have to consider what the schools have to work with. By the time a kid starts in grade K, he/she has had 5 years of religious instruction which has taught that independent thinking will send him to Hell, and until the 60s many public schools continued this course of religious instruction.

Parenting in the U.S. is piss poor at best, on average. If you have children, go to a parent-teacher day at school and you will find most parents are either absent or preoccupied with anything other than their children's education.

Point is, there is so much more to a child's education than school.

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Read a little more History and you will find that to be not true. Every public appearance of his was choreographed to give him the best possible appearance and to hide his wheel chair. The Press even cooperated in not printing pictures of his chair.

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