Posted on Mensa's Forum. I think it's important enough to repost here.
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I've just written an article about Samuel Blumenfeld's video where he says K-12 education is “a criminal enterprise.”
He sums up the terrifying ramifications this way: “The dumb are getting dumber; and the smart are getting dumber."
The main reason is a designed-to-fail curriculum. Blumenfeld is especially critical of Common Core. But the biggest single malignancy is the deliberate use of reading instruction that does not work, i.e. Whole Word, Whole Language, Sight-Words, etc.
This comprehensive attack is the reason why our Intelligence is shrinking. Blumenfeld notes that the number of high scores on SAT tests has dropped.
So the country’s brain power is being deliberately and systematically destroyed. One might say this can’t affect Mensa because there will always be a top 2%!
But that seems short-sighted to me. I submit that anything that reduces intelligence is a threat to Mensa and everything that I believe Mensa stands for.
But people say that Mensa cannot take a stand on anything, not even matters pertaining to intelligence, not even the destruction of its own raison d’être. This strikes me as a convoluted little legalism.
PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists), another elite organization, is behaving in an equally narrow way. They used to talk a lot about the “right to read.” Now they don't even mention that. I have told them that there is a much more important right here: “the right to learn to read.” They should be demanding that right for everyone on the planet, as should Mensa.
We see a sad pattern here. The people at the top, the big shots, the movers and shakers, the smart and successful, the people who should be protecting the society, are passive, indifferent, unsure of themselves, or corrupted. Whatever it is exactly, I’ve designated this phenomenon “the silence of the shepherds.”
The “lambs” go off to school and are rendered brain-addled in a variety of ways. What do they know? Their Silence is not surprising. But the adults, the grown-ups, the leaders of the community, where are they? Why do they abdicate their responsibility? Why are they silent?
Properly, everyone would be mad as hell and screaming out the window. As the signs say at sporting events: “Make some noise.”
“Education: the Silence of the Shepherds”
Addendum: I hope that if you're a member of these organizations, you'll support these arguments to the leadership. Speaking of the society generally, the tide is running the wrong way and I sense there is not a lot of time.
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This post first appeared on Education Improved -- We Can Dream, please read the originial post: here
