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Uninformed americans
Im writing an essay about Uninformed America, basically on how much knowledge we lack, or how ignorant some people are regarding facts about the history of our country, the government, politics, etc. It goes on to explain how teens are too involved with social media to care about their education and so forth. Basically what I'm looking for is some help and or personal opinions on this subject. I've only gotten 2/8 pages done so I'd like all the help I can get.
Thank you for your time!
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I'm not sure how much my views on the subject will be to you though I am happy to share them with you.
First a bit of demographics for you. I'm old enough to be your grandfather and I have lived my entire life either in the North East or mid Atlantic part of the country.
When I went to school, back in the dark ages of blackboards, pencils and paper and mimeograph machines. We started to learn about geography and history in Elementary school. I remember in 5th grade having to know all 48 state capitals and for history we learned when each state joined the Union. We also learned about World Geography while in Elementary School.
Today Geography is not taught with the depth that it was when I was in school. History was an on going subject which started in early elementary school and continued through High School Social Studies. In 7th grade we had a required Civics class where we learned about the different forms of government with emphasis on our government.
These teachings are not emphasized today in our schools. Our schools teach what is need to know to pass standardized test. We are test teaching so that we can move forward. This to me is the crux of the problem you are exploring.
If it does not directly effect me I do not need to worry or know about it. That is a bad attitude to take as it allows for you to walked over and snowed on issues that should be of great important to you. Politicians tell you the a certain percentage, a very large percentage of the people support an imitative. How do you know this if you know nothing about the imitative?
The Internet is a great resource to find information. To me it is the encyclopedia of my day on steroids. Today's teenagers do not realize the elephant they have at their finger tips because of the many other social things the Internet brings.
Instead of researching a question as we did with the help of reference material. Today's teenager goes on-line and asks someone for the answer. In somewhat of the manner you are. In your question though you are asking for what amounts to research information you can include in your essay. This type of information can only come from first hand information, not from reference sources.
In many of the questions we receive my answer is: Life is like an algebra problem. You need to follow the proper steps in order if you want to get the right answer. Today the uninformed among us want the answer but are not willing to follow the steps needed to get the answer preferring instead to take short cuts to get an answer. This usually leads to wrong and misinformed information.
Social media is only part of the problem. Adding to the problem is the need for instant gratification. To that end we have things such as the 24 hour news cycle, the need to be first without regard for being right. The need for self-promotion regardless of who or what may be hurt or endangered.
The lack of knowledge also breeds egotism, bullies, greed and the need to bluff our way though things we do not understand. One day this house of cards the young people of today are building will all come crashing down upon them. It started with a need for expedience in education.
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