"According to Marx the stages of history are canabalism, slavery, fuedalism, capitalism, and back to canabalism. These are the moods of production."
According to the U.S. Department of Education (Motto: "'I' before 'E' except, uh..."), American students are doing just fine when it compares to students in foreign countries. For example, a class of fourth graders in Boise, Idaho tested equal to or just below a class of fourth graders in Kabul in the area of academic competence.
Admittedly, the test is biased. When asked what the First Amendment means to them, the students' responses varied from "freedom of speech" to "believing what I want to."
By comparison, the American students responded "the government will give me things" and "protection from dangerous ideas."
Kidding aside, we've all heard about the trouble in American schools. The kids glow in the dark and shoot laser beams from their eyes. Some high school students don't wear enough clothes to class. Some, particularly the sexy ones, wear too many.
Some educators believe reintroducing morality will improve our schools. Others believe we need to reduce the level of school violence, especially gun violence. Some believe we need to teach them how to return fire.
I sympathize with Americans students. If, in these tumultuous times, their focus is not on schoolwork, that's understandable. American young people are wrestling with a serious question: Xbox, or Gamecube? The multimedia power of Bill Gates' odiferous tentacles versus really cool-looking games like "Luigi's Mansion" and "Rogue Leader."
That excuse, however, does not apply to college students, the theoretic pinnacle of American education:
"France was in a very serious state. Taxation was a great drain on the state budget."
Huh?
"Friedrich Nietzsche was a German movie producer who wrote 'Triumph of the Will' and 'Superman.'"
What the -
"Christianity was just another mystery cult until Jesus was born. The mother of Jesus was Mary, who was different from other women because of her immaculate contraption."
What is this? Everybody knows Nietzsche wrote "Batman," not "Superman."
The above quotes are culled from "Non Campus Mentis," compiled by professor Anders Henriksson of Shepherd College in West Virginia. The book is a collection of answers to history exams and history papers from more than two-dozen colleges and universities, some "the most selective and academically renowned institutions in the United States and Canada."
Some of these sentences "melted my brain," as Spectrum Copy Editor Phil Manijak is fond of saying. To wit: "Medieval people were violent. Murder during this period was nothing. Everybody killed someone."
There is no specification as to which bafflingly stupid quotes were from exams and which sprung forth from papers. Regardless, they are an exemplar of what happens to a society dominated by silicone implants and "Entertainment Tonight."
"Richard Nixon felt free to shed his morels after defeating Hubert Hoover."
Uh-huh.
"John F. Kennedy worked closely with the Russians to solve the Canadian Missile Crisis."
At least "F" was spelled right.
As much as I'd like to scoff and tell those Ivy League wastrels to dummy up and stop swimming through daddy's money pile like Scrooge McDuck, as an inmate at UB, I can't.
When applying to UB, one knows they are not climbing the Mt. Everest of academia. If your application to college comes from the same tablet as a job application to Blockbuster, don't expect too many tenured Nobel Prize winners on staff.
UB is like the backup Justice League - we can save the world from the nut dressed like a toaster, but you'd better call the "A"-list guys to beat down Lex Luthor.
Still, I've been more than a little disappointed in some of my classmates. During my first semester - back when dinosaurs roamed Earth and human feet powered cars - my UGC 111 instructor gave us a map to identify European countries.
Not Andorra, Malta and Liechtenstein, mind you. We're talking about England, France, Italy, Germany. Countries even President Reagan, in his current degenerated state of mind, could identify with a minimum amount of drool.
Not surprisingly, and quite depressingly, some students got more than zero wrong.
What can be done to raise the intelligence of our students, reinvigorate the American school system and save the republic itself? I advise heavy drinking and responsibility-avoidment therapy.
Seriously, while I joke, dumb students are a problem society needs address. Do I have a solution? (Rude noise). Of course not. But I know it's a problem.
Remember, these students are the future. Just ask them. "There has been a change of social seen. The last stage is us. We, in all humidity, are the people of currant times."
God help us.
