What Is Dumbing Down Americ Media Zombies Or Educational Disparities

In today’s society students aren’t pushed in high school to pursue their full potential, which makes students think they don’t need to put hard work into school making them lazy. The outcome of this is bad grades and upset parents making them believe they aren’t smart and that is why they are getting the grades they are receiving. In actuality these students aren’t being pushed and the teachers aren’t tapping into their talents to show them the full academic potential they have.

Graff starts out his work, hooking the audience, by saying what multiple students think about their school, that schools are making mistakes teaching us the things they do. Graff essentially calls out schools for the pickle that they have put their students in. Graff describes some curriculum, using Plato, Shakespeare, the French Revolution and Nuclear fission as examples of the mind-numbing topics that schools teach about. Graff then brings up topics, such as Cars, Dating, Fashion, Sports, TV, and Video Games, that many kids today enjoy talking about and discussing with one another. Graff emphasizes that despite the lack of “connection… established between any text or subject and the educational depth and weight of the discussion it can generate,” schools continue to assume that there is a connection (par. 3).

Look at Texas for example. The state is expected to receive 75,000 new students every year and yet the government has cut their budget by 13.5 percent. The government cannot expect our schools to improve if they keep decreasing the funding that helps better the educational

Though there may be little to no exposure to these ideas in the classroom, students will encounter them as they consume mass entertainment media. Social class disparity has long been a reoccurring theme in film. Adolescents and young adults

After several years of success, the required cuts along with economic woes rendered Proposal A largely ineffective and unable to properly fund Michigan’s schools, creating a massive problem in the way Michigan school districts are to be funded, as well as developing a need for new educational policy to supplement or overhaul Proposal A and the Michigan educational system.

Education gives guidance to adolescent minds and teaches them to be a good contributing citizen. Jimmy’s high school years were challenging due to his illiteracy; academics became a problem, though he thrived on extracurricular activities like football. “I hated books, I hated reading, I hated everything about school except football (Baca 28).” Jimmy feels segregated from his classmates. Not only, are his classmates wealthy students with social status. But also Jimmy believes he is they property of the state, so he believes no one cares about his well

Since (put a time), the media has tainted the idea of obtaining a good education in America. If there is someone who enjoys school and learning, then they are considered a nerd or someone who is not conventionally looked as a cool kid. Contrastingly, the media conveys the message that if someone does not like school, or at least pretends to not like it, then they are perceived as a cool kid. America’s media system has continually deterred our children from going to school by praising popular and mainstream things that are against the idea of school. An example of such a thing is the movie, Ferris Bueller’s day off. What is seen as a classic American comedy, has an undertone that bashes the practice of going to school. From the boring teacher in the beginning of the film, to the principle representing the antagonist of the story, this movie sends the message to adolescents that the authority figures in life are harmful rather than supportive and uplifting. Nevertheless, the media is not the sole source of this problem. The American Government should be held accountable for some of these problems that need to be addressed.

In ‘Miseducating the Young’, David Brooks uses metaphors along with life expectation of growing up and questions that propose how society is able to prepare the next generation for their future in a way for them to navigate everything life throws towards them. David Brooks talks about how college students are left to figure out their life the moment after they receive their diplomas. Brooks continues to mention about how children are placed into school for years and years becoming book smart, but students are not receiving meaningful tactics on how to prepare for their future in the real world.

The idea of pop culture has many different opinions surrounding it. Some people believe that it’s a God sent to us, others think it's the devil. Chris Hedges and Melissa Ames both have opposing opinions on this topic. Hedges, in “American Psychosis,” discusses that pop culture is bad because we focus too much on superficial topics and not enough on the real problems in our world. Whereas, Ames, in “Engaging ‘Apolitical’ Adolescents: Analyzing the Popularity and Educational Potential of Dystopian Literature Post-9/11,” suggests that pop culture is a unique tool that you can use to understand politics and our world’s problems. Both authors struggle to convince their peers to believe their ideology and they both have unique ways of doing so. By

Although high school experiences are of value and contribute social skills to the lifestyles of teenagers, Leon Botstein’s critique of the American high school sufficiently addressed the concerns with the high school educational system. Botstein articulates his opinion at the beginning of paragraph three with the clear statement that “the rules of high school turn out not to be the rules of life” which teenagers are expeditiously learning. Students are not being properly prepared for the trials they will encounter in their adult lives after they graduate from high school and into this true barbarous world. This generation of graduates will be innovating society and reaching new heights. Schools should be shaping creative and problem solving individuals that can be easily integrated into society. The president of Bard College and the author of Jefferson’s Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture, Leon Botstein, outlines the issues that are affecting high school education in his 1999 writing of Let Teenagers Try Adulthood.

Propaganda is an effective device that is used to influence and manipulate human behavior by appealing to emotions. When propaganda is combined with stereotypes, it usually produces negative results. A simplified view of a group of people, spread by mass communication can cause people to be more narrow-minded and can alter their perspective. Living in the Information Age, people are exposed to a constant stream of ideas and images. These ideas can reflect the views of those with a hidden agenda. They can also produce a generality about something that people are not familiar with, therefore readily accept the stereotype. There are many examples of propaganda from recent times that include stereotypes

In the article, “What Is Popular Culture and Why Study It,” Deanna Sellnow describes to one the importance of pop culture in our world today, how it shapes people’s identities, and the reasons they should be aware of our culture today. Whether people realize it or not, Sellnow says that pop culture screams at them from every angle of their lives. Although pop culture can be the things seen and heard in one’s surroundings, it is most prevalent through media. Movies, magazines, and music are all examples of mediated popular culture that is cheap entertainment for the enjoyment of the mass population. Many people are influenced when they tune in to the messages these things are sending. Some of these messages may challenge

Earlier this year, a video went viral, this video is called “Don’t Stay in School”. This video showed the reality of our education and how many young adults wrestle with their new found responsibility. The video featured a young man rapping lyrics such as: “I wasn't taught how to get a job but I can remember dissecting a frog…” and so on. Through the lyrics don’t apply to all schools, the singer actually makes a valid point on how most abstract education processes don’t have a toll on the average adult.

What pops into your mind first when you think of popular culture in today’s day and age? The latest dirt on celebrities or the latest iPhone release? The latest controversial issue or the latest iTunes hit? Regardless, pop culture encompasses all four of these concepts and many more, which consume the world we live in each and every day. Think about education. At first thought, your mind may not make the connection between the newest Taylor Swift song and the highest ACT score, but the linkage between the two becomes undeniable when you dive deeper. Ponder this: each day millions of kids walk into school buildings across the United States, each of them glued to a little slice of pop culture, a.k.a. their phone. And each day these millions

Our society consists of consumers that buy into stereotypes and the propaganda that is being fed by the government and the media. Stereotypes steer individual's perceptions of a group of people in a certain way, usually negative, and generalize that opinion to all members of the group. Aware of the influence stereotypes have on people's views, governments use stereotypes already imbedded in society as a propaganda tactic to persuade people's thoughts, opinions and beliefs in order to benefit their cause. The media was used for disseminating stereotypes the effect violent music has on teenager's behaviours such as in the shootings at Columbine. After the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government used the media as an outlet to emphasize