The
preparation guide on a box o macaroni and cheese, or any other pre-prepared box
meal is written at about the 3rd grade level. Two reasons for using such non-demanding
language come to mind.
First, the
packages are often designed to be reconstituted and microwaved by elementary
school – aged children, who may just be acquiring language skills. This allows a child to prepare an after-school
snack. It may also allow a child to
prepare dinner for his self and perhaps siblings and/or other family
members.
Secondly,
many adults lack basic reading skills and may not be capable of reading at
higher levels. This is pathognomic of a
failing educational system.
Given that
their constituencies are often unable to hear and understand a logically
presented explanation of a particular bill, as introduced for consideration by
the entire body; there is no emphasis for the individual legislators to write
or speak at a level anywhere above junior high school levels.
This lack of
overall literacy for citizens of the United States is shameful. Much of it can be laid at the feet of the
recent crops of PhD educators – the people who write the books about how to
teach and then sell the books with built-in philosophies of education to local
school boards that fail to understand the professional jargon and statistics
used in the sales pitch, and thus allow the miscarriage of education to
continue.
Recent
education theory, that used on the boomer spawn, has little to do with teaching
subject matter and far too much to do with “self esteem.”
In many of
these philosophies, the teachers are to spend the early years developing their
students’ self-esteem – when they have sufficient self-esteem they will be
comfortable trying to master subject matter that should have been locked into
their growing brains in first grade. Every
student is treated as if all are equal in skills and abilities. That is, quite frankly, bullshit.
We older
boomers were expected to develop our self-esteem, if we did, from our own
accomplishments. Those of us who learned
basic skills quickly were placed into higher performance level classes. Those who did not migrated to lower level
classes. We knew that we weren’t all
equally capable in various subjects and skills.
We still know that. We don’t
expect all of us to be equally skilled or adept.
Over the last
two generations we’ve watched the levels of academic competency displayed by
American students, decline with respect to students in other industrialized
nations. Such a decline will continue
until we return to schools that demand excellence as the minimum standard of
performance.
Our voter
base has been formed from that dumbed – down pool of academic failures with
high self-esteem. So have our
legislators. If they have no need to use
higher-level language skills with the voters, then there is no need to use it
among peers.
One of the
gravest injuries to our system of government is this decrease in language
skills. It has reached the point where
no legislator drafts a bill. His or her
staff contains clerical workers who have mastered the legislative jargon and
translate ordinary English into Legislaturese.
In the worst cases, Congressional offices fall back upon “mac and cheese”
legislation. The lobbyists and
corporations write the bills so that the legislator need only add water and
microwave. Next generation, like the boxes of macaroni and cheese, we’ll see
printed words replaced with pictures.
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