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Alex:
“And the answer is – ‘Why students don’t know much of anything’.”
(The contestant buzzes…)
Contestant:
“What is…how the digital age has dumbed-down our kids and jeopardizes our future.”
Alex:
“That is correct!”
The game will always be bittersweet after the death of Alex Trebek. But to watch Jeopardy right now is also to appreciate the gift that the show and its beloved host has given to viewers over the decades: a feeling of smarts and abiding respect for knowledge and the desire to learn.
I just wish that today’s kids would watch it – even the online app version. I’m thinking that the contestants on the Teen Jeopardy Tournament represent only .00001 percent of the country’s student body.
THE ANSWER IS:
WHAT IS IN THEIR HANDS
There isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not amazed with today’s students. They have the world at their hands yet the only thing they want in it is a phone. I don’t want to hear that it’s the way they learn – only if they did really learn.
It’s sad how much these kids don’t know. And it was never so front and center as it was during the presidential election. Sure everyone knows who Biden and Trump are but ask them about the three branches of the Federal Government and the difference between Senators and Congress (people) and what you will get is a deer in the headlights stare when they look up from their previously mentioned phone.
THE ANSWER IS:
ALPHABETICAL BOOKS OF KNOWLEDGE
I could write a set of encyclopedias (which kids don’t know of) providing information on the many subjects they should at least have a clue about by the time they hit middle school.
But for the sake of this column – let’s just stick to basic world knowledge and NOT what they should know to become self-reliant and un-enabled.
THE ANSWER IS:
THIS CIRCLES THE EARTH
Students today seem, well, much less smart (shame on me to think dumber) than they used to. They don’t know any of the most basic stuff: who fought against whom in World War II, how many pints are in a quart, inches in a yard, major bones in the body, number of planets in the solar system, continents on the planet and for that matter the differences between planets and moons.
Technology was supposed to set this generation free, allow students to escape the mundane, time-consuming tasks so we could do great things, think great thoughts, solve humanity’s most pressing problems.
Instead, our kids have been liberated to perform even more mundane, time-consuming tasks such as texting (including the average 3,339 messages they send and receive each month — or more than a hundred per day) and playing almost 100 matches a day of the global phenom app – Among Us as well as performing on YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and Tik Tok.
THE ANSWER IS:
THE TRUTH
I really love how you can read an article on your phone and look-up anything you may not know or want to know more of. Come on, digital access opens up a world of unlimited learning and exploration. It’s incredible. They should try it.
What bothers me is not how much our kids don’t know per se, but rather their absolute non-desire to learn. And if our generation had the chance of learning coupled with today’s tech, just imagine where we would have soared.
The much-ballyhooed advances of this brave new world have not only failed to materialize – they’ve actually made our students dumber. There, I said it.
This column is by Ritchie Lucas, Founder of The Student Success Project and Think Factory Consulting. He can be reached at 305-788-4105 or email at ritchie@thinkfactory.com and on Facebook and You Tube as The Student Success Project. NOTE: Guest contributor Lori Moldovan – Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern, was again unavailable for this column due to her extremely heavy caseload related to the pandemic.
