Creativity, Digital Literacy, Critical and Strategic Thinking, Diverse Knowledge, and Pattern Recognition
Our Deteriorating Skills of Intellect, Judgment, and Problem-Solving Are Killing America
David Barnhizer
Introduction and Overview
America’s K-12 educational system is failing to educate a significant number of students in basic understanding, knowledge and what I think of as essential “survival skills”. One example is found in a survey finding found that 56% of Americans are not even able to name the three branches of the nation’s federal government set out in the Constitution. It may be simplistic, but it is not illogical to conclude that if people don’t even know what the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches are, they are incapable of understanding or respecting the critical functions, powers, roles and essential limits of those fundamental institutions. This clearly endangers our ability to sustain America as a system operating under the Rule of Law.
As to our educational institutions, the fact is that unless we figure out how to deal with the educational tragedy those institutions represent America’s democratic Republic cannot be saved. No other governmental or institutional forms will work for our incredibly diverse, challenging and non-homogenous society this nation has become. America is becoming more complex, divided, and poorly educated by the day—a nation of ignorance, hate and division.
The survey referenced above also showed that America’s overall level of ignorance and inability to think and communicate with precision, fact, and evidence to support positions is worsening. Our educational systems at every level are responsible for a significant part of the blame for the population’s “dumbing down”. A depressing sense of what is taking place is provided by the examples I am setting out below.
As disappointing as the issue is in an overall sense, the greatest tragedy is what has taken place in our largest urban educational systems. While educational deficiencies are found everywhere, the implications of what is described, the failures taking place in significant elements of the urban educational system are profound and disastrous. Many young Americans are being betrayed by the critical institutions who claimed the responsibility of making these children’s lives better, fairer, more just and productive. They have cheated and betrayed millions of children living in our large cities.
Although there has been enormous progress over the past fifty years in the creation of opportunities for many Black and Latino Americans, the harsh reality is that America has defaulted on its obligations. We have allowed generations of young Black, Latino, and White individuals to be undereducated, under-supported, undertrained, and increasingly unemployed or unemployable. We now face a potentially intractable and growing challenge. How can we deal with the consequences of tragically inadequate policies that segregated our cities on one hand, and “dumbed down” our educational systems throughout the nation on the other?
60-70 percent of America’s minority youth do not graduate from High School
These policies, and the educational and political establishment they produce, are still providing poor and inadequate education to a very large number of Black and Latino students. Data suggest that in America’s 50 largest metropolitan areas between 60 and 70 percent of minority youth, predominantly Black and Latino males, do not even graduate from high school. Nor, although the worst of the impact is felt by minority students, there are also significant numbers of White children who are being cheated by the false promises of modern “Woke” educators. That system is sending many—even a majority—of those students into the world unprepared to participate in productive ways.
While the educational betrayal is clearly system-wide, an extremely serious concern is that the deficiency has developed to the point that the futures of far too many Black and Latino students are being undermined by the education and urban political establishments. A tragically high proportion of those students, whether through receipt of a diploma of little or no real meaning or earlier withdrawal from the so-called educational process, exit the public schools of America’s major urban areas without essential knowledge and skills. This betrayal of our youth has been going on for at least fifty years. On these concerns, see David Barnhizer, “No More Excuses!”: Parents Defending K-12 Education (Amazon 2022); David Barnhizer, “Un-Canceling” America (Amazon 2021); and David Barnhizer, Conformity Colleges: The Destruction of Intellectual Creativity and Dissent in America’s Universities (Skyhorse 2024).
Examples that Portray the Depth of the Betrayal
The following examples are offered so that we can at least begin to have a “no holds barred” honest discussion of the challenges. The reality is actually quite disturbing.
Producing a Generation of Woke Illiterates. “A majority of American fourth-and eighth-graders can’t read or do math at grade level, according to the Education Department. Whenever someone asks me about critical race theory, that statistic comes to mind. What’s the priority, teaching math and reading, or turning elementary schools into social-justice boot camps? Our jails and prisons already have too many woke illiterates.” “Foolish schools going for woke — lagging US kids need 3 Rs, not race theory,” Jason L. Riley, 7/13/21.
Baltimore School Administrator. “I’ve seen many transcripts, many report cards, like this particular student.” “An administrator for Baltimore City Public Schools who spoke on the condition on anonymity told [investigators] that the high school did fail France’s son. “I get angry. There’s nothing but frustration. We see on the news the crime that occurs, the murders, the shootings, we know that there are high levels of poverty in Baltimore,” the administrator said. “His transcript is not unusual to me. I’ve seen many transcripts, many report cards, like this particular student.”
“This is terrible,” [City Council candidate] Jovani Patterson said in regard to Baltimore public schools. “This is just further perpetuating a cycle of poverty, of despair.” “They take [the schools administrators]. They take. They take. Yet, despite the amount of money they get. We don’t see much change. [It isn’t about a lack of resources.] Our schools outspend 97% of other major school districts,” Patterson said. “It’s heartbreaking.” “If almost half of our kids are failing, what options do they have after high school?”
Nearly half of the 20,500 public high school students in Baltimore earned less than a D average. “Project Baltimore obtained a chart assembled by Baltimore City Schools.…In the first three quarters of this past school year, 41% of all Baltimore City high school students, earned below a 1.0 grade point average. In other words, nearly half of the 20,500 public high school students in Baltimore earned less than a D average.”
“In Baltimore, (a city that ranks 5th nationally in major city school funding) across five schools, they couldn’t find a single child that was proficient in reading and writing and math. The tragic outcome of the failed educational institution, according to Candace Owens, is a school system that is actually failing kids, especially Black kids.”
“A Baltimore high school student failed all but three classes over four years and [still] almost graduated near the top half of his class with a 0.13 GPA. [The student’s mother] expressed frustration with the school, asking why her son would have to complete three more years of high school after “the school failed him.” [Her] son failed 22 classes and was late or absent 272 days over his first three years of high school. Despite this, her son still ranked 62nd in his class out of 120 total students. [She said] “The school failed at their job. They failed. They failed, that’s the problem here. They failed. They failed. He didn’t deserve that,” she said. Hundreds of students are flunking classes at the Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts in west Baltimore that her son attended.” It would not be completely “off the wall” to suggest that the mother was complicit in the failure.
“In 2019, only 37% of third-graders in Illinois demonstrated grade-level proficiency in English-language arts, and when it came to math only 41% could demonstrate grade-level proficiency. [In relation to such failures in basic learning at which the teachers were supposedly skilled and proficient, Eli Steele asked himself] Why would the state of Illinois consider new standards when it failed to uphold the most basic and universal of education standards? The disconnect between the progressive ideology driving these new standards and the realities on the ground could not be starker.”
Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress—reveals that of the 27 US urban school districts that reported their results for 2019, not one reported a majority of Black eighth-graders as being proficient in either math or reading.
“The latest results from the Nation’s Report Card show that only 22% of 12th-grade students are proficient in science.” “Allocating more time and effort away from core subjects like math and science could theoretically harm those outcomes,” Corey DeAngelis said. “But the bigger issue is that teachers unions shouldn’t have the power to decide how or what to teach everyone else’s children when they can’t even get the basics right.”
“In 2019, only 37% of third-graders in Illinois demonstrated grade-level proficiency in English-language arts, and when it came to math only 41% could demonstrate grade-level proficiency. [In relation to such failures in basic learning at which the teachers were supposedly skilled and proficient, Eli Steele asked himself] Why would the state of Illinois consider new standards when it failed to uphold the most basic and universal of education standards? The disconnect between the progressive ideology driving these new standards and the realities on the ground could not be starker.”
Baltimore is just one of many. More than half of New York City’s school kids struggle with basic math and English. According to the NYS Department of Education 2019 report on state test results, 45.6% of students in grades 3-8 were proficient in math and only 47.4% of students in grades 3 to 8 scored at proficient levels in English.
“Math and reading test scores for the country’s 13-year-olds have dropped sharply in comparison to numbers from 2012, with some of the lowest-scoring test takers falling the furthest behind. U.S. News and World Report reported that this was the first major score drop in the subjects since the NAEP began tracking long-term academic achievement trends in the 1970s.” “Student test scores fall for first time in national test’s history,” Monique Beals, 10/14/21.
“Sixty-five percent of black and brown children don’t meet proficiency in the NYC Department of Education.” New York City [Mayor] Eric Adams spelled it out recently. That means: “Our school system is dysfunctional and we have to stop acting like it’s not. We sometimes have to call a thing the thing and be honest about the basic essentials.”
NYC’s Maspeth High School created fake classes, awarded bogus credits, and fixed grades to push students to graduate — “even if the diploma was not worth the paper on which it was printed,” an investigative report charges.”
If they don’t come to school they aren’t going to learn. “Roughly 200 New York City schools saw a quarter of their kids absent from class on Tuesday, according to a Post analysis of Department of Education data…A total of 51 schools had absentee rates of 40 percent or higher on Tuesday while 24 had less than half of their kids in class.”
$38 Billion Down the Drain? “If school achievement depended only on funding, New York’s kids would be performing twice as well as other American children. Alas, they’re not…with no path toward better results. [According to its website, the New York City public schools have a budget of $38 BILLION in 2021/2022, and spent $30,772 per student this past year.] The NYC system leads the nation in spending per student…In the 2018-19 school year, New York shelled out $25,139 per kid, “more than any other state and nearly twice the national average of $13,187.” And New York City spent $28,004 per student, “easily the most” among major US urban districts. Meanwhile, New York scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (the “gold standard” for comparing student performance across states) are middling and slowly falling further down the pack, even as per-pupil NY outlays soar. “New York keeps spending more on schools and getting less results,” NY Post Editorial Board, 1/30/22.
“Social promotion — moving the kids on to the next grade, no matter how unprepared they are — hides the truth.” By high school, the educators “cover up” scams get more elaborate, yielding [an] endless series of “worthless diploma” scandals — only to have more pop up. Because at that point, the only way to graduate the kids is for the school to cheat. Then again, those state “educrats” are busy watering down and even eliminating the testing and other standards that make that cheating “necessary.” “Are you sure your kid can read? All too many US public schools won’t tell you the truth,” Michael Benjamin, 10/2/21.
“Academics are fast becoming a thing of the past in public schools. In their place [are] behavioral psychology and “social and emotional learning” (SEL) designed not to educate, but to transform children’s core values, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. Once upon a time, education meant learning how to read, write, do math, and think. It meant learning history and science as well. That is barely happening now, as government data show.…Today, government schools use advanced methods including SEL to instill in children a radical new and oftentimes contradictory “politically correct” value system.” “Trading Academics for Far-Left ‘Social-Emotional Learning,’” Alex Newman, 8/21/20.
Parents need to demand accountability from schools. Chicago Pastor Corey Brooks describes the situation at a school near him. “Only 6% of the kids at the school are proficient in reading, and only 4% of the kids are proficient in math.”…“Rooftop Revelations: Parents must say ‘no more excuses’ when it comes to educating their kids: Parents need to demand accountability from schools, Pastor Corey Brooks says,” Eli Steele, 1/27/22.
What Will These Uneducated Kids Do As Millions of Jobs Are Eliminated?
An extremely serious problem, as my son Daniel and I detailed in a 2019 book, The Artificial Intelligence Contagion: Can Democracy Withstand the Imminent Transformation of Work, Wealth, and the Social Order? (Clarity Press), is that as the employment system “tightens” and decent jobs become more scarce due to the effects of robotics and artificial intelligence systems, we will experience growing social strife. Massive expenditures will be required as a consequence of the betrayal of generations of minority youth. Many of them have been or are being incarcerated in numbers significantly greater than their ethnicity’s proportion of the population.
What happens in a divided nation in which tens of millions of its young people are uneducated and unskilled, don’t have jobs, can’t read, blame the system and others for their plight, and have far too much time on their hands? We are seeing the opening tragic chapter of that story in the violence, hate, murders, robberies, drug dealing, and irrational actions already afflicting America’s major urban areas.
This is America’s shame, and we still do not know how, or whether, it can be rectified. We have for far too long avoided the intelligent and tough policies and strategies required to remedy the effects of the failed system created by the “Great Society” and “War on Poverty”, along with the subsequent “War on Drugs” that incarcerated many young Blacks for drug offenses. This has imposed on our minority and urban communities ill-conceived policies that fractured the Black family structure and accelerated the decline of the urban culture.
The Schools Lack the Ability to Provide Quality Education, So They are “Dumbing Down” the Entire Educational System to Avoid Accountability
In writing about how the UK has sought to resist America’s push toward “Woke” education, Douglas Murray, author of “The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity” offers a scathing analysis of the way US teachers’ unions and their leadership have sought to cover up their own failures to educate America’s children by blaming all shortcomings on standardized testing and other “systemic” challenges. Murray cites Luke Rosniak’s book, “Race to the Bottom: Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education,” for the proposition that “it isn’t just what is taught in American classrooms that is the problem. It is the whole crumbling structure now looming behind it.”
Murray adds that “even the most well-off school districts try to get around any disparities in racial testing among students”—not by actually offering better teaching and discipline—but by hiring “diversity” agents who tell them the problem is not “them” but “institutional” and “systemic” racism committed by “White privileged” actors. In such a context quality and ability disappear because any apparently empirical system of comparison is all the fault of discriminatory testing, not the quality of teaching or the content of the curriculum. Murray goes on to explain how the teachers’ unions use this strategy in an effort to retain their power and cover their inadequacies, excoriating the AFT’s Randi Weingarten in the process.
“[I]t is not as though it is some fringe movement that is trying this trick. Randi Weingarten is one of the most powerful people in American education. Perhaps one of the most important people in America. She is the president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers. And she is just one of those who in recent years has decided to proclaim that standardized testing is — guess what — racist. Weingarten is probably one of the people most responsible for the decline in education standards in this country. Not least as one of those most responsible for the shutting of American schools during the pandemic. … Weingarten is one of those who should take most blame for the years of lost learning in America.
[F]or people like Weingarten, there is always an explanation that sidesteps their own blame. … The blame? “Standardized tests.” Because obviously if you abolished tests, then the school would be more equitable, more socially just and have better results. There is absolutely no evidence for any of this, but Weingarten and a whole generation of American educators are wedded to it anyway. For them, it is the easier path, and the best way to cover over their own stupendous failings.
Since they have proved unable to raise standards, they have decided instead to change the purpose of education. Such as by creating a generation of young activists and blaming any and all failures on amorphous forces such as “social injustice” or “systemic racism.” In doing this, the bureaucrats imagine that they are saving themselves. And they may well be. But they are wrecking the chances of a generation of American students, including those from underprivileged backgrounds who need excellence the most.” “America tried exporting woke education — the UK fought back”, Douglas Murray, 3/10/22. https://nypost.com/2022/03/10/america-tried-exporting-woke-education-the-uk-fought-back/.
Critical and Strategic Thinking, Active Creativity, Problem-solving,
Solutions Development, and Effective Implementation
Our young people are being deprived of the essential “survival skills” that will allow them to have a real chance at life’s opportunities. This includes employment, where opportunities will become much more limited as Artificial Intelligence/Robotics systems and applications grow ever more sophisticated and powerful. In doing so they will replace all but the most capable human workers in a wide swath of economic activities.
There are many who remain committed to thinking the AI/Robotics transformation is just another periodic “Schumpeterian shift” after which we will produce another improved economic system. The harsh reality is that we are immersed in a unique and unprecedented remaking of our world. In that new world there will be increasingly limited “space” for people who lack the essential capabilities involved in critical and strategic thinking, active creativity, problem-solving, and solutions development.
That is why I am emphasizing “survival skills”. Development of such integrated skills requires disciplined and intensive behavior, as well as significant experience and a wide range of knowledge. It is the responsibility of our educational systems of all kinds to rethink their curricula and strategies in ways that provide the required packages of new skills. Those systems are falling far short of what is needed.
The online learning platform Springboard for Business recently released its 2024 State of the Workforce Skills Gap report. The report emphasized the skills of critical thinking, strategic analysis, problem-solving, along with both oral and written communication. Springboard for Business explained the key points raised by over 1000 business professionals.
Critical thinking is essential in "this pivot-or-perish environment where businesses must be strategic and adapt quickly to remain competitive.” "Our survey found that the most in-demand soft skill, also known as a durable or non-perishable skill, is strategic thinking," Chris Duchesne, general manager of Springboard for Business based in Boston, told FOX Business. "More than half of leaders (57%) say their company needs more people with strategic thinking skills right now." With the economy in a state of flux, Duchesne said, critical thinking is essential in "this pivot-or-perish environment where businesses must be strategic and adapt quickly to remain competitive.” … Additionally, soft skills such as problem-solving — which 49% of leaders say their companies need — and verbal and written communication skills (46%) are also essential to keep pace in a rapidly evolving landscape, the report revealed.
“Soft” and “Hard” Skills
“Soft skills are in great demand in today's workforce: Here's why Non-technical skills are becoming increasingly important in the workplace — experts reveal why”, By Erica Lamberg, 2/17/24. https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/soft-skills-demand-todays-workforce-why
Your job performance is a combination of your "hard skills" — your technical knowledge and hands-on work product — and your intangible "soft skills," which are taking the American workplace by storm. Soft skills are non-technical skills that relate to how you work.
These skills include how you interact with colleagues, how you solve problems and how you manage your work, according to The Balance, a personal finance website.
For example, soft skills include "interpersonal skills, communication skills, listening skills, time management, problem-solving, leadership and empathy, among others," the same source said. Employers are seeking these skills, as employees who possess these skills enhance a workplace, experts said. "Success in the workplace often requires more than the technical ability to do the job. Soft skills are what make the difference."
Are These Key Skills Even “Teachable”?
The answer to the above question is yes but doing so demands a very different type of teacher with a significantly changed sense of mission. I taught strategic thinking and action for over twenty years, engaged in diverse contexts in which I consulted with governments, businesses, academic institutions and more. I also wrote a book that brought together the systems of military and martial arts strategy created by Sun Tzu in The Art of War 3,000 years ago and Miyamoto Musashi in A Book of Five Rings six centuries past.
Those two works offer a powerful structure for the understanding of strategic thinking and action, and integrate the emotive dimension of human thought and behavior with our intellectual and analytic dynamics to create a coherent and full conceptual structure. That structure requires the teacher to possess an understanding of the vital importance of the various skills sets that make up what I am calling the “survival skills”.
What the “skills” of creativity, critical and strategic thinking, problem-solving, a wide range of diverse knowledge, and pattern recognition actually mean is challenging. So are the questions of how we can determine if an individual possesses the innate traits, as well as the extent to they can be enhanced by education and experience. Beyond the issues of definition, recognition and intellectual substance, range and content, we need to ask the extent to which such diverse skill sets are teachable or primarily representative of innate qualities one either “has” or does not.
Creativity, for example, is not something possessed by all or even by many. There is also an important issue of recognizing different forms of creativity in specific dimensions of activity. Some people are artistically creative while others are financially creative along with numerous other variants of the supposed skill such as mathematical skill or pattern recognition. Others are creative in terms of problem-solving or forms of opportunity development such as creative persons as Elon Musk or Albert Einstein. It is necessary, therefore, to ask, when we think of “creativity” what category of activity is involved?
Digital literacy, another frequent component of skill lists, is a technical skill that many Millennials and even ten year olds possess to some degree. So while digital literacy will be a necessary qualification, it is a “dime-a-dozen” factor unless, and this is a very significant “unless”, it is linked to something such as high creativity in a relevant area of work activity and advanced innovative ability.
Even if an individual is not a genius who possesses the skills of critical thinking, creativity, pattern recognition, and the ability to possess, comprehend and apply deep knowledge in multiple fields and effectively cross-reference, interpret and apply that knowledge effectively, a well-designed educational process coupled with relevant experiences can assist in the development of the capabilities. The interactive capability can certainly be improved through education, but at the highest levels of such skills only a few excel. The rest of us basically “try hard” and end up with a range of capabilities ranging from not very good to average and good.
Although critical thinking is an absolutely vital skill, a surprisingly small portion of the American population possesses the capacity or willingness to do high-level critical thinking which, by the way, requires a significant level of data, experience, and insight that can in many instances be provided by a strong educational process. The challenge is that particularly in the past several decades, our educational systems have betrayed their responsibilities to fully educate. They have functioned poorly in facilitating among our young people the teachable skills of critique, analysis, synthesis and creative pattern recognition and interpretation.
On these issues, See, “The Importance of Teaching Critical Thinking”, Lee Watanabe Crockett, 7/25/15, https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/the-importance-of-teaching-critical-thinking. See also, “Why critical thinking is overlooked by schools and shunned by students”, Ben Morse, 9/12/12, https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2012/sep/12/critical-thinking-overlooked-in-secondary-education. John Droz, in his excellent analysis of the development of critical thinking, also provides numerous important interpretations and examples on his Substack site. See, John Droz jr. from Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues<criticallythinking@substack.com>.
Many people, perhaps even most of us, are not disciplined thinkers, critical analysts and decision-makers. Quite a few are “feelers” who function primarily on the emotional level of perception and opinion, and activists who do not enjoy, value or appreciate the processes required to fully engage them in critical thinking and analysis. Nor is this an attack on people who take their own and others emotional states, reactions and interpretations into account in their decision making.
An issue for educators in dealing with themselves and students is that if you aren’t “into” the intense and disciplined dynamics needed to master the skills of critical thinking, strategy and other essential elements, or at least improve them significantly, being required to do so “hurts”. This creates resistance when what we are asked to do involves assessing human behavior, including our own. Such an introspective undertaking requires analysis and honesty that requires understanding ourselves and others far better than we might find pleasant. That inward looking process requires questioning virtually everything, as well as enhancing our corresponding ability to recognize the links and interactions between the complex range of elements and characteristics with which we are dealing.
The Fear of Being “Canceled”—Intellectual Rot at the Highest Levels
Unfortunately, our educational systems in too many instances appear to be getting worse at teaching critical thinking. This is happening even at many of our “best” universities that were long thought to provide the highest quality measure of analytical thought. Recently, “elite” institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cal Berkeley, Stanford and others that we thought were leaders in critical, integrative and deeply analytical work have been exposed as politicized mechanisms pushing an intolerant ideology. In the ultra sensitive and politically correct world we have created, critical questioning and critique can get you into trouble.
One report, for example, revealed that a majority of Harvard faculty and students are afraid of contradicting the assertions being made by Critical Race Theory activists and Woke colleagues. There are an amazing number of “taboo” subjects whose proponents tolerate no alternative perspectives. Even questioning the assumptions and assertions being made in those areas is considered evidence of a kind of phobia or bigotry. This same attitude has spread downward from universities to K-12 educational systems. The result is an anti-intellectual corruption of our educational institutions at all levels. Rikki Schlott reports on the results of the Harvard survey.
“Over half of Harvard professors are too afraid to discuss controversial subjects with students – what’s become of this bastion of free speech?”, Rikki Schlott, 10/22/24. https://nypost.com/2024/10/22/opinion/over-half-of-harvard-profs-fear-controversial-topics/.
Harvard professors are biting their tongues and dodging political issues out of fear of losing their jobs, being ‘cancelled’ or attracting heat online. Harvard is the nation’s premier university and produces a disproportionate number of our leaders. It’s expected to set an example and be a bastion of discourse and debate — with its professors boldly leading the way. But a survey published by the university’s own Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group found a solid majority of profs now avoid touchy topics both inside and outside of the classroom, after things boiled over in the last year with campus protests related to the war in Gaza.
The 1,411 surveyed faculty and staff were prompted to “think about teaching a controversial issue in a class at Harvard” — and their primary reaction seems to be fear. Just 18% said they would be very comfortable doing so, and 31% somewhat comfortable. But more than half said they would be somewhat (33%) or very (18%) reluctant. That means more than half of Harvard’s faculty admitted they’re afraid to discuss controversial issues in the classroom. Rather, out of fear for their jobs, they’ve abdicated the responsibility of facilitating difficult discourse.
What many young workers will face with the growing use of AI systems that multiply individual productivity, is that we will increasingly see the employment equivalent of “No Vacancy” signs on the most desirable employment niches. If the productivity multiplying effects of AI/Robotic systems allow one worker to do the work of ten people employed prior to the transformation then as many as nine former workers engaged in the work will be eliminated at a time when similar situations are spreading throughout the economic base. Many people will want the jobs but only a limited number will be needed. Nor will the job displacement be limited to basic manual labor categories. The ranks of CPAs, journalists, public relations writers, investment advisors, teachers, data processors and much, much more will continue to shrivel.
The “Anti-Educators”
At this troubled point in American culture, honest and critical interaction and inquiry offends many people and identity clusters. The “true believers” in such politicized areas take their conception of reality as a given and demand that all others do so as well. They seek to punish and ostracize anyone they feel is challenging or contradicting the tenets of their belief system, comfort zone, or “safe space”. In the self-contained and closeted of that “safe space” we are not going to be able to develop students who possess the skills of critical and strategic thought and other essential survival skills. Even those who enter their educational experiences with the innate potential in those categories, the “weight” of the system and the culture that has been created suppresses such capabilities. Jacob Howland offers the following insights.
Public education exists primarily to supply economic and political necessities: basic literacy and numeracy, a dollop of civics. But beyond these modest (and increasingly unmet) goals, schools once gave students a taste of what Matthew Arnold called “the best which has been thought and said in the world”—or, if not that, then at least a few good books. …. Professional educators still talk about fashioning well-rounded graduates, but their words ring hollow. In our age of corporate wokeism, public and private schools from kindergarten to graduate school strive to turn students into standardized units of social and human capital. Confident expressions of cultured thought and feeling are in alarmingly short supply at the termini of what is now called the “education pipeline.” Schoolteachers and professors wield ideological abstractions like hammers to pound down individual particularities of heart and mind. Just as smooth blanks are needed for pressing coins, contrarian idiosyncrasies must be removed from souls that are to be stamped with the characterless visage of total political conformity.
Today’s sophists—a motley band of headmasters, superintendents, chancellors, administrators, consultants, accreditors, and the like—promise the fullness of genuine education but deliver only a void. Many seem incapable of distinguishing between phantasms and substantial realities, much less of feeling guilty about swindling young souls out of a liberal education. But the good news is that concerned parents and serious students are increasingly able to tell the difference and are looking for the genuine article. Jacob Howland, “The Anti-Educators: Promising genuine learning, today’s schooling too often delivers only a void—but academic alternatives are starting to appear.” 7/12/21. https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-anti-educators.
The “Intellectual Detritus” of a “Pre-AI Age”
One problem is that those of us raised in a pre-AI/Internet world were generally fortunate enough to have developed independent knowledge and conceptual structures in what will likely come to be thought of as “The Pre-AI Age”. This fact presents a critical difference between people educated and trained several decades ago and those who have known only AI.
Many who have dealt with “millennials” and the even newer Generation Z, share the conclusion that many who went through the new or “modern” Woke educational systems that purportedly helped bring them to early adulthood, don’t actually know much of anything. They aren’t grounded in knowledge and seem to flit around the surface of society. Of course it is easy to overstate and “one size does not fit all”. There are numerous insightful, educated and highly talented members of the younger generations. But indications are that the proportion of poorly educated people who are unskilled, lazy, and operating according to a mindset of “the world owes me a living” is growing significantly. I think the “almost” amusing report on the Oxford University Press selection of the 2024 “Word of the Year” reflects some of what I am saying.
Oxford University Press Announces “Brain Rot” is the 2024 Word of the Year
“A condition of mental fogginess, lethargy, reduced attention span, and cognitive decline that results from an overabundance of screen time.”
“There’s a word for the feeling you get after endlessly scrolling on social media — and Oxford chose it as their word of the year. Oxford University Press (OUP) has named “brain rot” as the Oxford Word of the Year 2024. … Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, said in Monday’s announcement that “‘brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.”
“It feels like a rightful next chapter in the cultural conversation about humanity and technology. It’s not surprising that so many voters embraced the term, endorsing it as our choice this year,” he added. … In 2024, the term has gained prominence as a way to describe the effect of consuming an extreme amount of low-quality content online and on social media. …. Earlier this year, the Newport Institute, a behavioral healthcare provider, began providing treatment for brain rot, defining it as “a condition of mental fogginess, lethargy, reduced attention span, and cognitive decline that results from an overabundance of screen time.” Grathwohl said he finds it “fascinating that the word ‘brain rot’ has been adopted by Gen Z and Gen Alpha, those communities largely responsible for the use and creation of the digital content the term refers to.”
The term is defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, said in Monday’s announcement that “‘brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.” …. “Earlier this year, the Newport Institute, a behavioral healthcare provider, began providing treatment for brain rot, defining it as “a condition of mental fogginess, lethargy, reduced attention span, and cognitive decline that results from an overabundance of screen time.” Grathwohl said he finds it “fascinating that the word ‘brain rot’ has been adopted by Gen Z and Gen Alpha, those communities largely responsible for the use and creation of the digital content the term refers to.” “Oxford’s Word of the Year 2024 reflects ‘perceived dangers’ of social media”, Brooke Steinberg, 12/2/24. https://nypost.com/2024/12/02/lifestyle/oxfords-2024-word-of-the-year-2024-revealed/
“Brain Rot” becomes more understandable when we realize that to a significant extent video games and other uses of social media are not benign phenomena for young people whose brains are still in earlier stages of development. The following report describes what is occurring. Walker Larson provides an example.
The average boy now spends almost 2.5 hours per day playing video games. Boys spend more time on video games because they’re more interested in activities where they have agency, as opposed to girls, who prefer communal activities like social media. In 2007, Dr. Sax already saw how video games disrupted boys’ ability to succeed academically. He cited a series of studies that showed the more time spent on video games, the worse kids performed in school—regardless of grade level.
Dr. Sax argued that the games can absorb all of a boy’s natural drive to achieve goals and succeed, sapping his energy for real-life accomplishments. In addition, Dr. Sax, as well as Farrell and Gray, all found that the intense stimulation and dopamine highs associated with video games make other activities stale and dull for boys—especially schoolwork. Finally, gaming can take a lot of time—especially since games can be addictive—which nudges out homework, family time, and playing outside. “Why Are Boys Struggling Academically and What Can We Do About It?: Boys face multiple challenges, including a lack of purpose. What can parents, teachers, and school administrators do?”, Walker Larson, 11/30/24. https://www.theepochtimes.com/bright/why-are-boys-struggling-academically-and-what-can-we-do-about-it-5768846?ea_src=frontpage&ea_cnt=a&ea_med=top-news-lifestyle-2.
Although “Brain Rot” sounds bizarre, the OUP got this one right. There is a downside to becoming excessively dependent on systems such as Google, ChatGPT or other “bots” that do your work or think for you. Steven Poole writes about a report concerning how Google’s amazing information system may be having the effect of causing people to actually know less. This is because they no longer have to “download” information into their own brains or do the vital work of producing key questions from within their own experiential and intellectual constructs but can use Google as an instantaneous data, interpretation and conclusion source whenever they need to know anything. This has consequences. Poole asks: “Does anyone know anything any more? The ease with which one can look up facts on a phone at any time is one of the wonders of the modern age. But are we becoming too reliant on it?”. He goes on to ask:
“Is Google making us stupid?” The answer, of course, depends among other things on what “stupid” means. If we all increase our “cognitive offloading” onto the internet, that may simply portend a cultural shift in the ways in which we value mental abilities. Since recall of facts is now so easy and quick via the internet, we may just become less impressed by factual knowledge, and more impressed by understanding and creativity. The problem with this, however, as the researchers themselves note, is that the ability to draw creative connections between facts may depend on having internalized them already as knowledge, so that they are instantly available to the reasoning mind.
A new study indicates there might be a snowball effect to such reliance, warning:
“The more we depend on Google for information recall … the more we will do so in the future.” Poole’s concern about the effects of a Google fixation is that: “the ability to draw creative connections between facts may depend on having internalized them already as knowledge, so that they are instantly available to the reasoning mind. … [T]o look something up, one needs to know already what it is one wants to know.” Steven Poole, “Does it matter if Google is rewiring our minds? Ask Plato”, 8/18/16. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/18/google-re”wiring-your-mind-memory-journal-plato
There is another downside to the development and use of the AI technology. One analysis of this phenomenon supports the view of increased loneliness with social media being cause and effect. Psychologists explain:
“Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest are causing more people to feel alone, according to US psychologists. A report suggests that more than two hours of social media use a day doubled the chances of a person experiencing social isolation. It [also] claims exposure to idealised representations of other people's lives may cause feelings of envy.” “US psychologists claim social media 'increases loneliness'“. See, http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/773002/One-in-eight-people-faced-with-loneliness. “Loneliness on the RISE: One in eight people have no close friends to turn to”, 3/1/17. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/39176828/us-psychologists-claim-social-media-increases-loneliness
“The Boy Crisis”
I began this analysis by commenting on what America’s youth forced to receive their education from urban public schools must confront, and what could be the causes of their abysmal record of achievement. The analysis also noted that 60-70 percent of minority youth in America’s fifty largest urban areas don’t even finish school. The following report offers several important insights on the absence of mature traditional cultural systems of expectation and role on one level versus the impacts of social media on another. Walker Larson suggests the two factors are related. He writes about why young males are doing so poorly in school.
Only 20 percent of boys in the United States are proficient in writing by eighth grade, according to Warren Farrell and John Gray’s 2018 book “The Boy Crisis.” The authors reveal that the number of boys who dislike school has ballooned by 71 percent since 1980, and boys are much more likely to be expelled than girls are. Boys’ educational woes don’t end with high school; young men now account for only about 39 percent of college degree recipients, a precipitous decline since 1970, when they earned 61 percent of degrees. …. Why should we be concerned about boys’ academic struggles? Well, for one thing, an uneducated young man is less likely to become independent, driven, joyful, and a contributing member of society. He may rely on his parents for much longer than he should. He may begin to disengage from life. There’s a strong correlation between lack of educational attainment and criminal activity and incarceration. Boys who drop out of school are more likely to tumble into bad company. They’re also less likely to have the company of a wife: As Farrell and Gray note, women are less likely to want to marry a less-educated or unemployed man.
Causes of the Crisis: Lack of a Positive Male Role
Since many boys are not growing up with the old model of the man of the house as provider, they lack the drive that animated previous generations of men, and often struggle to find a substitute sense of purpose. While boys once anticipated “the need to become sole breadwinner, and therefore [the need to] gain familial pride, peer respect, and female love,” they now struggle to identify their unique mission in a world with very different social, economic, and familial models. …. Similarly, Dr. Sax argued that the transition from childhood to adulthood doesn’t happen on its own: it requires conscientious guidance and even ritual on the part of the adults raising the next generation. In other words, men need to show boys how to be men. This includes demonstrating what’s expected of a man: his purpose.
“Almost every culture of which we have detailed knowledge takes great care in managing this transition to adulthood,” wrote Dr. Sax. In tribal cultures, this takes the form of a test of endurance, courage, and toughness, like independently tracking and killing an adult antelope. “What happens when a culture—like ours—neglects this transition?… Teenage boys are looking for models of mature adulthood, but we no longer make any collective effort to provide such models.” ….
Dr. Sax makes insightful observations about the ways schools have transformed in recent decades and the impact of those changes on boys. American schools’ teaching methods today tend to work better for girls than boys in a few key ways: School starts earlier in a child’s life, involves less hands-on learning than it once did, and involves minimal competition. Dr. Sax explains that boys’ and girls’ brains develop differently, with different areas maturing more quickly and at different times. The language areas of the brain in a typical 5-year-old boy is the same as a 4-year-old girl’s. Boys rarely begin reading as easily or as early as girls do, yet the typical school pushes reading instruction in kindergarten, when many boys aren’t ready. The frustration this causes may lead boys to permanently dislike school.“Why Are Boys Struggling Academically and What Can We Do About It?: Boys face multiple challenges, including a lack of purpose. What can parents, teachers, and school administrators do?”, Walker Larson, 11/30/24. https://www.theepochtimes.com/bright/why-are-boys-struggling-academically-and-what-can-we-do-about-it-5768846?ea_src=frontpage&ea_cnt=a&ea_med=top-news-lifestyle-2.
The Need to Create a Deep and Diverse Conceptual Structure:
The Example of “Musashi’s Way”
When we possess a substantive and rich conceptual base we have the ability to evaluate, critique, formulate plans, others claims, and to ultimately make choices. Part of the process is that we also need to understand how “things”, informational “bits” and clusters of specialized data interact with other informational points as part of a system, not only as isolated and disconnected “factoids”. Without such integrative conceptual structures we may have mastered disconnected bits of trivia, but lack the ability to understand and integrate reality. When this occurs our ability to act effectively across the spectrums in which reality must be understood, answers sought, and actions taken is undermined.
Knowledge is an essential part of issue recognition, critical thought, strategy, problem-solving, pattern recognition and inquiry. Unless we have the ability to sort out the data on its varied levels and forms we can’t really even formulate the questions that need to be answered. Nor can we trust or test our theories, assumptions and hypotheses, or make critical distinctions related to the information acquired and the outcomes sought. Excessive dependence on hard to evaluate external information sources whose output and algorithms have been created by others for their own purposes has a negative effect. We need to have our own conceptual structures in place. Those conceptual structures must have significant depth and scope of knowledge in order to allow us to formulate the key questions search systems and our own alternative research can help answer.
Critical thinking and the ability to possess and manipulate a diverse store of knowledge and experience are increasingly vital in our rapidly mutating economy and society. Effective strategic critique, planning and action require that you actually know something and possess a significant and diverse body of knowledge coupled with experience. Simply taking others’ statements at face value or automatically accepting “Google data” as true is grossly inadequate.
As individuals, if we don’t create a sophisticated, complex, honest and comprehensive conceptual structure we become overly dependent on external frameworks. These external frameworks, analyses and sets of alleged knowledge may themselves be flawed, whether they are the opinions of human experts or products of systems such as Google or Facebook that contain their own biases, agendas and limits.
The Nine Elements of Musashi's Way
Miyamoto Musashi describes nine points a strategist must master to achieve his Way. These nine points are the foundation of an integrated conceptual system that creates the Way of the strategist. Musashi's nine points reflect a holistic approach to knowledge, awareness, and action, the kinds of things we are emphasizing as critical elements of a strategic educational curriculum that produces insightful and powerful individuals who simultaneously understand the desires of the highest individual development functioning with the need to be able to work with others to achieve goals. I covered these issues and Sun Tzu’s Art of War at length in David Barnhizer, “The Warrior Lawyer” (Bridge Street Books 1997).
It is “not all about you” and the individual within society understands that neither perspective—the exclusive individual or the “hive” collective—is capable of producing the most desirable or beneficial outcome. But in achieving this, knowledge of human nature and of self is a critical part of our essential awareness.
The nine points of intellectual and strategic mastery offered below include not only acquiring information, but being able to recognize and discriminate among information, and to identify the implications of knowledge and action essential to achieving the desired goals.
1. Do Not Think Dishonestly
When Musashi says, do not think dishonestly, he means don't deceive yourself, and don't think dishonestly when you are acting as a strategist.
2. Become Acquainted with Every Art
Musashi's next point is, "become acquainted with every art." Being a strategist requires an enormous information and knowledge base. It means you must learn the insights and methods of an extraordinary range of other disciplines and areas of knowledge. Anyone who wants to become adept at critical thinking or to master strategy must seek knowledge from a wide variety of sources. Literature, religion, ethics, history, science, philosophy, war, psychology, sociology, economics, and so forth are attempts to capture what humans are all about. If you are too narrow; if you follow just one school of thought; if you become trapped inside the teachings of any one school of thought or discipline; if you are ignorant of psychology, philosophy, science, politics, ethics, morality, religion, etc.; if you have only a limited kind of experience, then you can't know what you need to know to be a strategist. This is part of Musashi's urging to become acquainted with every art.
3. Know the Ways of All Professions
Not only is it necessary to seek voraciously after knowledge in the general sense, it is essential that the strategist know the "Ways" of all professions. Musashi means that we should know the mission, the method, the secrets, the flaws, the assumptions, the techniques, the values of the various professions, how they work and why. If we know this, we can identify strengths and weaknesses and be able to attack or defend critical points.
4. Distinguish Between Gain and Loss in Worldly Transactions
A fourth aspect of Musashi's way is to learn to "distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters." This principle has to do with the strategist being able to know the nature of what is a realistic victory, and discerning what is valued highly enough by an opponent that it will enhance the probability of obtaining agreement and concessions. Look at the big picture. Know the world. Have real experience. Don't be too abstract. Know what people value, not only as individuals but as part of institutions. What is important to them, to others, to you, and to those on whose behalf you are working?
5. Develop Intuitive Judgment and Understanding for Everything
Another of Musashi's principles is the need to "develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything." Not everything is neatly rational. Such things as guts, instincts, subliminal perception; the distillation of experience that allows you to anticipate, recognize and react to stimuli seemingly without thought, are all attempts to describe real human abilities that operate on the edges of our conscious rationality.
6. The Way is in Training
There are many levels to Musashi's idea that "you must practice constantly." The counterpoint, of course, is that "there is no fool like an old fool." Experience is essential to the strategist's development, but many people don't learn from their experiences. They repeat the same mistakes forever. You can't learn strategy by only reading, talking, or thinking about strategy. You must do it and apply it and think about it and apply it some more and think about it and evaluate what you've done and gain from that experience. Becoming a strategist is not simply acquiring experience, but having the ability to learn from that experience which is filtered, interpreted, critiqued and refined through a constant commitment to drawing out the fullest meaning from what has occurred. You can't learn strategy without constant practice, but practice itself is not enough and experience without insight is insufficient.
7. Perceive Those Things that Cannot be Seen
Related to the idea of intuitive judgment are Musashi's principles of developing understanding for everything and learning how to perceive those things that cannot be seen. Such perception is easy to describe and hard to do. Musashi's concept of perception represents an important process through which the strategist takes in the data on which his judgments are based. When you know humans, what they value, how they act and why, and are able to function intuitively, you can see past other's masks and illusions. When you have studied in the way required of the strategist you can perceive the structure, rhythm and timing of a strategic context.
Musashi tells us that the strategist masters two methods of seeing, what he calls perception and sight. He observes that perception is strong, while sight is weak because it is too specific and narrow. Sight in essence is the trees while perception includes the forest and the trees. What military strategists call the "fog of war" blocks our ability to perceive accurately and prevents us from making the instantaneous decisions needed to function effectively in conflicts. In operating within the fog of war, we perceive and react in situations where timing, outcome, pressure and so forth are intensified, compressed, disjointed, and speeded up.
8. Pay Attention Even to Trifles
If you observe everything and make sure all your own loose ends are taken care of, you are far less likely to be surprised. "Trifles," or seemingly small things, are surprisingly often pieces of the signals or data we need in order to understand what is going on. The excellent strategist understands the significance of the small and often invisible incongruities.
9. Do Nothing of No Use
The last of Musashi's nine principles is the need to "Do nothing that is of no use." Have a reason for everything you do. Everything you do should be for a reason. Don't waste time, be inefficient, dither around or fritter. Of course, this simple statement belies an extremely complex process involving anticipation, recognition, assessment, judgment, decision, action and reaction.
How Do We Fix This?
Good question. I’m still thinking about that. It is clear, however, that we are in a deep hole when considering how to “fix” our educational systems. It is also obvious that the equivalent of a Marshall Plan aimed at rebuilding cities and cultures is necessary because the situation has been allowed to deteriorate too fast and too far and there are very strong political and cultural forces dependent on feeding off the sloth and corruption that exists.
One approach is that our new government needs to make the reformation of education a central strategic goal. But altering what exists faces strong opposition. In the cities there are far too many people who profit at having non-accountable access to the immense budgets of the public schools or the opportunity to dispense cushy jobs and contracts to friends and supporters. Fundamental change will not appeal to them. Teachers unions are supposed to be working to create conditions that benefit the quality of education for students who otherwise do not have much of a chance at a “good life”, but those are the very students described earlier who are the victims of a heedless system whose leaders continually prattle on about how totally committed they are . Politicians like the mayors of New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Boston, Baltimore, Washington DC, Chicago and elsewhere appear to be so far out of their depth that a feeling of hopelessness prevails for anyone who takes the time to follow what is occurring.
In the minority community there are a significant number of very strong and intelligent people who have the wisdom and ability to play significant roles in driving us toward positive change. I recently made a list of people whose work and courage I have long admired and cited. The order is random. If somehow they were brought together as part of a process of analysis brought to bear on strategies for creating effective solutions for America’s cities and schools, with their recommendations supported by a large part of our educational, governmental, urban, and economic leaders some positive changes could be made.
My List of Wise and Courageous Americans with African Ancestry
Wilfred Reilly Harris Faulkner
Gianno Caldwell Mark Robinson
Danielle Wallace Derrick Wilburn
John McWhorter Winsome Sears
Bob Woodson Candace Owens
Kendall Qualls Larry Elder
Ben Carson Leo Terrell
Burgess Owens Eli Steele
Shawntel Cooper Shelby Steele
Condoleeza Rice Corey Brooks
Alveda King Thomas Sowell
Glenn Loury Sage Steele
Joshua Q. Nelson Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Jason L. Riley Byron Donalds
Mark Robinson Tim Scott
Danielle Wallace Carol Swain
Candace Owens James Douglas
Lawrence Jones Voddie Bauchamp