In today’s society, education equals freedom. Without putting forth more effort to properly educate children, the children will be easy prey for any person trying to persuade them. While many people do talk about the educational crisis in America, there is no effort from those people to change the situation. Benjamin Barber delves deeper into the problem in his article “America Skips School.” Barber explains exactly how American children have become intellectually inferior and supplies ideas to fix the situation. Adults’ apathy to fix the educational situation and their true pedagogues’ influence cause children to become intellectually inferior. Americans’ unwillingness to take responsibility disregards the value of education and fails
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This problem would not exist if children spent more time in school throughout the year, and less time watching television. Adults allow children to “spend 900 hours a year in school (the ones who go to school) and from 1,200 to 1,800 hours a year in front of the television set” (Barber, 2014, p. 211). Children are susceptible to influence from those they spend the most time with. Parents allowing their children to spend double the amount of time in front of the television provides no options, but for the children to be influenced by who they watch on T.V. Barber explains how the people children see on T.V. affect their decisions about education: “The very first lesson smart kids learn is that it is much more important to heed what society teaches implicitly by its deeds and reward structures than what school teaches explicitly in its lesson plans and civic sermons” (Barber, 2014, p. 211). Barber implies that children see the wealth of celebrities, athletes, and businessmen on T.V. which influences them to believe that being successful equates to being rich, famous, and talented instead of having an …show more content…
Although the adults place blame on the children, they “recommend history to the kids but rarely consult it” themselves, and are living examples of the situation (Barber, 2014, p. 212). Although the adults are arguing for the betterment of education, they do not demonstrate how education benefits the life of a student. Instead, the adults live out the problems they accuse the education system of having. Barber also implies that due to this hypocrisy the children do not care about their education: “The children are onto this game. They know that if we really valued schooling, we’d pay teachers what we pay stockbrokers…if we valued children, we wouldn’t let them be abused, manipulated, impoverished, and killed in their beds by gang-war cross fire and stray bullets” (Barber, 2014, p. 212). Because the children know that people do not put money or time into education, literacy, or protection, they assume that the adults do not care about these issues. Then, the children live by what they are taught implicitly rather than what the adults tell them. The adults themselves oppress the children from education, which will in turn take away their
This problem would not exist if children spent more time in school throughout the year, and less time watching television. Adults allow children to “spend 900 hours a year in school (the ones who go to school) and from 1,200 to 1,800 hours a year in front of the television set” (Barber, 2014, p. 211). Children are susceptible to influence from those they spend the most time with. Parents allowing their children to spend double the amount of time in front of the television provides no options, but for the children to be influenced by who they watch on T.V. Barber explains how the people children see on T.V. affect their decisions about education: “The very first lesson smart kids learn is that it is much more important to heed what society teaches implicitly by its deeds and reward structures than what school teaches explicitly in its lesson plans and civic sermons” (Barber, 2014, p. 211). Barber implies that children see the wealth of celebrities, athletes, and businessmen on T.V. which influences them to believe that being successful equates to being rich, famous, and talented instead of having an …show more content…
Although the adults place blame on the children, they “recommend history to the kids but rarely consult it” themselves, and are living examples of the situation (Barber, 2014, p. 212). Although the adults are arguing for the betterment of education, they do not demonstrate how education benefits the life of a student. Instead, the adults live out the problems they accuse the education system of having. Barber also implies that due to this hypocrisy the children do not care about their education: “The children are onto this game. They know that if we really valued schooling, we’d pay teachers what we pay stockbrokers…if we valued children, we wouldn’t let them be abused, manipulated, impoverished, and killed in their beds by gang-war cross fire and stray bullets” (Barber, 2014, p. 212). Because the children know that people do not put money or time into education, literacy, or protection, they assume that the adults do not care about these issues. Then, the children live by what they are taught implicitly rather than what the adults tell them. The adults themselves oppress the children from education, which will in turn take away their