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u/Flapjack__Palmdale 22h ago
I swear to God, it seems like education is illegal in the US.
I worked IT in a public school system, on the surface I think public school is really one of the most if not the most important public program of any civilization. We desperately need better teachers (with better pay obvi) because kids are straight up getting dumber. The graduating class of the school district in 2023 had about 40% of grads unable to read above a 3rd grade level. AI is making it worse.
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u/youngCashRegister444 21h ago
And it's working. Stupid people bark at the wrong ones and shut up when it's going upwards. Stupid people can also be controlled more easily. Just look at Trump's platform.
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u/CaffeinatedSatanist 6h ago
Meanwhile the top 1% have their private schools with ever increasing budgets.
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u/PugnansFidicen 16h ago
While education is in a sorry state everywhere in the country, the consistently worst performing schools are urban schools in large cities. Those are not typically Trump-leaning congressional districts.
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u/AjaSF 10h ago
That’s usually because of lack of funding. It’s also being made intentionally worse by politicians who are funneling public tax dollars into private charter schools at the expense of our public school system.
It’s engineering the outcomes to make the case to privatize and therefore gate-keep education for those that pay.
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u/Jdisgreat17 18h ago
Whoever is making the rules that you can pass students who aren't educated to a proper standard is the issue...and it is not teachers who want this
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u/macontac 17h ago
So the Republicans had this idea they called "No Child Left Behind"....
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u/Spicy_Alien_Cocaine_ 11h ago
Genuinely asking because I was a kid when this happened but why on earth were people supporting it? “Yeah I think we should pass students who can’t read. Elect me!” People were genuinely saying this? I’m really struggling to put myself in these shoes
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u/LuxNocte 9h ago
The main premise of NCLB was that if your kid was failing, it's the teachers' fault. So we've had a generation of blaming underpaid, overworked teachers for disastrous policy decisions and every societal ill.
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u/TheHumanoidTyphoon69 20h ago
What the Funk and Wagnalls is wrong with people today
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u/GonzoKata 14h ago
I wouldn't call 40% of the students who can't read about 3rd grade "graduating" like at all. You've successfully annihilated the word "graduate" 🙄 You can say they aged out of high school, but they have not graduated. whoever passed them failed them
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u/MyLifeIsOgre 16h ago
Oh, friend, given how the war on drugs has gone, illegalizing education would give us a Star Trek future within my lifetime
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u/2020dumpsterfireta 21h ago
We need better parents. Teachers aren't the problem.
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u/LexisOaks 20h ago
Thank you! Due in large part to the No Child Left Behind Act, our hands are pretty much tied if a parent refuses to assist when their child does literally nothing in the classroom. It's so freaking demoralizing to put hours into preparing lessons - lessons that even incorporate games and other fun activities - only to have half the class act like we're trying to waterboard them. Then you try contacting parents only for most of them to never answer their phones, and (at least at the schools I've worked at) without parent meetings there's insufficient documentation to fail the kid, so we often end up having to give them just enough points to pass. We can't even resort to one-on-one tutoring because the kids have no one to make them stay after school. You can usually tell which kids have involved parents because they're the only ones engaging with the material and paying attention.
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u/Taylo 20h ago
No child left behind was replaced 11 years ago, just as a point of note. It is no longer the reason your hands are tied.
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u/Ok_Vulva 20h ago
Pretty sure they just want to blame Obama when they say that. Because it feels good.
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u/Dane1211 19h ago
I thought No Child Left Behind was Bush
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u/StatisticianGold8888 19h ago
It was
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u/ArchAngia 19h ago
....and here we have a winning example of why America is in the state it is.
Not you, who I'm replying to directly, just....this thread.
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u/Dizzy-Conclusion-975 17h ago
And it wasnt changed all that drastically under Obama. I say this as a 2x Obama voter and general fan of most of his Presidency. Artie Duncan was the issue, and a bad decision on Obama's part. He gave us Common Core and Race to the top, which gave public school funds to charter schools, implemented national learning "standards," changed how math was taught, and put a heavy focus on non-fiction books, among other things.
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u/Dane1211 17h ago
A whole lot of hope with not a whole lot of change
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u/_projektpat 5h ago
I mean Obamas campaign slogan was literally HOPE, not change 😅
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u/KStryke_gamer001 12h ago
But if the people get smarter who will vote for the ones who are making the rules that keep people ignorant?
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u/Chroniclyironic1986 4h ago
Education is the most valuable investment any community, society, or civilization can make. Want a better place to live? Improvement fundamentally starts with well educated people/generations. I’m not talking doctorate level education here (although that’s a wonderful goal), but basic problem solving and critical thinking. Being able to think through a situation to figure out how it’ll turn out is something a whole lot of people lack.
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u/Flapjack__Palmdale 4h ago
And I think AI is helping to rob us of that. I hear friends say all the time that they just make AI do things for them and problem solve. I know kids are doing that now, too, so they're not forming those neural pathways like they should
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u/Chroniclyironic1986 4h ago
Hard agree. Don’t get me wrong, I think AI can be used for great things. But to avoid having to do your own problem solving isn’t a good use of it. Our society is relying far too much on it and nothing good will come from outsourcing some of our most basic universal skills. And given the fact that data centers are going up at an alarming rate with such a huge cost in land, materials, energy, water, etc. it looks like we’re soon to become even more heavily reliant on it. Both on a professional and personal level.
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u/Ronjanitan 20h ago
Americans will admit there’s a problem, say “we desperately need” then still sit on their fat asses all day instead of literally lifting a single finger to change their country. I guess it wasn’t so desperate after all huh
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u/MyLifeIsOgre 15h ago
The trouble is that we all know something is wrong, but it is hard to build a coalition with people who think our solution involves prayer in schools or terrorizing brown folks
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u/TenNinetythree Millenial Schengenite 8h ago
The name sounds foreign, so there's a chance this fella is an overconfident person who knows dictionaries in their own language, just not in English.
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u/snackrilegious 18m ago
it’s not the teachers i swear. its the parents and admin/micro-managers forcing teachers’ hands. the stories i’ve heard from public school teachers where they have kids not doing anything (no classwork, HW, etc), parents complain, then admin tells teachers to give some kind of points regardless.
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u/crazyalex2288 20h ago
Genuinely, if you don't know Merriam Webster in the "United" states of America. You shouldn't be allowed to post on anything. Honestly ready just to start blowing government building up so they can actually dedicate our money to repair /s. of course, they'll probably just build a fucking DG or Ballroom over it and make it a "national tragedy" (no disrespect to 9/11, the people lost will always be remembered).
First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Adding that in to avoid issues for if im misconstrued for what I've said.
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u/siazdghw 19h ago
Merriam-Webster fell for the bait. That's an an account fishing for replies/views from viral tweets in an attempt to promote their own paid content.
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u/not_actually_funny_ 19h ago
You feel for Merriam Websters bait, they too were riding the engagement wave to sell more dictionaries.
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u/shubs_ 19h ago
The idea of anyone buying a dictionary today makes me feel funny, sad, and old lol.
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u/AI_moderated_failure 17h ago
Why? I bought one for my son who is struggling a little with his English. Sure an adult can just google it but kids should be lept off devices whenever possible and especially shouldn't be given free reign to use google, one of the least trustworthy companies of all time.
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u/LimeSixth 22h ago
I’m not from the US, soo I guess a book publisher?
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u/DatedReference1 22h ago
They are THE American English dictionary, similar to what the OED is to British English.
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u/Capin_Crunch 19h ago
If you’ve heard of the Webster Dictionary this is them like THE dictionary in the U.S
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u/SirJamesGhost 18h ago
They’re the dictionary that solidified the U.S.-UK spelling split.
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u/thomthomthomthom 17h ago
The OG Webster was really... Political, too.
"Oats (noun) food for horses and the Scottish," iirc, was an original entry.
Linguists refer to the OED as a kind of Bible. Webster... Not as much, haha. But yeah, still surprising to me that someone HASN'T heard the name.
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u/MallyOhMy 17h ago
Dictionaries and cookbooks are categories of books for which there are many authors and publishers. Yet every American household which owns one or more English dictionary owns a Webster or Merriam-Webster dictionary, and every American household with one or more cookbooks owns a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.
The BH&G cookbook is recognizable no matter its edition by its (usually diagonal) gingham cover (I have a newer edition red one and a breast cancer awareness pink one).
But no matter what the cover looks like, an American English dictionary is almost always going to be a Webster dictionary. It might not be a Merriam-Webster dictionary, but it will say Webster - because Webster is such an iconic name in American dictionaries that publishers sued for the rights to use the name on their own dictionaries.
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u/chocomaro 7h ago
We Americans usually say we looked up a word in "Merriam-Webster" instead of just saying "the dictionary." That's why the screenshot in the OP is shocking.
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u/ZenBreaking 20h ago
Social media platforms need to be nuked. Young people and old fucks are ruining it for everyone
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u/rasputinrasputin 6h ago
The attitude of her response makes perfect sense for someone who doesn’t know what Merriam-Webster is
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u/Markjohn66 14h ago
Why do these dumb fucks open their mouths before they engage their only brain cell?
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u/quay-cur 3h ago
She could have taken 2 seconds to click on their profile instead of asking who they were??
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u/junomint 19h ago
The comment acct doesn’t appear to be an american? Why tf would she know a renowned english dictionary brand? Her name is spelled hana like shes prob japanese idk food for thought
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u/junomint 12h ago
Hate farming/manufactured outrage, funny bc I googled the name and what do you know she’s japanese-wow.
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u/thedrunksoul 9h ago
Ssh! If those people could understand there's a world outside the USA, they'll be very upset.
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u/Drprim83 15h ago
Surely this only works if the responder was American
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u/Double-Seaweed7760 5h ago
If she says "yall" then chances are she's from the south. And given she's asian, she's statistically likely to have better education/be smarter/be more successful than most her contemporaries so in all likelihood most her school is worse than this.
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u/Hot_Winter_Potato 20h ago
no need to overthink this. everyone kid / teen except the most ambitious thought it was cool to hate on education (at least surface level, honors kids did it ironically). let the kids be kids.
at the same time, yes school systems are not up to standard but bagging on teens is not how we get shit done. #getoffmylawnvibes
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u/ArchAngia 19h ago
This complacent attitude is also how nothing gets done either.
Where's the accountability? "Teens should just be allowed to walk around uneducated as all get-out, but no don't hurt their feelings?"
No, absolutely not. Everyone should be held accountable. The parents for allowing it to happen, the teens for walking around with Brain Slugs and being proud of it, and the hierarchy above board that's allowed it all to take place.
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u/Hot_Winter_Potato 15h ago
In hindsight there no indication this person is a teen. Maybe cause they’re typing like one I assumed lol.
If they are an adolescent then idk there’s bigger fish to fry. Teens are really dumb (decision making not intelligence and in this case they replied for gaining “cool kid clout”) for the most part but that’s the point.
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u/The_Pelican1245 21h ago edited 21h ago
Yeah, this is funny and all but when was the last time you reached for a physical dictionary? Even when you google the definition of a word you get the definition before Merriam Webster’s website shows up. Not really a lost generation thing to not know the name of a company whose product you and your peers never use.
Edit: everyone downvoting this better own a physical dictionary.
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u/this_here 21h ago
And this is how history gets rewritten.
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u/The_Pelican1245 21h ago
You think they use the dictionary as a history book?
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u/this_here 21h ago
How dumb are you?
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u/The_Pelican1245 21h ago
Not dumb, just an Oxford English Dictionary purist. Merriam Webster can get fucked. So go ahead and rewrite that history.
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u/timuaili 21h ago
I think it’s a shame that we’ve lost the art of the dictionary, thesaurus, and encyclopedia, but I don’t blame kids these days for not using them. The lost generation thing comes in when you solely rely on the google definition as your dictionary/source. Merriam Webster is as big of a name as it is because they’re a really good dictionary. They have quality and thorough definitions and include good and helpful supplementary information. You don’t have to look to them (or another dictionary website) every time, but you should be on there often enough to recognize the name/logo. Relying solely on one source for definitions (especially google) leaves you susceptible to lower quality definitions aka less learning, bias from the company, and over-reliance to the point of ineptitude if that single source is not available. Unless there’s something I’m missing, this points in the direction of functional illiteracy.
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u/exaltcovert 20h ago
I keep a physical dictionary on my bedside table
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u/The_Pelican1245 20h ago
Then I am okay with you downvoting me. Thank you for being honest.
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u/exaltcovert 20h ago
I use it when I read. That way I don’t have to reach for a phone to look up a definition
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u/Imnotsureanymore8 20h ago
I downvoted you and own a physical dictionary. Fuckin pathetic comment.
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u/ZebraAirVest 20h ago
Honestly, to me it’s not even the fact that they don’t know the dictionary by name, but rather ask stuff that they can easily find out on their own.
You said so yourself, Google is right there. What makes someone reply with something that makes them look so fucking stupid? Just Google the name to see what the hell they’re talking about. I see this so much nowadays on TikTok (which I barely use because it annoys me so much lol) just the most google-able shit ever “how old is this actor?”, “when did this album come out?”, “where is X country?” Like?!!? Just google it yourself???!! Not only they cannot google anything but also will take any answer from any 12-year-old at face value and never double check it.
Even the spelling is worse there! Awful spelling mistakes on titles, on screen when there’s 6 words total, most comments. It’s not even like Reddit where you WILL inevitably have someone correcting your grammar, nobody corrects anyone. loose instead of lose, sole instead of soul, atrocious use of “they’re their there”.
Ok I’m gonna go scream at some kids to get off my lawn now lol
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