"Even at the high end things seem rather grim. My sister-in-law ...reports that her fellow students....were hyper- coached, machined little achievement products, but not what you'd think of as an intellectual elite."
Yes, this is dangerous stupidity. Very similar to that of those folks that brought us WWI. I mean, the father of today's intellectual elite is .....drumroll please ....Leo Strauss.
As to the kids: I think it's a mixed picture. Let's take math. In my father's generation (born 1917), learning Algebra and Trig was fairly advanced, and Calculus happened in college. In my generation (born 1954), Calculus happened in the last year of high school for advanced students. For my daughter (born 1993), Calculus is routinely happening (for advanced students) in eleventh grade.
Science is a mixed bag depending on school funding and availability of teachers. Things like geography, zoology, botany were routinely taught in my parents generation, but not now.
Writing is also very mixed. Methods used for teaching writing and the variety of writing expected: journals, fiction, essays, reports is much greater than when I was in school; but the decline of social engagement, the rise of TV, and the computer have largely unraveled the focus and nuance needed for good writing.
When I taught at UC Berkeley, I happened upon a stack of compositions written in the late fifties. They were, on the whole, clearer and better organized than the stuff I was reading (from students) in the seventies, but this was not a matter of intelligence, more of practice and, like I said before, the loss of social forums.
Nobody is any stupider than they were before. But there's a lack of focus and depth for different reasons. Both the poor kids and the rich kids are basically being told that they don't matter: the poor because they're poor and need to spend the rest of their lives taking orders; the rich because they need to spend the rest of their lives propping up and justifying the system that vouchsafes their privileges. And this system is pretty fucking obviously bankrupt. So, the kids who are getting an education, like the zombies I see walking around UC Berkeley these days, keep themselves tightly blinkered and walk a narrow path. To do anything else is to court disaster...is to fall off the path that leads to the upper middle class.
Of course, youth without hope is already a disaster. Overall, I don't think kids are stupid. I think their bullshit meter is just telling them that schools are an unenlightening mixture of lies and tests and hoops to get somewhere you don't want to get to. I mean, how are you supposed to get excited about an education that leads not to enlightenment but to "success." How fucking empty is that? How can you learn without passion?
Joanna