Change Begins with Me

Unpleasant reading - American students rank 15th in math and 25th in science testing globally. There are 3 million jobs available in America, right now, that cannot be filled because no one wants or qualifies for the positions. Perhaps the time has come for each American to stop blaming this or that political party or a disliked social pressure group for all our societal problems. If we, as a nation, do not change course we will become a 3rd world country in our lifetime. We can assume that all the other countries are striving to better themselves. I am not sure what we are doing. Whatever it is, it is not working.

I know most Longboat property owners have little to worry about since the great majority of our residences are 2nd homes. However, the relative wealth of Longboat property owners isn't enough to sustain a failing economy and educationally declining population. One commentator has remarked that Americans are becoming increasingly illiterate as a result of being predominately exposed to a TV based vocabulary that is geared to a 5th grade reading level. I had one reader chastise me for using too many big words. I thought I was merely saying exactly what I wanted to say and that requires using language somewhat above the 5th grade level. I wonder how Longboat property values will fare if our economy takes another precipitous decline in the next year or two. I wonder how our grandchildren will manage to find a better life if America is considered to a complacent, relatively under-educated society where everyone is plugged into some sort of electronic distraction.

The average American child spends 1154 hours a year watching TV while spending fewer that 900 hours in school.

Only 1 in 12 American families make their children do homework before watching TV.

By the age of 18 the average American child sees over 200,000 violent acts on TV.

Last year, at the science oriented graduate schools of New York University (NYU), not a single American-born student was registered.

A Harvard study found that current college students spend only half as much time studying as they did in 1960.

We are rapidly becoming a nation intellectually asleep-at-the-wheel and declining quickly if one looks at the grim statistics and reports.

The blame-game is not working. Each of us is responsible for being part of our democratic process, and that requires vigilance, critical thinking and encouraging our grandchildren to be readers and scholars and engineers.

My recommendation is to become as informed as is humanly possible by listening to all the conversations taking place in our society. Receiving your information exclusively from Fox or MSN will only expose you to their profit-driven propaganda. It will not increase your comprehension of the complex issues confronting our nation. Most of all try to mentor young people and try to lead them to a place where the process of learning becomes as important to them as what they learn.

Change Begins with Me.