Pictures of Damian James Rank!!!!!!!

Has anyone seen the show "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" This show, on the surface is very funny. Adults try to answer elementary grade school text book questions to earn a million dollars. What is even more interesting, and sad, is that the contestants get 3 cheats where the class of 5th graders can help the contestant.
The funny thing is, and again sad, is that NO ONE has one a million dollars. I question whether the show is a testament to the intelligence of our younger generation-the fact that they can outsmart a person at least twice there age makes this a pretty convincing argument. However, I also wonder if the show doesn't say something about the levels and systems of education in our country. Do students simply memorize material just to spit it back out....yes, this is an obvious answer. How many of adults memorize the Pythagorean Theorem only to repeat it again 5 years later? It doesn't happen to often-no one remembers it. And yet these things are deemed important....so why don't we as adults remember the base for learning and the beginning of our education? Why can so many adults prove that they are not smarter than a 5th grader?
Of course, adults do have the learning from experience thing going for them, and the base for learning in elementary school is combined and added upon as students grown and learn throughout their education careers. I still have to ask though, why are so many of us not smarter than a fifth grader? Are we losing common sense to 10-year-olds? The question makes a great debate for both the modern school system and pop-culture.

I'm frustrated by the lack of commitment and funding that so many school boards have for the school systems today. Just this week, our local school board announced that they would be cutting a number of teaching and support staff positions. How much longer can this occur. It is the same story around the United States. Funding for schools is dropping, and with many schools having declining enrollment, it is even worse. When will schools take responsibility for the declining levels of education in students today. More and more students are unprepared for college level courses, let alone graduate level courses. Many find themselves dropping out in the first year because they didn't expect the level of competition. Without this level of education, colleges will only be producing mediocre students, unprepared for the work world. How can be continue to be producing the worlds great thinkers when all high school are encouraging is mediocrity. When classes continue to be cut in courses because there is a need to save money, it is the students, and hence the future of the US, that suffer because the school would rather concern itself over how to name an athletic field than work towards keeping classes in school.
What prompted this for me was the recent elimination of a media literacy course. In today's world, students' lives are filled with media in one way or another-Internet, advertisements, magazines, music, etc. Many students are unaware of the incredible impact that these modes of communication have on the younger generations. Without understanding things like the bias in news, or the perils of marketing on teenagers, or the effect that television has on a child's development, students will not be able to discern credible modes of media and the effects in general it has in today's world. Can today's students be in a world where things like the media are allowed to influence every decision they make. Courses like these are vital to helping students grow and learn in a society that increasingly falls father and father behind other nations. School boards want to see teachers take responsibility for their work, and they should, but not before they take responsibility for the administration of the school building. Members of the community need to hold the administration of schools accountable for these items, and concern themselves more with the education of students than the how the sports team did on the game Tuesday night. Where are our priorities America?