Jason Manning used what I think was presented as a quote from Susan Jacoby's Washington Post opinion piece titled The Dumbing of America. In her piece, Jacoby was actually paraphrasing the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Is that an important issue? Maybe, if you're not familiar with Jacoby's work and want to know if anyone else of stature agrees with her.
I would suggest reading Jacoby's entire article. It is extremely compelling, interesting and well structured.
An actual quote from Jacoby's column is: "That leads us to the third and final factor behind the new American dumbness: not lack of knowledge per se but arrogance about that lack of knowledge." I would think some of my colleagues would agree with this. I am not only astounded sometimes at what high school students do not know; I am even more astounded by their pompous attitudes about thinking that what they don't know is not important.
This might be my last post on this blog, so I would like to thank Steve Elliott for helping me be more skeptical and check my sources, and for the marvelous people at the Cronkite School--Dave, Monique, Anita, Christopher, Tom, Sharon, Krisitin, Jennifer, Andrew, Jason, Rick, Carol, and Alan, Le, Steve, and all the talented people at The AZ Republic.
Truly, this has been a marvelous two weeks.! An especial thanks to my 34 colleagues. We were so lucky.
Rick Burd
Wickenburg High School
Wickenburg, Ariz
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