"StormySeas said Gypsy, someone mentioned ...
Gypsy, someone mentioned that education is the key. I agree with that, but it's not up to Obama to educate the entire world.
Kids in our schools need to be taught how to plow their way through all the information that's available, how to think critically about what they've read or heard. I do believe the American education system addresses this, or tries to anyway, but unfortunately most of the rest of the world does not."
Blimey. Do you? I thought the US educational system up to school-leaver age was largely insular and self-centred, failing to give people much of an idea of the historical, social or geographical context of anything beyond US borders. We outsiders also get the impression that in large areas education is being subverted by people like the head of Oklahoma's higher-education sub-committee who has launched an inquiry into how Richard Dawkins was possibly permitted to speak at the state university. But, of course, that could be because we are suffering from misconceptions.
How much Americans understand about the world matters to all of us, given that the US has by far the most powerful military in the world and not many scruples about using it. How many lives would have been saved if the Fox News viewers had understood that there was no Saddam-Osama nexus and that there was no evidence Iraq was attempting to acquire WMD (and the proof of that was all in the public domain back in 2001 for anyone who cared to look)?
"StormySeas said Gypsy, someone mentioned ...
Gypsy, someone mentioned that education is the key. I agree with that, but it's not up to Obama to educate the entire world.
Kids in our schools need to be taught how to plow their way through all the information that's available, how to think critically about what they've read or heard. I do believe the American education system addresses this, or tries to anyway, but unfortunately most of the rest of the world does not."
Blimey. Do you? I thought the US educational system up to school-leaver age was largely insular and self-centred, failing to give people much of an idea of the historical, social or geographical context of anything beyond US borders. We outsiders also get the impression that in large areas education is being subverted by people like the head of Oklahoma's higher-education sub-committee who has launched an inquiry into how Richard Dawkins was possibly permitted to speak at the state university. But, of course, that could be because we are suffering from misconceptions.
How much Americans understand about the world matters to all of us, given that the US has by far the most powerful military in the world and not many scruples about using it. How many lives would have been saved if the Fox News viewers had understood that there was no Saddam-Osama nexus and that there was no evidence Iraq was attempting to acquire WMD (and the proof of that was all in the public domain back in 2001 for anyone who cared to look)?