Quote of the Day - Precious Snowflake Edition

  I have spent hours explaining an essay’s grammatical, stylistic, and logical weaknesses in the wearying certainty that the student was unable, both intellectually and emotionally, to comprehend what I was saying or to act on my advice. It is rare for such students to be genuinely desirous and capable of learning how to improve. Most of them simply hope that I will come around. Their belief that nothing requires improvement except the grade is one of the biggest obstacles that teachers face in the modern university. And that is perhaps the real tragedy of our education system: not only that so many students enter university lacking the basic skills and knowledge to succeed in their courses — terrible in itself — but also that they often arrive essentially unteachable, lacking the personal qualities necessary to respond to criticism. --  The Unteachables: A Generation that Cannot Learn, Janice Fiamengo

RTWT

And from the first comment:

Under rational circumstances, you don’t try to teach Algebra to students who have no idea of what number theory is, don’t know fractions etc. I had many a student try to tell me that adding 1/2 to 1/3 equaled 2/5. I swear to G-d this is true. Yet this type of student is graduated from high school to join the rational thinking masses. This really scares me to death. These idiots out number us 200 to 1. They can be told anything and they will believe it. Yes, they have the right to vote. How can these idiots, who can barely read, are ignorant of basic math, watch television for their ideas of the world, love their sex and drugs, be given such a privilege as to decide the destiny of our country?

Because it's easier to lead them around by the nose than a population that understands the world around them. It's been the plan for a hundred years, and it's paying off in unintended ways.

Read the comments, too.