Patrick James Nelis sent the following letter (response sent from mail@cartalk.com).

It is very difficult for anyone to learn anything worthwhile in an environment devoid of basic manners, and devoid of an appreciation of the ways in which civilized people exchange ideas. Those are two basic skills that neither parents nor teachers seem willing or able to provide to children. The upshot is to see children who shout at each other and at adults. And worst of all, they do not know how to let others express an idea, especially if that idea differs from their own. I have watched teenage children continue to talk louder and louder when it appears that their ideas are being questioned. And polite behavior--the "thank you," "excuse me" and "please"--are totally missing from the vocabulary of most children. I am not a proponent of a return to the good old days when nuns maintained discipline with the stiff ruler, but we do need some education in civil behavior to match the civil rights emphasis of the past few years.

It seems that children receive much of their education in manners from television. There are too many poor examples among the TV sitcoms and comedy shows. I would vote for mandatory courses in civil conduct as a good start toward producing useful adults.

My second gripe is with the education establishment. There is way too much emphasis on getting and spending large sums of money on "education" and too little effort devoted to developing useful curricula. The recent rush to spend large sums on personal computers is a case in point. Many school districts are spending like drunken sailors, wiring buildings for computers, etc., before they decide how the personal computers will be used. It is very difficult to find a coherent plan, either from the standpoint of the educational value, or from the technical perspective.

The plans I have seen start out with glowing words about the use of the Internet and distance-learning techniques. Rarely do they explain what the student will gain from the Internet or through distance learning. The interest seems to be in spending money on glitzy programs that have no underlying purpose, but which sound good to the parents.

The spending is particularly annoying when you consider that the persons making the decisions often do not have good technical advice to support the spending. There is an enormous difference in the wiring and support structure needed for the movement of Internet pages as opposed to the structure needed for the movement of full video programs. Many of the plans are poorly designed to use the Internet, and have no hope of handling large-scale video input. I have heard of microwave towers being built with no hope of carrying the proper signal. In one case, the school was wired at enormous cost, but no one had considered providing the power outlets to support the new machines. And no one had given any thought to the program content or how that content was to be distributed.

Let me hasten to add that I have a lot of respect for the teacher community. A great many good, dedicated people are working well every day to educate children, and many are succeeding. My concern is with administrations that don't seem to be able to design or articulate programs that make sense.

We need a lot of work to improve the environment in which learning takes place, and to define the content.

This is a great topic. Thank you for the chance to participate.

My wife and I love your show. Keep up the good work.

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