I must say the US has a different culture from us. Poor guys. I think the percentage of US citizens that go on to university is already too darn high, too darn “normalized.” Ya, but I know it’s not Politically Correct for me to judge—Sorry. Americans who read this are entitled to their own happy opinions. Feel free to share.
Recently a man with a Ph.D., talking on Youtube, professed something: I tell you, it was a smoking gun! Proving that Yankees are different. To explain:
Remember friends, the metric “I.Q.” was invented by a guy in France, and perhaps there was a translation error. In English we might better say “Academic Quotient” since I.Q. tests are for predicting success academic-wise, not success in music, spatial grasp, art, cooking, careers or a good life. The French, with fewer resources back in those days, wanted to know where to slot their children for maximum academic benefit to their country.
I remember my senior secondary school, of 800 students, back when we were long-haired teenagers, having as many students as both of our feeder junior highs, of 800 and 800. Meaning: a fifty per cent drop out rate. Partly because I was in the socially-challenged municipality of Surrey. (Tree planters have told me that throughout the province they tell “Surrey girl” jokes.) And partly because, as business sage Peter Drucker explained, a young person could get a factory job and make more money than a beginning university professor. Those were different times.
In our college library Police Command, for chiefs, documented that it was fine for a constable to take a few community college courses, to be able to relate more to the community, but he shouldn’t get a degree. And a constable was quoted, “I don’t want a partner who is thinking as we are walking the beat.”.
One day in class, as we were studying “thinking,” (both concrete and abstract, linear and random) our department head told us, “If you have a below average I.Q. then you drop out, if you are average you graduate high school, and if you are above average you go on to post secondary.”
Actually, we were told as kids “your high school average will go down one letter grade if you go on to university”: If you were “only” pulling in “nice, happy, respectable C-pluses,” then “don’t even think about it.”
Americans, as it happens, inflated their university grades in the 1960’s to help kids avoid “the draft.” I guess when Vietnam was over they forgot to let the air back out.
So a greater and greater percentage of youth was enrolled, and society began saying that everyone (almost) “should” go, “naturally,” to college. As in all those young adult novels. That assumption makes me wince. And now comes the “smoking gun…”
Given that, for percentages within a population, a genetic bell curve is logically as impossible to wish away as the speed of light, I was flabbergasted, culture-wise, when a Yankee professor said on Youtube that a university should be penalized if enrolment does not increase faster than the surrounding population, as in a bigger proportion of people.
This when (according to US Bureau of Labour Statistics) 61.4 % of young Americans already attend… (Oh, if only 61 % of my fellow Canadians were above average in height and beauty.)
And also when too many youth are already bypassing trade school for university. As if the prof thinks a bigger proportion of people would magically obtain an above average I.Q. That’s being more racist —or species-ist— than I have ever been in my life. In fairness, he’s part of a culture that normalizes going to University.
I myself believe in equal rights. A no-brainer. But I don’t believe we are all equal to getting a degree. When my brother graduated trade school, my very proud father bought him a great cup inscribed with quotes from Benjamin Franklin on the worth of having a trade.
But from what I can sense, too many young yankees, newly adult, enter their university hoping for “a glorified high school,” with merely the same amount of daily study-hours needed as during childhood. And maybe for them, sadly, it is…
I won’t call that professor on Youtube a moron.
I’ll just say, “Wow, he and his peers are sure different.”
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Sidebar: Andrem Schemer’ comment on the blog Orange Crate Art— We have so many students that are unprepared for the rigours of college (even community college) it isn’t even funny. Read this essay for a scary view of what high school teachers have been dealing with:
http://www.aaup.org/article/warnings-trenches
Read it and Weep: Go to 14.20 minutes to see a study of the ability of University English Majors who, in some bizarre Dunning-Kruger moment, think they can read enough to go on to teach children. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ynCVmw5AWk
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Sean Crawford BCR August 2025
A BCR is Bachelor of Community Rehabilitation,
A degree equal to a US masters (post grad) degree, a fact that according to my Canadian profs, who have traveled through North America and examined disability programs, the US profs don’t want to admit…. But maybe this has changed since my day—Unlikely.
In the Gaza Strip our programs at college and university awarded rehab degrees. To avoid a Vietnam-era grade inflation, the exams would be flown back to Canada for marking.
At any given time, a teacher from either program (I graduated both) would be over there. When they returned? They all despised the Israeli military occupation. They all required therapy because, for example, they could not walk a block without seeing a head-injured child.
