Are We Encouraging Stupidity in our Kids?

So I was sitting here with my friend's kids, working on my computer while they watched tv. They happened to be watching Wizards of Waverly Place, then changed it over to Sponge Bob Squarepants, (a show that I completely hate, btw). As I stopped to watch parts of these shows, I couldn't help but wonder why so many shows glorify stupidity and laziness as great attributes to have.

I am a huge fan of The Big Bang Theory, which is a tv series. I love the geeky scientists, because I have friends like them, and I can identify with some of it, myself. What I don't like about the show is that they portray these very smart men as socially awkward and even childish in their understandings of normal human interaction. Even the highly intellectual women on the show are portrayed that way, except for Leonard's girlfriend Priya. She is portrayed as a know-it-all bitch. We are supposed to identify with the cute, but rather dumb neighbor, Penny as they try to make her the easily likeable one of the group. We are supposed to roll our eyes at the guy's antics and admire Penny for putting up with them.

Then you have our older shows, Happy Days. The hero of Happy Days was always The Fonz. He was portrayed as "cool and street smart". So what that he wasn't very well educated and didn't care to be? He was "cool". In Wizards of Waverly Place, the main character, played by Selena Gomez is lazy and has no desire to learn, yet she is the one that kids are supposed to admire. Her older brother is devoted to his education and is portrayed as a stiff, stuck-up jerk. Then we have SpongeBob. Do I even have to expound upon how incredibly stupid THIS show is? The only character concerned with higher education and the arts is Squidward, and again, he is villified as Spongebob's hateful and snobbish neighbor.

So my question is, WHY? Why in the world would be value stupidity and ignorance over education? The message that we're sending to our kids is that it's "cooler" to be substandard and uneducated. It's ok to half-ass it in life. You don't see our children looking up to intellectuals anymore. Instead it's all about the latest sports star or pop sensation or rich skank. The people that our children are looking up to are people like Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Derek Rose, Sarah Palin and Paris Hilton. Is that really the image that we want our kids to have of the world? Really? Derek Rose is the basketball player who lied to get into college by having someone else take his SATs. Then, he stayed just long enough to get picked up by the NBA and dropped out. Great role model there. I don't think I really need to say much of anything about Sarah Palin or Paris Hilton. They open their mouths and spew enough stupidity for themselves.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), out of 34 countries studied in 2009, the US ranked 14th for reading, 25th for math and 17th for science. As someone who values higher education, I cannot understand why we would glorify ignorance and stupidity, when we should be ashamed of it. It is not "cool" to be uneducated, especially in a time when an education is so easy to come by. You don't have to go to a fancy, Ivy-league college, you simply have to pick up a book and read it. So, you don't like to read? There are plenty of audiobooks out there on every subject. It's the lazy man's education, but it's still an education. The more you know, the less you can be taken for a fool. It's a sad day when our own political figures (targeting Palin again, just because she's such a prime example of stupidity in the public eye) don't even know that Africa is a continent and not a country.

So in a world where kids are admiring sports stars and music stars, I'll stick to my own list-Albert Einstein, Katherine Hepburn, Richard Dawkins, and Lawrence Krauss. Maybe that list will expand more, the older that I get, but I can guarantee that it will always contain highly educated and progressive minds.