[00:00.00] Benjamin Stein weaves a tale to bring home to young Americans the need to change the way

[00:07.18]They think about education.

[00:10.19]Read it and see whether you think It holds any lessons for us as well.

[00:16.56]FABLE OF THE LAZY TEENAGER by Benjamin Stein

[00:21.92]One day last fall,I ran out of folders and went to the drugstore to buy more

[00:29.15]I put handful of folders on the counter

[00:32.89]and asked a teenage salesgirl how much they cost

[00:37.75]"I don't know,"she answered. "But it's 12ents each."

[00:42.50]I counted the folders.

[00:45.43]"Twenty-three at 12 cents each,that makes $2.76 before tax,"I said.

[00:53.97]"You did that in your head?"she asked in amazement."How can you do that?"

[00:59.69]"It's magic,"I said.

[01:02.62]"Really?''she asked.

[01:05.12]No modestly educated adult Can fail to be upset by such an experience

[01:11.65]While our children seem better-natured than ever,

[01:15.99]they are so ignorant and so ignorant of their ignorance

[01:21.16]that they frighten me.In a class of 60 seniors at a private college

[01:28.08]where I recently taught,

[01:30.62]not one student could write a short paper without misslpellings.Not one.

[01:36.97]But this is just a tiny slice of the problem.

[01:41.28]The ability to perform even the simplest calculations

[01:46.34]Is only memory among many students I see,

[01:45.34]and their knowledge of world history or geography is nonexistent.

[01:50.67]Moreover,there is a chilling indifference about a11 this ignorance.

[01:56.94]The attitude was summed up

[01:59.79]by a friend's bright,lazy16-year-old son,

[02:05.46]who explained why he preferred not to go to U.C.L.A.

[02:10.11]I don't want to have to compete with Asians,"he said.

[02:14.58]"They work hard and know everything."

[02:17.81]In fact,this young man will have to compete with Asians whether he wants to or not

[02:24.16]He cannot live forever on the financial,material

[02:29.02]and human capital accumurated by his ancestors,

[02:33.15]At some point soon,

[02:36.15]his intellectual laziness will seriously affect his way of life

[02:41.30]It will also affect the rest of us.

[02:45.06]A modern industrial state cannot function with an idle

[02:50.70]ignorant labor force.

[02:53.55]Planes will crash.Computers will jam.Cars will break down.

[02:59.79]To drive this message home to such young Americans,

[03:04.60]I have a humble suggestion: a movie, or TV series

[03:10.76]dramatizing just how difficult it was for this country to get where it is

[03:16.80]and how easily it could all be lost.I offer the following fable.

[03:23.59]As the story opens,our hero,Kevin Hanley1990,a 17-year-old high school senior

[03:33.20]is sitting in his room feeling bitter.

[03:39.45]His parents insist he study for his European history test

[03:44.28]He wants to go shopping for headphones for his portable CD player

[03:49.82]The book he is forced to read --The Wealth of Nations puts him to sleep.

[03:56.32]Kevin dreams it is1835,and he is his own great-great-great-grandfather at 17

[04:05.75]a peasant in County Kerry Ireland.

[04:11.32]He lives in a small hut and sleeps next to a pig.

[04:17.35]He is always hungry and must search for food

[04:21.58]His greatest wish is to learn to read and write so he might get a job as a clerk

[04:28.01]With steady wages he would be able to feed himself and help his family.

[04:35.85]But Hanley's poverty allows no leisure

[04:40.81]for such luxuries as going to school.

[04:44.57]Without education and money,he is powerless

[04:49.40]His only hope lies in his children.

[04:53.40]If they are educated,they will have a better life.

[04:58.08]Our fable fast-forwards and Kevin Hanley1990

[05:04.11]is now his own great-grandfather, Kevin Hanley,1928

[05:10.46]He,too,is17 years old,and he works in a steel mill in Pittsburgh,

[05:17.82]His father came to America from Ireland

[05:22.81]and helped build the New York City subway

[05:26.47]Kevin Hanley1928 is far better off than either his father or his grandfathel.

[05:35.09]He can read and write

[05:37.86]His wages are far better than anything his ancestors had in Ireland.

[05:44.42]Next Kevin Hanley1990 dreams that he is Kevin Hanley 1945,

[05:52.15]his own grandfather

[05:54.71]fighting on Iwo Jima against a most determined foe,the Japanese army.

[06:01.50]He is always hot,always hungry,always scared

[06:08.76]One night in a foxhole,he tells a friend why he is there:

[06:14.93]"So my son and his son can live in peace and security

[06:20.70]When I get back,I'll work hard and send my boy to college

[06:27.02]so he can live by his brains instead of his back."

[06:31.49]Then Kevin Hanley1990 is his own father,Kevin Hanley1966,

[06:40.24]who studies all the time

[06:43.19]so he can get into college and law school.He lives in a fine house

[06:51.34]He has niever seen anything but peace and plenty.

[06:57.06]He tells his girl friend that when he has a son

[07:02.03]he won't make him study all the time,as his father makes him.

[07:08.66]At that point,Kevin Hanley1990 wakes up,shaken by his dream

[07:16.13]He is relieved to be away from Ireland and the steel mill and Iwo Jima.

[07:24.00]He goes back to sleep.

[07:26.84]When he dreams again,he is his own son,Kevin Hanley 2020.

[07:35.02]There is gunfire all day and all night

[07:39.28]His whole generation forgot why there even was law,so there is none

[07:47.61]People pay no attention to politics,

[07:52.23]and government offers no services to the working class.

[07:56.68]Kevin 2020's father,who is of course Kevin 1990 himself,

[08:04.59]works as a cleaner in a factory owned by the Japanese

[08:08.95]Kevin2020 is a porter in a hotel for wealthy Europeans and Asians.

[08:16.82]Public education stops at the sixth grade

[08:21.49]Americans have long since stopped demanding good education for their chirlden

[08:28.99]The last person Kevin1990 sees in his dream is his own grandson.

[08:36.72]Kevia2050 has no useful skills

[08:41.79]Machines built in Japan do all the complex work,

[08:47.22]and there is little manual work to be done.

[08:51.17]Without education,without discipline,he cannot earn an adequate living wage.

[09:00.73]He lives in a slum where there is no heat

[09:04.70]no plumbing,no privacy and survives by searching through trash piles.

[09:12.43]In a word,he lives much as Kevin Hanley1835 did in Ireland.

[09:20.37]But one day,Kevin Hanley 2050 is befriended

[09:29.12]by a visiting Japanese anthropologist studying the decline of America.

[09:36.28]The man explains to Kevin that when a man has no money,

[09:42.76]education can supply the human capital necessary to start to acquire financial capital

[09:50.70]Hard work,education,saving and discipline can do anything.

[09:58.43]This is how we rose from the ashes after you defeated us in a war about a hundred years ago

[10:06.24]"America beat Japan in war?"asks Kevin 2050.He is astonished

[10:15.49]It seems as impossible as Brazil defeating the United States would sound in1990

[10:25.44]Kevin 2050 swears that if he ever has children,

[10:31.37]he will make sure they work and study and learn and discipline themselves.

[10:37.90]To be able to make a living by one's mind instead of by stealing,"he says.

[10:45.74]"That would be a miracle."

[10:48.51]When Kevin 1990 wakes up,next to him is his copy of The Wealth of Nations

[10:57.52]He opens it and the first sentence to catch his eye is this:

[11:04.00]"A man without the proper use of the intellectual faculties of a man is,if possible

[11:11.65]more contemptible than even a coward."

[11:15.62]Kevin's father walks in."All right,son,"he says.

[11:21.19]"Let's go look at those headphones."

[11:24.35]"Sorry,Pop,"Kevin1990 says."I have to study."

[11:30.72]fable\ teenager\ run out of\ file

[11:38.98]folder\ drugstore\ handful\ counter

[11:46.55]tax\ in amazement\ modestly\ upset

[11:55.17]igorant\ igorance\ senior\ slice

[12:02.75]ability\ nonexistent\ chill\ indifference

[12:12.60]sum\ sum up\ sompete\ compete with

[12:20.77]asian financial accumulate ancestor

[12:29.00]intellectual\ affect\ industrial\ function

[12:37.26]idle\ jam\ break down\ drive home

[12:44.83]humble\ suggestion\ movie\ dramatize

[12:53.48]european\ portable\ CD\ county

[13:00.61]hut\ search for\ wage\ poverty

[13:07.77]leisure\ luxury\ mill\ subway

[13:15.63]better off\ foe\ scare\ foxhole

[13:22.40]security\ wakw up\ porter\ wealthy

[13:30.73]complex\ manual\ slum

[13:38.49]plumbing\ privacy\ trash\ befriend

[13:46.22]decline acquire ash astonish

[13:53.46]swear \make a living by \ miracle\ faculty

[14:01.11]contemptible coward pop