How long before we stop modeling and teaching things like:

[LakeArenal]

Civility, empathy, public service, American dreams, history, diplomacy, listening, caring or even optimism.

[gay texan]

1. It's already here in the state of Texas

Remember, every single problem in this state is caused by Transgender/Gay people and abortions.....

[alphafemale]

2. Maybe bring back that vile "grading on the curve"

That made villains out of people who could ace the test and put peer pressure on them to be slackers.

[meadowlander]

3. Twenty years ago

when we decided to let educational testing businesses decide what schools should teach instead of people who had experience with child development.

[keep_left]

8. And about 30 years ago we stopped teaching civics in high schools for the same reason.

It's pretty hard to design a high-stakes ed test around the civics curriculum. There may be a few high schools which still teach it (or so I hear), but it's been gone in most places since the late '80s. It's no wonder that I've personally experienced an employer--at a crummy part-time job, no less--trying to get me to lie my way out of jury duty. No one feels any obligation to their culture at all. To quote Maggie Thatcher, "there is no such thing as society".

[Irish_Dem]

4. I've noticed people become more rude, mean minded, angry.

All the items on your list seem to be relics of a bygone era.

[sop]

5. As Hobbes noted, life without such virtues would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

The sort of society Republicans desire.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. It's the Dark Ages

We better learn to make the most of it. They will.

[Jim__]

7. "The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate ...

"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in."

- George Orwell, "1984"

[ymetca]

9. How about just a basic Civics class?

For some reason those just don't seem to exist anymore, replaced by flag-waving allegiance pledges, stuffed with constant "In God We Trust" placation to the religious right.

That would be nice.