The Great "Do Kids Get It Too Easy These Days? Debate

Of _course_ they're too easy! How else would all those sex-obsessed, fashion conscious dullards get As? Or are the teachers in the UK are the best in the world? I know a teacher. But I don't like to talk about it.

This is something else the politicians like to lie about all the time. Don't believe them; of course they're too easy. There was a report out only the other week saying that businesses were despairing at the low level of school leavers, how they were going to recruit abroad soon rather than take UK leavers. Then the Universities regularly organise remedial classes because the levels of maths and litercay in new entrants is so woeful. Doesn't really fit with the cosy glowing picture of a nation of near genius's, does it? When I sat my A levels, there was one exam and nothing else, and all you were allowed to take in was a pen. Now they're modular, you get 4 exams and can build your A level up bit by bit. Coursework counts towards your grade. (So you can get people to help you.) You can take text books and other aids in to the exam. The pass mark in some exams is so low you'd nned to be dead to fail it. (One Business Studies exam had a pass mark of 17%, with an A grade at 48%). Jeez, if I'd taken my A levels in the same conditions, I'd have got about 3 dozen A grades. Of course they're easier, deliberately so, to make education policy look better than the pile of cack it is.

"And what (getting back on topic) is the point of fudging statistics such that it appears than a quarter of the population are near-geniuses, when it is so blatantly obvious that they’re not?" Yes, obviously the best thing to do is ignore actual evidence and instead base your judgement on the instincts and anecdotes of people who think they're clever. You're not a Nazi but you are a self-important tosser.

aghh...give 'em the bleedin' a-levels. Sooner or later they'll be treading the wheel, getting fat, old and pessismistic like the rest of us. They'll know how it feels to work for an uneducated, sour-faced bastard who sucked his way to the top by telling a few jokes and talkin' football. "What wees avvin frar brekky AR JOE!?" They'll learn. By the time they do it'll be too late. The banks would've shafted them, industry would've suckered all their youthful energies, the gov. would've bled 'em dry and they'll end up sitting there, petrified in the dead of winter, shivering and shitting themselves and chewing their lips and stinkin!

I feel so angry, a passivist easy going lass like myself, at this kind of talk. What on earth do you, pepsoid, reckless and yan, know about A Level standards? How easy it is to say, 'it was harder in my time'.... utter pap. Who says that having one exam to quantify something means the results are more genuine or impressive. A level students the country over work very hard, and those who get top grades deserve all they get. And this is from someone who got a B,C,E 12 years ago and who feels no anger at all about this. For example - A level Philosophy and Ethics covers all of the following topics (this is a popular A level - it is the follow on from GCSE Religious Studies) Augustinian, Irenaean and process theodicies Cosmological argument Design argument Judeo-Christian ideas of the nature of God and his action in the world Miracles Moral argument Myth, symbol and analogy Ontological argument Plato and Aristotle ideas of God, the forms and the body and soul Utalitarianism Situation Ethics Libertarianism, Freewill and Determinism Abortion and Foetal Research Euthenasia Virtue Ethics The Categorical Imperative The Conscience Natural Law Applied Ethics Psychological challenges to the existence of God Reincarnation, rebirth and resurrection Religious and scientific interpretations of the Origins of the Universe Religious experience and revelation Sociological challenges to the existence of God The body and soul and immortality Verification and falsification Via Negative Quit imagining what A leve students are like and give them some respect. They work hard for their grades and are expected to digest, understand and engage with sophisticated topics.

p.s. I do not deem this subject as 'great' - I deem it as one worty of people who are dissatisfied with their own lives and life choices and want to take it out on the young who still have their lives before them.

AND lots of schools don't put pupils into the exams if they think they won't get A-C. Nobody mentions THAT do they?

See, arent statistics fun. Whatever your views on the youth of today there is a discrepancy in results that rise year on year that wants explaining, there are a few possible explanations 1. Kids are getting smarter (the general IQ of the population does rise year on year so this is not all that far fetched) 2. Kids are working harder 3. Teachers or getting better (or, more likely, better at focussing on results) 4. The exams/coursework are getting easier. 5. Fewer kids are doing the exams (smart one that, anybody know if it's true). 6. Kids cheat more and more successfully. 7. Some combination of the above. 8. err.... 9. That's it. This debate illistrates nothing more than the futility of trying to draw conculsions without adequate information. Either way, if too high a proportion achieve top grades (for whatever reason) it does imply that we need to tweak the system in order to distinguish the top few percent.

I'm not sure 'are exams too easy?' is the right question. 'Do they help distinguish between candidates?' is more useful. Whether exams are easier or educational standards are rising, A-Levels need to accurately striate the increasingly large upper tier so that universities and employers can distinguish between - for example - brilliant and truly exceptional candidates. This *doesn't* mean you end up denying intelligent, capable people university places - it just helps ensure that you reward the very, very best with evidence of their talents, so they have a greater chance of attending the course of their choice. If qualifications aren't helpful to employers and universities when appraising potential newcomers, then their currency becomes devalued. Upward shifts in the mean educational level of a developed nation are not just possible, but probable. I'm not sure where Pepsoid's hard scepticism position springs from. Anyway, don't worry - if all else fails we still have a class system to maintain the status quo. Just imagine - without it, people would rise and fall on ability alone!

fergal, try to stop talking drivel will you? You know nothing about me or how I am able to from opinions, but glibly assume it's nothing but 'dissatisfaction.' If you took one second to think through your ill tempered outbursts, you'd soon relaise that dumbing down does no-one any good. I don't need to imagine what students are like - I know. I have been a teacher for 20 years and have seen all the fads coming and going. I saw O levels replaced with GCSE's abd gert easier and easier and easier. Christ, they've even abolished the 'F' grade. If you want to help and promote the interests of young people, which i do; you don't do it by making everything easier for them; you do it by providing genuine opportunities to do well. Not faking it up so that 98% of everyone gets their GCSE's and 93% get their A levels. All that does is render the qualifications mostly meaningless; as we see from the almost daily reactions of Universities and employers. And please don't presume to tell me what I think of my life, at all, let alone because I happen to know what I'm talking about. Facts are facts. Uni's & employers don't say these things for fun. A 17% pass mark for A level is a joke, whichever way you slice it.

reckless - I agree that the education system itself needs a lot of work, for loads of reasons. BUT, the thing I object to is the immediate slating of the actual pupils who have taken the exams. it is upsetting, when one sees how hard many of them work, for them to see all the headlines about dumbing down. Dumbing down is, also, a matter of opinion. There have been arguements on both sides of the fence re education about how much 100% exam raises standards. It certainly raises certain types of standards, picks out certain types of intellect, but whether that is the 'superior' intellect is questionable. I made no assumptions about you. I aimed that comment to the title of this thread (which you did not start) about the 'the great 'do kids get it too easy these days debate'. I said that it was not a 'great' subject. That had nothing to do with you, did it? I think it is good to question the education system, but I think it is cruel to do this by saying that 'kids have it easy' when they've just worked the feckin socks off. And anyway. A levels mean jack shit in the long run. 'that universities and employers' need to 'distinguish between - for example - brilliant and truly exceptional candidates.' While this may be true, I got shit A levels (as I said before B,C,E) and couldn't get into my top choices first time round. My dad at the time, based on what he thought was a good marker as to someone's intellectual faculties (A levels) said, 'I am sorry I thought you were academically good. I have now realised that maybe you are not academic after all.' In the end I got the highest First Class BA in my year and a Distinction at MA, although he wasn't alive to see it. If I'd have taken my A level results - or more importantly if the University I did my BA at had - as meaning I wasn't brilliant, truly exeptional or even average, then where would that have left me? If somebody is studying something they are truly interested in then they have a chance of doing well. This has been proved in billions of tests and studies. One teacher I know works so hard to get his pupils learning and good marks at GCSE or A level. For him it is not about getting good grades to show off his skills, but to get his pupils to move onto the next stage of their lives in the way that appeals to them most. All teachers are different. All schools are different. All pupils are different.

I got B D D at A level. Got a 2:2 at uni. In my 'educational years', I spent a lot of time being unacadmeic, or very academic in subjects I wasn't actually studying. Educated myself quite a bit. Read the original texts of thinkers I admired, read a lot of fiction, watched films, got drunk and other things with friends, laughed a lot, met people & learned from them. That is the story of a significant portion of the population, and the portion I find myself in. I've done pretty well for myself, and so have the others I know in my little demographic. I feel pretty lucky. My point is: I think the sad thing is how important these kids view exams to be (led by teachers & parents & sometimes peers), compared with how little they actually mean in the real 'adult' world.

fergal: I apologise for misunderstanding the focus of some of your comments. But I still don't think that anyone, certainly not me, is slating off the young people Its the system that's the problem. Politicians have meddled with the education system since time immemorial, and most recently have meddled with the exam system. They don't do it for the public good - they do it for reasons of social engineering or party ideologies. I remember some of the debates around GCSE (we had to fill in shool questionnaires and evaluation forms); and they were very often about dogma and ideology, about children not 'feeling excluded' or 'marginalised' etc. So 100% exams were in some cases replaced with 100% coursework. There is some merit in cousrework counting towards eventual grades, but only if it is policed properly. Too many children just download from the internet or get older siblings to do it with/for them. So they learn very little. That's not good for them. I passionately believe that education should be for the many, and indeed that education should not be all about exams and grades. We havea society that is now remorselessly focused on economics and employment, and the whole of education seems to be subservient to that. It distresses me greatly to see the work that some young people put in coming to so little, when they can't get Uni places, or jobs. Young people deserve so much more than just a dumbed down exam system. Well done to you on getting your First and MA, I really hope it serves to enhance your life. And please I hope you will take no notice of what other people say about you or your abilities. Maybe your dad was trying to be helpful in his own way. Other people's versions of you are ultimately not important; it is how much you value yourself and believe in yourself that matters. I do think however, that education is not so much about what you can do with your qualifications, what you can trade them in for, but how it changes you as person, how it can develop your thinking and outlook. if you did philosophy you will know that this is a subject without much 'market value' but which is immensely valuable in the way that it teaches people how to think and analyse. Our education system needs radical and urgent reform, so that it is orientated towards the good of the people and not the schemes of the politicians. One of the first things I would do is to abolish all the hangers on, all the "advisors' and 'consultants' who do so little and contribute so little. All the useless "Directors of Education' with their huge salaries. And before anyone jumps dowm my throat, yes, i was a consultant too for a while and I've been there, seen it, worked with them and know what I'm saying. Abolish them all and put the vast, huge amounts of resources that they use up into schools and colleges, into real people doing real and worthwhile jobs, focus those annual tens (or hundreds) of millions on the children and their lives.

As a professor of psychology I can't claim to know anything about whether A-levels are becoming easier. And I don't think I made ANY comments/statements about this issue in the above post!!!!!

"I'm not sure 'are exams too easy?' is the right question. 'Do they help distinguish between candidates?' is more useful." I think this is the key point. Is the point of exams to determine which A-Level students in any given year are the most suited to the top universities? Or is it to teach particular intellectual skills? Or is it to tell us which teachers (supplemented by expensive private tutors) are best at coaching students to pass exams? There might be some crossover between these functions but a system that focuses on one - it's mainly the third one at the moment - doesn't necessary do a very good job of delivering the others.

I agree with Fergal, but also with Rokkitnite's points. Yes, the point of tests is to differentiate between candidates, and in a range that runs from A to U, nearly a quarter of A's is probably too much. *However*, I do resent the assumption (and it *is* made) that this is in no way reflective of improved intelligence among young people. I suppose it depends how you rate 'intelligence', but my feeling is that improved results are down to there being an ever increasing emphasis (in young people's lives) on getting good results, and that causes more and more of them to focus on developing exactly the right kind of skills to pass those tests. Now, granted, those kind of skills might *not* denote pure intelligence, but they are indicative of the same commitment to and aptitude for the subjects that Universities are after. No one is 'dumbing down' the tests - it's simply that, as we become more proficient at them, you've got to wonder how far these subjects translate into what employers are really looking for. I've been looking on-off for a worthwhile job for a long time, and it just doesn't seem to me that many employers give a flying fuck about whether your English and Maths skills are optimal. They only need a GCSE level of understanding - what they're *really* after, and the reason why so many are complaining about graduates and A Level stormers being of the wrong calibre, is the most ambitious, business-minded and career-obsessed people. Used to be the case that taking University graduates meant you'd get exactly that sort - but now - shock horror! - many graduates are people who just wanted to be educated for its own sake, or worked hard to get into University just because it sounded cool, or just because it's the done thing, and aren't actually that interested in working long hours for an ethically bankrupt corporation in order to snare a promotion. The younger generations are generally far better educated than the older ones, not to mentional more diverse in their opinions and goals. I'm really sorry that doesn't translate into more brown-nosing yuppies and building firms. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

There is much in what you say. I also think that members of the younger generation have nore diverse opinions, and often more tolerance too. I hope too that many people still want to be educated for its own sake, because that, in my opinion, is what education should be for. I sometimes despair that this society has gone so far down the road of commercialism, that qualifications are just about enabling you to sell yourself to someone. To be honest, from that point of view I don't really think qualifications matter much any more. I read a little while back that the earning gap between graduates and non-graduates is now so narrow that many people are not bothering with University any more. Good luck to them. maybe that's what the debate should really be about; what is education for? One of the worst things that this awful government has done is to end grants to students, thus denying many people who can't afford it, the chance of a University education. It's not like it in Scotland and it's not like it in other countries. Neither should students who do make it to Uni be spending all their time working evenings in Pizza Hut and such like. Universities are being turned into vast money making enterprises and that i think is wrong.

It's interesting that most, if not all, people in this debate so far, have not got children - I don't know about Reckless but I reckon he/she (probably he) has not. It is very easy when you have been through the system to decry currrent results but, as others have said, if you have no understanding of the current system, what the fuck are you yakking on about? I pissed through my further and higher education by doing as Enzo did: I partied for 9/10ths of the course(s) and then crammed like crazy during the last few weeks. It helped that the useless lecturers gave us hints as to what the exam questions would be. Piece of piss for anyone with half a brain. But, that's unfair, isn't it? Why should some lazy-arse like me do well and those who study hard not? That's why they introduced the new system and it isn't that easy. My lad is currently half-way through his A levels and, due to the modular thing, he had to work bloody hard (well, harder than I had to) during term time in order to keep up with his 'modules'. The results are now in and they are interesting: He has 2 As and an E ( wtf?) in maths, a B and two Cs in Eng. lit (idiot!) and his double A-level in ICt is all over the place. Nothing to brag about then but the current system allows re-sits of modules and, this is where I have a problem. If I'd been educated under the current system, I'd be God-Almighty (not the trolll) as would many others. My lad's teachers say he will excel in his subjects- yeah, time will tell) But I think the kids of today know how worthless or otherwise their exams are (mine certainly do) and so I'd say, unless you are actually undergoing these exams yourself, that you are talking total bollocks. Reckless, you seem very angry about life in general. I'm glad I'm not you.

Wo! Hold on there! You've got to actually read the rest of the guy's posts, Joe Novak, before you slate him. Firstly, Reckless has been a teacher for the past 20 years, so he does have a pretty decent idea of what's been going on from that point of view. I'll be he's had more students than you've had children! Secondly, while his first couple of posts were angry, he's been extremely reasonable in the last couple, and explained why he believes what he believes. That said, I do agree with most of your points. I did modules for Maths A Level (I was in the last year of old A Levels, before AS's and A2's) and it was bloody hard keeping up the revision for most of that time. On the other hand, as is the case with your son, I got the chance to retake them. It was all a bit stupid - basically, they tried to get me to complete the whole A Level in a year, because my school got a lot of students into Oxbridge through Maths and they like to push the people who can do it as hard as they can. The second year, I was meant to be doing some extra Maths A Level, but because I only got a B in the first year, I decided to retake the hardest modules again instead, and settle for just the 4 A Levels. Now, the thing that strikes me is that you just can't generalise about all the subjects. I know, for instance, that I spent most of my Art A Level arsing about, but because I was pretty good at art and had high concept ideas, it was dead easy. English too involved long periods of doss, little revision and an easy A. Maths, on the other hand, as I say, took constant work, stress and headaches, and History was the same story. There are way too many factors to make generalisations - was I just better at the first two? Were my school driving people harder at some subjects? Is Art just a plain old Mickey Mouse option? I dunno. it just strikes me that, as people have said, this really isn't about how 'easy' A Levels are. It's about the purpose of education. Why the heck should the government, parents or anyone give a damn if employers report dissatisfaction with graduates? The education system isn't there to manufacture company drones. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

Well, I suppose I was lucky - I got into grammar school in 1964 and (eventually) to University. But I got a crap education, so goodness knows what kind of education the two-thirds who were fobbed off into the Secondary Moderns got. At the end of school I could conjugate French verbs, work out some maths and draw economic charts but I hadn't LEARNT anything, and my field of knowledge was very narrow. Whereas my son has taken Psychology, Sociology, Design and Business Studies A-levels, none of which were available when I was at school; some people might think they're "soft options" but he worked bloody hard and his design-based degree will give good leads into a job with skills which employers actually want.

Litercay?

Like Neil, I got into grammar school when I was 11 and attended what was generally accepted as the best school in Southend. I had an education that prepared me well for the real world. I finished my education with 'A' levels in Profanity, Verbal Abuse, Insolence and English Lit. Since then I have acquired several other academic qualifications and three spirit levels plus two laser levels. On the level, it's the truth. I 'spose I'd better try to stick to the thrust of the thread. From what I learned about courses and exams starting with my own education through to my kids educations it seems that some subjects are almost totally different these days and are to an extent not comparable as far as exams go. Kids today are being educated for a different world to the one my generation grew up in, and therefore the needs WILL be different. Whether they get an 'easy ride' depends on the requirements of current employers, and as long as they're being educated to match those needs it doesn't make a damn of difference.

The debate is interesting to me as it illustrates a tendency for debates to polarise, then refine. We should alays reflect and refine, I think. Points of view at polarities are often not illustrative of the reality of a situation, and I think its like this here. I mean, it’s not about whether young people are more or less intelligent, or whether exams are harder or easier. I think that’s not quite the point. I certainly do think that young people often work much harder. There’s lots of reasons for that. Coursework counting for grades and modular courses mean you can’t leave it till the last few weeks; the quite dreadful test-driven culture that the DfES have established: tests every couple of years. It puts children under stress and achieves little. I saw an article in the Guardian Online, which says: “Nothing creates such apoplexy among the British elite as the idea that what was once available only to them - in this case educational achievement and university places - should now be available to the masses.” And goes on to argue that having high pass marks is elitist. I can see where he’s coming from but I think that’s wrong too. High pass marks (e.g. 90% for an A grade) are not in themselves elitist; it’s the access and opportunity being denied that’s elitist; and that’s where things may have gone wrong. There was an assumption around 1987/88 that if you ‘liberalised’ the pass marks and stopped having a fixed 45-50% pass mark, and 85-90% fro A grades, that would allow more children to achieve and would end elitism. Fair argument as far as it goes but it misses the point. You may as well argue that having a fixed qualifying height for the Olympic high jump is somehow elitist: it’s not – anyone is free to have a go and make it if they can. Lowering the bar does not create equality. The argument really is not about whether exams have got easier; I feel there must be a distinction between the CONTENT and the STRUCTURE . Content wise, exam syllabuses are the same if not more comprehensive that they ever were. The real changes have come about in structure: things like modular courses and more flexible pass marks. What concerns me is that this liberalising can be used as an excuse for not raising standards, for not investing properly in education. You lower the bar and it looks like things are happening when they’re not. More and more people get First Class degrees, but that’s mainly because a First used to be around 90% and now it’s as low as 70%. Good luck to them though, they deserve it, it’s pretty hard to get even 70% consistently. But it shows that we should not be focusing on whether people work harder or are cleverer, etc, but on the fact that structural changes are manipulating figures to cover up, potentially, that Unis are now sometimes exam factories and not places of enquiry and learning; and that our education system is being used to feed into a narrow commercialising of qualifications. And I do get angry, yes. Maybe I shouldn’t. Mostly it’s because I want the best for my son (yes, I do have children, a child, a little boy, who oddly enough is called Joe) and I worry about the kind of world he might grow up in, with politicians and business destroying the planet and reducing everything down to the pursuit of money. Heigh ho though, trust the process of life, as the Taoists say.

Just thought I'd point out this article by Mary Warnock. "How delusions about equality killed a passion for learning ..... ..... Undergraduates and school-leavers are being short-changed by a system that fails to nurture intellectual excellence " It's some of what I just said (only she got paid for saying it.) Interesting. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1854261,00.html

"More and more people get First Class degrees, but that’s mainly because a First used to be around 90% and now it’s as low as 70%." But don't you think, as a consequence of that, it becomes just as hard to get that 70% as it used to be to get 90%, particularly in subjects that involve subjective marketing? On my degree course, no one *ever* got 90%. A few people got an 80 or two, and this was such a ludicrous mark, comparative to what everyone else got, that you doubted they could possibly deserve it. For most of us, a 70 was nigh on top marks - a 73 or 74 suggested the tutor had a special liking for you, or chose the mark in order to balance out an earlier 66 or 67 and give you a first overall for that unit. I had one tutor who worked on the basis that if the material was of first class quality, he gave it a 70 and that was it. Never higher. The vast majority of marks were between 60 and 69 - a score in the 50's suggested you'd done something horribly wrong. Unfortunately, stats just never tell the story. According to some survey last year, UEA is supposed to be the hardest Uni in the country to get Firsts in English Literature, but that's going purely by the pass mark and stipulations, and doesn't take into account how generous the tutors might be with marks. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

Ah, best to bring the discussion back to your own bragworthy yard, hey JC? The discussion of marks with that level of detail makes you sound about twelve years old. Who _cares_ about UEA and their frigging firsts? Talk about elitism.

Bu its fair point though - and an interesting one. Since pass marks have been liberalised and/or lowered, are markers becoming more stringent? Hmm. Yes, I think possibly they are. Though as I said, its hard to get a 70 anyway, whether for A level GCSE or degree. Unis might point out though that they employ procedures to safeguard against subjective marking, i.e. blind marking (you don't put your name on it, you use a student number), second marking, and sampling for external marking/mderation. But I don't personally believe that all that gets around subjective marking. If they want to screw you, or reward you, they'll find a way. Mainly though, the evidence is that A level A grades and University Firsts have greatly increased in volume, really quite significantly; so the liberalising is producing effects. But yes, I agree that marking is in many cases a bit more stringent.

Having just finished a university degree (BA hons English) I have to say that only the end of year exams were marked 'blind', all of the other essays had both the students name and number on. Oh and very few students managed to get above the magic mark of 69!.

Yeah well, 69 is the number to aim for, anything else is tantamount to self-abuse. And yes, you're right, it IS magic!

"The discussion of marks with that level of detail makes you sound about twelve years old." I've seen some put-downs in my time but that's truly, deeply hurtful. "Mainly though, the evidence is that A level A grades and University Firsts have greatly increased in volume, really quite significantly; so the liberalising is producing effects." But what about other factors outside of pass-mark tampering? Couldn't there be ongoing improvement in revision methods? How about the idea that people are choosing the subjects they do more and more carefully, sticking to what they do best? With more choices for courses each year, maybe it's simply the case that fewer and fewer students are taking options that they haven't really got the heart or the head for. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

Nur nur nur nur nur

I finished my degree last year. In my experience it was all about the money and getting results. What was most disappointing was the fact the course is quite highly regarded in the industry it caters for. It was a real let down, I had to watch as one group were allowed to re-take modules while another group wasn't, due to it being a different tutor. The work being checked by only one tutor, rather than two, one tutor believing in carrot and stick, the other in harshness. This didn't effect my marks, but I had to watch on while gifted kids walked away with a shit mark and people who didn't have a clue doing better. nobody

The gifted kids should learn to wipe their arses a little better.

The only thunder attributable to you is the frequent noise emanating form YOUR arse.

First I read a post in which you mention an article in the Express, and now the Times comes up. You gotta stop relying on right-wing papers for your info, Pepsoid. "So if you want to get on in life, stop studying more creative and outside-the-norm subjects..." Always been the case so this doesn't change anything. When I was looking at Unis, Warwick even outrightly stated that they felt English Literature was a far more worthy degree than English Language and Literature. People should do the subjects they feel they can get the most out of, not the ones that will be 'far more valuable in securing degree places'. It's that kind of thinking that has led to the influx of A's in the first place. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

As far as education, the youth DOES have it better (when they can afford it) but as a whole, the world is in a lot worse shape thease days and there's far more violence so in that respect i think we have it worse, thats from the youths perspective, at least in the USA.