Our Knowledge of America

[deanglen]

I am very tounge in cheek. It's kind of "oh d'oh!" with the hand to forehead. I have my moments of feeling stupid too.

I really don't take offense to anything. I've found out if I do my life is a lot harder.

Elaina

dean

 

[Matthew Dalton]

I got 100% even though I'm Australian and only 19. Probably a bit too easy.

 

[Lincsong]

Oddly, I got a 100% on it, but then I flubbed the voting thing in here. Go figure. I like history, and all I do is read. There's bound to be some mess ups somewhere in my head (because it shares space with cannibalism. Think that thought last week turned into Hannibal in my head. Yes, that's it. I'm using that.)

Now, in all seriousness, I knew better then to spout off at the lip. I had a few teachers that everything was given from when Texas did it, and I know I have to check my facts. Probably doesn't help in this one that a college professor of mine told us 1919 on the 19th Ammendment last semester.

Elaina

Your're killing me with your posts.lol lol

 

[The Reno Kid]

100%

Late 1800's exams that are supposed to tell us how much a student (and teacher) needed to know then. The questions are indeed tough, but the main point is that someone from 1879 couldn't pass a modern test in, for example, quantum theory or superconductivity, either.

I disagree. I think it's a case of apples and oranges for a couple of reasons. First, the 19th-century quiz is composed of questions that address points of fundamental educational achievement. I would argue that nearly all the questions on the quiz are still relevant and should still be considered fundamental (except those that address agricultural concepts that are no longer relevant). Second, quantum theory or superconductivity would be meaningless to a person from 1895. The knowledge simply did not exist. Third, quantum theory and superconductivity could hardly be considered common knowledge even today, certainly not for eighth graders.

I think a modern 13 year-old student could be forgiven for not knowing how many bushels are equal to 60 cubic feet. However, I doubt that most adults in 2006 could manage a passing grade in the orthography section or even the grammar section. I find this very sad. I used to work in a job that required me to do a lot of editing for a professional journal. I regularly received papers from professional and academic authors with advanced degrees that I would have given failing grades in a 9th grade English class. Creative spelling, chaotic grammar, and logical incoherence were often the rule rather than the exception.

The reason I think this is important is that we (a lot of us anyway) live in a country that requires a certain level of civic responsibility to function properly. Meeting that responsibilty requires a certain level of knowledge of our government and our common history as well as the ability to communicate effectively. We are losing this. I believe the implications of this are far more serious than we generally like to think. When asked, "What kind of a government have you given us?" as he was leaving the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin famously replied "A republic Madam, if you can keep it."

I'll get off the soapbox now.

 

[The Reno Kid]

Wow! Nine posts in the time it took me to write my diatribe. I need to learn to type faster (or condense).

 

[McPeppers]

100% here... if you want to see something more depressing look at the last two National Geographic Roper Surveys. The earlier one tested us against the world, the 2nd tested us against ourselves. Really sad when most of your nation can't find New York state or the Pacific Ocean on a map.

 

[Elaina]

Your're killing me with your posts.lol lol

No no no. Like Hannibal, see, my thoughts are making your thoughts turn into Clarice. It's just breeding. I hear they do that sort of thing.

I really got to quit watching educational television. Next thing you know the serial killer information is going to start stalking the other thoughts, and well, that's just messy. Of course, probably wouldn't help on the America knowelge thing either (like serial killers are more prone to be all-American rounded males). I think I'm going to have to watch soap operas (which might just lead to cannibilistic, murdering dramatic thoughts, but I'll refain from sharing).

On the same token, I asked my 7 year old where the nation's capital was on a map. He couldn't find it. He could find Austin on the map. And the Mason/Dixon line. When pointed out he's lived above it, I got the reply "I'm sorry". Yet he can pick out a picture of Snoop Doggy dog from a line up. I'm afraid. Very afriad (and very busy. This is not going to cut it.) One of the men we have coffee with called this morning for me to take him out because he wasn't feeling well. When we all got to talking military service, my son asked if he was in it. He's a WWII vet and he blew it off and I said "Son, he's a hero, all men who serve their country are heroes." The response I recieved was there was no WWII, and that wars are fought by cowards and losers.

I could care less about civil history to be honest. I worry more about what these young ones get told.

Elaina

 

[jazzbass]

I got them all correct BUT wasn't the original wording "Life, Liberty and pursuit of property"??? I've been under the impression that Jefferson insisted it be changed.




jazzbass

 

[Paisley]

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

This paragraph is from an article in the Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2005, entitled "A Right, from the Start" by DARRIN M. MCMAHON:

Now Locke (like Jefferson) undoubtedly considered property a pleasure-giving thing. Yet contrary to popular belief, he never employed the specific phrase "life, liberty, and property," and there is no evidence to suggest that Jefferson was tempted to do so himself. Other Americans, it is true, invoked "life, liberty, and property," including the First Continental Congress, which worked those exact words into the "Declaration of Colonial Rights and Grievances" of 1774. But Jefferson was too much of a wordsmith to have failed to say precisely what he meant. If he had intended "happiness" to mean property and nothing else, he would have written it that way.

 

[Paisley]

Each subject seems to have its spokesman, who insists that one must know a good deal about that topic in order to be an intelligent and informed person. The professor who taught physical science to me as an undergrad would have us all do a long division problem, to show how inept modern students were at doing math. Of course we were all mostly unable to do the problem, as we hadn't done that sort of thing by hand for over a decade. He would then show the results to his colleagues, as if to say, "here is another example of the MTV generation's ignorance."

Respectfully, I think that when a genius like Sherlock Holmes is totally ignorant of some subject, people say he's an eccentric and cut him some slack. (I am thinking of Einstein's lack of fashion sense and the story of him getting lost and not knowing which hotel he was staying at.) But if an attractive woman displays some ignorance of, say, American geography or fractions, she's called a bimbo. The young woman on "Beauty and the Geek" who thought that Columbus sailed the ocean in 1942 may not have been the brightest bulb on the string, but really, she was probably no worse than many of her peers. I like to stay informed to avoid being the "bimbo."

Sorry, but THAT rant has wanted to come out for some time.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

Yahoo, I got 100. However, civics was one of my favorite classes. I much preferred it over math, but always loved science the best.

 

[Samsa]

Respectfully, I think that when a genius like Sherlock Holmes is totally ignorant of some subject, people say he's an eccentric and cut him some slack. (I am thinking of Einstein's lack of fashion sense and the story of him getting lost and not knowing which hotel he was staying at.) But if an attractive woman displays some ignorance of, say, American geography or fractions, she's called a bimbo. The young woman on "Beauty and the Geek" who thought that Columbus sailed the ocean in 1942 may not have been the brightest bulb on the string, but really, she was probably no worse than many of her peers. I like to stay informed to avoid being the "bimbo."

Sorry, but THAT rant has wanted to come out for some time.

I'll certainly concede that Holmes was meant to simply be an eccentric character, whose eccentricity made him more loveable as a character, if not more believable. Beneath the humor of that excerpt, however, I think is a kernel of truth: that simply memorizing facts (whether it be about American history, or whatever else) cannot, and should not, be equated with intelligence. In order for one to be a responsible member of the voting public, I think one should have some basic information down - the basics of American history (the revolution, constitution, slavery, civil war, etc.). I don't, however, think that someone who doesn't know what decade women were granted the right to vote in should be held up as an example of "what's wrong with education in this country."

My bone to pick is really with those who would use me (or anyone) as an example of "ignorance" according to his or her particular biased view of what facts a "properly educated" person should have at his or her command.

 

[Renderking Fisk]

Somewhere I read a factoid that 60% of High School Students didn't knew who the Allies fought in World War II, who were the Axis Powers were in Europe and who we fought against in the Pacific Theater during the same war...

Be afraid... be VERY afraid.