A marketing thing? Come to Saturn! We have rings!
Posted on 04/13/2012 9:56:24 PM PDT by grundle
The social news-sharing site Reddit has a knack for exposing people and situations. The latest topic of discussion to generate controversy is a series of tweets from people who did not know that the sinking of the Titanic was a real historical event.
Apparently, an entire generation of people associate "Titanic" with the Hollywood blockbuster starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Here is the disambiguation for you. The RMS Titanic sank April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg. The tragedy is considered one of the deadliest of peacetime maritime disasters. More than 1,500 people died.
"Titanic" the film was released December 19, 1997, and was an instant success. It became the highest-grossing film of all time for 12 years, until "Avatar" debuted in 2009.
For all the history buffs reading this, the next couple of sentences may be too painful to contemplate. A couple of the tweets from the uninformed read, "Nobody told me titanic was real? How am I just finding this out?" Another tweet read, "Guys, the Titanic was real! #mindblown."
Most people aware of the existence of the RMS Titanic are in disbelief. One such person tweeted, "The ignorance is astounding." Another person said he was "weeping for the future" at finding out that so many young people are unfamiliar with such a well-known fact.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I too spent many an hour reading through our old World Books.
Ours was from 1957 so it was a bit outta date for the 70s but I loved reading them just the same.
I believe it.
Simmilar story for me. Short version Daughter in HS. Report on Revolutionary war. Result, passed with high grade.
The report ENDED at Revere’s ride. I asked “Where’s the war?”
She replied...”That’s all they taught us.”
I taught her the rest.
He just never bothered to learn any Geography.”
Your roomie sounds like Sherlock Holmes (the following from “A Study in Scarlet”):
“My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
‘You appear to be astonished,’ he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. ‘Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.’
‘To forget it!’
‘You see,’ he explained, ‘I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.’
‘But the Solar System’ I protested.
‘What the deuce is it to me?’ he interrupted impatiently: ‘you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.’”
My daughter incurred $600 in international charges on her cell phone bill for calling her friend in Panama. She said she didn’t know it was international. Publik skool steenks.
She said, “Mind if I ask you a question?”
I said, “No, go ahead.”
“When we've talked in the past, you say things in such a ‘matter of fact’ voice and assumed I knew about them. Often, I've never even heard of these things. Where’d you learn all this?”
I was dumbfounded, but I said: “I've always been a reader and I've always been fascinated with history. Who are we as people? What kinds of things did other people do that we can learn from? Why are things today the way they are — cause and effect. Learning never stops. Just because you've graduated from school means your learning about life continues until you breathe your last. We live in a marvelous age of information, but there's a downside. The sum total of all human knowledge doubles every ten years! Think about that — then realize how much you have to learn about the world you live in.”
History teacher here. I can only try to teach them what I can. *sigh*
Don’t get me wrong. I know there are still good teachers. And I personally know two that quit the system because ‘the system’ made them ‘not’ teach, just babysit. I do not envy you. To want to teach, to be able to teach and to have PC BS stop you has to be incredibly frustrating.
All I can say is thank you for trying.
You’re quite welcome. I really enjoy teaching. It’s nice to be able to put my degree to some use. :)
I have a wonderful boss, she lets me teach, just I have to deal with some of the other teachers wanting to put me in their box. It’s irritating to be working with those with so much more life experience that just don’t seem to get it.
It’s one thing with the kids, but ignorance in the teachers is something else.
A marketing thing? Come to Saturn! We have rings!
Ping. You might be interested in the anecdotes on this thread. Then again, as I think about it, you’ve probably heard it all before, and then some.
For those who don’t know, FReeper LS is historian Larry Schweikart. His A Patriot’s History of the United States is required reading. See all of his books at his profile page:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~ls/index
You might be interested in my previous post, if you don’t know about LS and his books already.
Can I venture a guess that most of the morons who didn’t know the Titanic sinking was real probably (without being forced to) have never read a newspaper, book, or magazine not having to do with entertainment in their short, shallow lives. Further interrogations of these numbskulls would most likely find them not knowing a lot of other things people taken for granted as common knowledge by most people. When I was about seven or eight, I knew about the sinking of the Titanic. And there several movies about the sinking that were making the rounds. In fact I remember seeing pictures of the Andrea Doria on the front page of the local rag as well. Too young to read the story, but I remember the pictures. This is the age we live in where “news” about celebrities takes precedence over hard news.
How about the SS Sultana?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Sultana
Around 1,600 US deaths. How many US folks know about that one?
“She said she didn’t know it was international.”
I often think I’m in Mexico without leaving Maryland.
No Way!
American people are getting Dumber and Dumberer.
When teaching middle school social studies and language arts, I would have the kids read that book, and then watch the movie. I had heavily diversified students, most of whom never had heard anything bad had ever happened to anyone who wasn’t black. I am haunted by a scene in that story about a women who secretly gives birth in the camp, and then, of course, gets caught.
1.41 sra
Women=womAn
Too early to read, apparently :)
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