Free Republic
Browse · Search
GOP Club
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Americans are poorly prepared for citizenship
Annuit Coeptis ^ | July 13, 2010 | James H. Shott

Posted on 07/13/2010 5:24:46 AM PDT by James H. Shott

Pathetic. That’s the word for it. A huge number of Americans don’t have the faintest idea what their country is all about. Most know that the 4th of July is also known as “Independence Day,” but too many have no idea of its significance.

Tonight Show host Jay Leno did a “Jaywalking” feature in which he posed questions about July 4th to random Americans on New York streets. The degree of ignorance about their country’s origins was nothing less than astonishing.

Read more


TOPICS: Issues
KEYWORDS: culture; education; government; politics
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-35 last
To: KingLudd

Or, he looked at those ‘tards and thought, “I’m gonna die in a pool of my own filth while those morons watch “American Idol” and eath Cheetos.”?


21 posted on 07/13/2010 6:22:51 AM PDT by SJSAMPLE
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: James H. Shott

Mississippi used to have a VERY simple civics test that they would give to random voters to ensure that they had some idea what government was about and they knew what they were voting on. The Federal government, led by “progressives” (flaming liberals) in the LBJ administration got the courts to outlaw it. You see what we now have in DC.


22 posted on 07/13/2010 6:24:02 AM PDT by The Sons of Liberty (The usurper 0bama regime is a "Clear and Present Danger" to AMERICA! - Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Peanut Gallery

Ping


23 posted on 07/13/2010 6:26:51 AM PDT by Professional Engineer (Conservative States of America has a nice ring to it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: James H. Shott
My part-time boogie is a survey research center. Some questions we ask are political in the most generic way.

I love to hear the self-identified Liberals/Democrats spew their opinions (albeit unsupported and ill-conceived), then voluntarily admit that they don't know what ‘redistricting’ means...even though NOT KNOWING this basic mechanism of our voting process did not keep them from forming the most birdbrained and infantile political ‘opinions’.

24 posted on 07/13/2010 6:30:01 AM PDT by SMARTY ("What luck for rulers that men do not think." Adolph Hitler)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goat granny
Dear Goat Granny:

My chidren know their history. Braddack's defeat, General Israel Putnam, the Bonhomme Richard vs. the Serapis, Breed and Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, the Mount Vernon Conference, the Annapolis Convention, the Declaration of Independence, the life of George Washington, Paul Revere, Benedict Arnold, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin.

My son (age 10) saw this clip and laughed his butt off. "Churchill?" he howled. "That's WWII, you idiot! England! He wasn't even a general. What a retard!"

Where did my babies learn all this?

Homeschool.

25 posted on 07/13/2010 6:43:08 AM PDT by TheWriterTX (-)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: TheWriterTX

Good mommy and good daddy...:O) I was thinking of the publix skhool...


26 posted on 07/13/2010 6:47:04 AM PDT by goat granny
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: huldah1776

If you and others on this thread think lack of basic knowledge among Americans is outrageous, try having them as employees. About 10 years ago, my Indian structural engineer had to teach one of the CAD techs, with an architectural degree, how to spell and add (difficulty with fractions). The “kid” (five years of working experience at the time) couldn’t even balance his checkbook because he didn’t record ATM withdrawals.

Yes, selective memory is understandable but knowing things that directly impact one’s personal and professional life (I would argue the operation of government is one of those things) should be part of that memory. At age 26, the tech still had mom doing his laundry. Talk about stunted adolescence.


27 posted on 07/13/2010 6:57:00 AM PDT by 12Gauge687 (Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Pecos; James H. Shott

I have had conversations with several recent university graduates in this area and I have yet to find one who could pass the history test to get INTO high school in my era (I am 66) don’t even talk about passing the FINALS TO GRADUATE high school, they probably couldn’t score twenty percent.

Worse yet, when talking to a candidate who was running in the primary for state superintendent of education in SC I mentioned that some recent graduates can’t even tell me what country the colonies went to war against to gain independence and form the United States of America. Are you ready for her answer to me? “I am an English major, not a history major”.

In my day it was not a question of what your major was, you studied American history, your state history, World history, Geography, Civics, the Constitution, the functions of all three branches of government, all this began in grade school and continued through high school. We studied the constitution in detail including each amendment and how it affected our lives. We wrote essays on how a bill went through congress and the ways in which a bill could be vetoed and how a veto could be overridden. We studied every American president, every war, every major piece of national legislation, treaties etc., we studied the Magna Charta and how our law evolved from English common law, we knew what happened at the Battle of Hastings and the date it happened. I don’t know how much I could remember on an exam now, certainly not all of it but if I could do as well as I did back then I could probably pass the exam for a BA in history right now just based on what I learned in public school.

Yes, Leno is probably picking the least knowledgeable but I would wager that had he picked the top twenty percent the results would still be pathetic.

What I find equally as frightening as the lack of knowledge of history is the careless and unknowing use of the English language by people who should know better. No one of us uses perfect grammar but it is ridiculous to see how many don’t have a clue about there, their and they’re or to, two and too or you’re, your and yours or whose and who’s or its and it’s, the list goes on, very few under fifty years old seem to have a clue about pronoun usage, apostrophes are used on plurals and dropped from possessives where they belong and added to possessives where they DON’T belong. Apparently most English TEACHERS are no longer qualified if we are to judge by the students they send out to be “journalists”.


28 posted on 07/13/2010 7:03:11 AM PDT by RipSawyer (Trying to reason with a leftist is like trying to catch sunshine in a fish net at midnight.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: saganite

They didn’t plant a flag on Mars. It was all filmed in a studio in Los Angeles. The Mars landings were all faked! (Despite what Sheila Jackson Lee said...)


29 posted on 07/13/2010 7:09:21 AM PDT by 17th Miss Regt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: James H. Shott; knittnmom
A middle-aged fellow said the number of original colonies “right now, I guess, thirty?” His wife was called in to help. Jay asked if she helps her teenage son with his homework, and she said she did. He asked what happened on the 4th of July. “I have no clue,” she replied. The son was called in, and answered the question “What happened on Independence Day?” with, “Independence broke out.” The three stumped family members then summoned grandpa, a man probably in his 60s. He knew the answer to every question, including where the Statue of Liberty came from (France), and what bird appears on the Great Seal (bald eagle), all without stopping to think.

Go Grandpa!!!!!!!!
30 posted on 07/13/2010 8:54:06 AM PDT by Ellendra (I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who say it's a crisis, ACT like it's a crisis!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: huldah1776

I must be an oddity, I use algebra, trig, geometry, and occasionally calculus, all the time. And not because I have to, but because it makes things easier for me. Everything from groceries to planning my garden to designing my house, and recently, I use them for my new sewing business (it makes altering patterns so much easier.)

I’m weird.


31 posted on 07/13/2010 9:03:55 AM PDT by Ellendra (I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who say it's a crisis, ACT like it's a crisis!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: saganite

Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen firsthand in dealing with the general public, they wouldn’t have had to do much editing. One of my parents’ friends thinks cosmetics are made from boiled-down roadkill!


32 posted on 07/13/2010 9:06:56 AM PDT by Ellendra (I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who say it's a crisis, ACT like it's a crisis!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: RipSawyer
No one of us uses perfect grammar but it is ridiculous to see how many don’t have a clue about there, their and they’re or to, two and too or you’re, your and yours or whose and who’s or its and it’s, the list goes on, very few under fifty years old seem to have a clue about pronoun usage, apostrophes are used on plurals and dropped from possessives where they belong and added to possessives where they DON’T belong. Apparently most English TEACHERS are no longer qualified if we are to judge by the students they send out to be “journalists”.

The English teachers I had in high school, you didn't have to look at their students to know they weren't qualified. The teachers themselves didn't know the differences between homonyms. My mother once sent back the syllabus with corrections!
33 posted on 07/13/2010 9:16:21 AM PDT by Ellendra (I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who say it's a crisis, ACT like it's a crisis!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: James H. Shott

That why we call them sheep.


34 posted on 07/13/2010 11:52:16 AM PDT by TexasRepublic (Socialism is the gospel of envy and the religion of thieves)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ellendra

Thanks for sharing that, it confirms what I had suspected for quite some time.

It is really scary, I studied electronics for almost a year full time in the Navy. This was said at the time to be the equal of a college degree in electronics but without any electives, purely electronic theory and some math. I have never taken any other course beyond the high school level. When I listen to college graduates or read their writing and realize that they are making the kind of errors that would have kept me in the eighth grade, I simply don’t know what to think. It seems that many today share the attitude that all that liberal arts stuff, language, history, literature, etc. is unimportant but I don’t buy it. Liberal arts courses are education, electronic theory is job training. Job training is about making a living, real education is about making a life. It should be obvious by now that too many Americans have been taught nothing about making a life, if they had we would not have the ruined political system, moral decay and wrecked economy that threatens to bring an end to this once great nation.

We also wouldn’t have millions of young people trying to pay off large debts incurred while spending several years obtaining a college degree that accounts for much less of a real education than a high school diploma used to represent. We also wouldn’t have employers demanding a minimum of a BA for jobs that are really no more demanding than the sort that used to be done by tenth grade dropouts.

Western civilization will not survive if no one is taught the history and literature of Western civilization. It will exist only in the written records of what used to be unless it is taught to all and not just to a select few who major in history or literature.

I don’t say these things because I consider myself highly educated, I consider myself POORLY educated. That is why it makes me feel so sick to know that some young people have degrees but less real education than I have and yet are saddled with huge debts even though they have not learned the things that used to be taught in the public high schools.


35 posted on 07/13/2010 2:42:26 PM PDT by RipSawyer (Trying to reason with a leftist is like trying to catch sunshine in a fish net at midnight.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-35 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
GOP Club
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson