Posted on 10/02/2007 9:49:23 AM PDT by World_Events
If high school juniors' answers to a World War II questionnaire were strung together, here's how history would look:
World War II took place in 19-something, when Theodore Roosevelt was president and the Germans claimed to be the best race.
Hoping to aid Third World countries, the United States joined the war to stop racism and end the dispute over Jews.
The head of the Nazis was a killer named Hitler whose evil partner, Mussolini, was president of the USSR. Ultimately, the war ended with the bombing of Iwo Jima and Hitler's suicide. Then a treaty was signed. Not every 11th-grader who answered a Chronicle questionnaire at San Francisco's Burton High School responded with such a fractured version of history. Eight of the 34 students said correctly that "Roosevelt" or "FDR" was president during most of the war, apparently remembering the subject they had studied as sophomores last spring. Most knew about the attempted genocide of the Jews, all but three recognized Hitler, and eight placed the war in the 1940s.
But others, perhaps suffering a temporary memory lapse, variously named George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Richard Nixon and Winston Churchill as the war's main president. Eighteen students wisely left the answer blank.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Incredible. I guess they are spending too much time watching “An Inconvenient Truth” over and over again so they can tow the party line.
Given that this school is in San Francisco, I’m amazed that they don’t have their facts straight:
WWII was started by American racists, military industrialists and Republicans who wanted an excuse to lock up Japanese Americans. America invaded Europe to protect capitalism from the Soviet workers movement which was being popularly expanded by the proletariats and their champion, Joe Stalin. It ended with the destruction of the workers movement in Europe by bombing it back to the Stone Age, and dropping the A-bomb on Japan, which was begging for peace, women’s rights and equal pay.
1. USS Panay (of course, 1 sailor and 3 marines were wounded in the Japanese attack on Shanghai, and 1 sailor was killed and 19 wounded on the USS Augusta in two separate incidents at Shanghai, all earlier than the Panay attack)
2. December 12, 1937
3. USS Ruben James (It was the third US ship hit by the Germans in World War II, but the first sunk. 11 died and 22 were injured on the USS Kearny October 17, and 1 was injured on the USS Salinas October 30.
4. October 31, 1941
5. November 21, 1941
6. They fought on Java.
7. Several possible answers based upon whether Africa (Italian attack on Ethiopia), Asia (Japanese attack on China) or Europe is used as the starting point.
The combat phase(s) started somewhat later.
That is an acceptable answer under the terms of the question, although probably not the one I would have chosen.
They know who the commanders were for all of the major campaigns, axis and allies alike.
Both boys can cite gobs of statistics for WWII tanks. They both favor Michael Whitman as their favorite tank commander. (Kraut)
They read a lot.
Here's the limp answer from the history "teacher" who agreed to let the Chron quiz the kids:
"It's a bit disappointing," sighed their teacher, Theresa Quindlen, head of Burton High's history department, who agreed to let The Chronicle quiz her students and print the results. "But maybe something will spark their interest, and they'll become future readers of history."
Here's an article from eWeek about how today's kids are ill prepared for work in an increasingly high-tech economy:
Business Traces Work Force Gaps to Education
There was a sweet ending to this story.
At Palo Alto High, a lightbulb lit for 11th-grade history teacher David Rapaport a few years ago when a student's father handed him a World War II scrapbook he'd found in a dumpster.
"It was amazing," Rapaport said. "It was in perfect condition."
A soldier's wife named Barbara Costello had saved not only letters, telegrams and military orders, but every napkin and receipt remotely related to the service of her husband, William Costello.
Last year, Rapaport asked his students to trace the soldier's life.
The kids spent the year learning about the man, and ended up writing a "A Soldier's Scrapbook," a colorful, 40-page book they published themselves.
It's part World War II history, part love story. A photo of the couple's graves is on the back cover.
"Instead of listening to and reading history, we have uncovered it ourselves," writes Ali Arams, one of the book's 150 authors. "Our class has discovered history like no one else has before."
...The students produced 500 colorful, 40-page paperbacks with the help of a $3,000 grant from their school's site council. The students are selling the books for $10 and will put the proceeds back into the site council fund.
To buy one, send an e-mail to their history teacher, David Rapaport, at drapa port@pausd.org. Or place a phone order at the school by calling (650) 329-3836.
- Nanette Asimov
1)What was the name of the first US Naval ship bombed by the Japanese?
2)When was it sunk?
3) What was the name of the first US Naval vessel sunk by the Germans in World War II.
4)What month and year was it sunk?
5) When did the first National Guard Unit sail for the South Pacific?
6) Where did they fight?
7)Bonus question: In what year did World War II start. Explain your answer.
Today's typical HS student's answers:
1. The Enterprise
2. 1492
3. Hindenburg
4. February 1776
5. 1900
6. Bosnia
7. 1990, because the Germans were upset about the USA not signing the Kyoto Accord.
You can make a darn good case that WWI shaped the world more than WWII, which was largely a rematch that turned out the same way.
Meanwhile we are still dealing with the after-effects of Communism in Russia and the continual mess in the Middle East, both of which are direct results of WWI.
I suspect the only thing most yutes know about WWI is that it probably came before WWII. :)
What a sad comment.
You betcha!
ROLF!!!
bump for later read
The War in Europe started in earnest on 1st September 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland.
September 1st - Germany invades Poland.
September 3rd - Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany.
September 10th - Canada declares war on Germany.
“It is not all the fault of this “spoiled” generation. Who educated or
raised them?
Folks from our generation did. Garbage in....garbage out.”
In the main I agree.
And to buttress our case, I now call my first “witness”, historian/writer David McCullough
if the forum will indulge me in a repost from a previous thread...
in the form of an exerpt from “Imprimis” of April 2005 from his speech titled
“Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are”.
URL for the article:
http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2005&month=04
(begin excerpt from Imprimis)
Our Failure, Our Duty
We are raising a generation of young Americans who are by-and-large
historically illiterate. And it’s not their fault. There have been
innumerable studies, and there’s no denying it. I’ve experienced it
myself again and again. I had a young woman come up to me after a
talk one morning at the University of Missouri to tell me that she
was glad she came to hear me speak, and I said I was pleased
she had shown up.
She said, ”Yes, I’m very pleased, because until now I never understood that
all of the 13 colonies —the original 13 colonies—were on the east coast.“
Now you hear that and you think: What in the world have we done?
How could this young lady, this wonderful young American, become a
student at a fine university and not know that?
I taught a seminar at Dartmouth of seniors majoring in history,
honor students, 25 of them. The first morning we sat down and I said,
”How many of you know who George Marshall was?“
Not one.
There was a long silence and finally one young man asked,
”Did he have, maybe, something to do with the Marshall Plan?“
And I said yes, he certainly did, and that’s a good place to begin
talking about George Marshall.
(end excerpt from “Imprimis”)
Priceless ... and clever.
I must have been a real pain in class.
“In hopes that more kids will be similarly inspired, Quindlen, like some other Bay Area teachers, is giving students extra credit for watching the Ken Burns series “The War,” being aired on PBS.”
Yea letting PBS do the job you *cant*! I suppose we should be relived she is not showing it in class..
For the forum...
Here’s a link to an archive of threads on the PBS/Ken Burns production,
“The War”, including discussion threads on the parts of the series
and related threads touching on “The War” series.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=thewar
And here’s a short heads-up: PBS will air the final episode (Part 7)
tonight (Tues 10-2-07), airing at 7PM Central and reairing at 9:30PM.
Of course, the PBS stations don’t all stick to normal air-times/dates...
so it would be wise to check this URL for local PBS stations airtime
and date:
URLs for PBS websites:
URL to check listing for local PBS stations:
http://www.pbs.org/thewar/broadcast_schedule.htm
Bingo. You get it! Unfortunately, it may involve breaking the Democrat liberal chokehold on Congress and the Dept Of Education first....not a simple task.
To break the NEA, we would need to decertify about 40% of the teachers in the public school system - a tall order. The only other way I can see is make vouchers mandatory and fully funded by school tax money. In other words, if the average student cost per year is $9,500, a voucher to go to a school of the students choice for $9,500 would be mandatory.
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