Posted on 09/28/2009 4:27:05 AM PDT by IbJensen
Several years ago, I discovered a curious phenomenon among the diverse freshmen in the developmental English classes I teach. These are students who fail the placement exam and are forced to take a reading and writing refresher course before moving on to basic composition. In one of their grammar exercises, the name Charles Lindbergh appears. What I discovered was that roughly 90% of the developmental students didn't know who he was.
That in itself would be unremarkable. More remarkable was the fact that when I mentioned the name to my honors students, roughly 90% knew that Lindbergh was a pilot, and the majority correctly identified him as the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
Afterwards, I joked with colleagues about scrapping our entire English placement procedure and just asking students, as they registered, to identify Charles Lindbergh. If they couldn't, they'd be placed in developmental English.
But the Lindbergh phenomenon highlights a more serious deficit. Eight decades ago, Charles Lindbergh was perhaps the most famous human being on the planet. He's part of the cultural ether. Even if there's no need to know who he was, it's virtually impossible to grow up in America and never hear his name. It's a point of reference in newspaper and magazine articles, movies and documentaries, television shows, songs, even old cartoons.
In all likelihood, therefore, the developmental students had heard the name Charles Lindbergh. It's just that 90% never cared enough to follow through. They never looked him up in a reference book or on the web. They never asked their parents or teachers. They just shrugged and went on with their lives.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
This is another thing we can thank our Congress for. We needed a DOE like we needed a FEMA!
And, aside from a rather ignorant remark about Katrina and President Bush, Kanye West’s contributions to history have been ......?
Your rant is straight out of the books by your neo-Nazi hero Pat Buchanan. Buchanan’s family (and possible yours) were probably present at the Madison Square Garden “American Bund” rally in February 1939 where swastikas were displayed and “Sieg Heil” was sounded. The leader of the Bund, Fritz Kuhn, and many of his true believers were later arrested, interned, and some were deported. Lindberg and the more radical members of the America First Committee were traitors and should have been arrested as well. Lindberg was no hero.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/image/157736/index.html?cat=37
Your supposition that we were Nazis is as disgusting as being cast as such by the phony government our country presently suffers under.
I believe that your sympathies lie with Obamaism and the scheme they have to subjugate us and make us conservatives trot around like good little communists.
Tending to our own sphere of influence, ala Monroe Doctrine, would have been pretty good advice.
I imagine you believe the increasing numbers of muslims is a good thing for America.
One last thought: you know a lot of details about pre WWII Nazi activities that I don't. That is very interesting. After this exchange I don't want to ever encounter you or your hateful comments.
You are beyond despicable!
But that is exactly the point - make all families dysfunctional and retard everyone to the point of perpetual adolescence...
I love it when concise comments hew so closely to the mark...
I got that, but you missed the point of my response. It's a false indicator. 10% of his honors students didn't know. So what good is it? It's the prof's personal rant against people who don't know who Lindberg is.
It's on the same level as English professors who lament that nobody uses the same grammar rules that were in place 100 years ago. It's a pointless rant. Language changes over time. Grammar rules change over time. It's the communication that is important. Just look at Beowolf.
The history facts that we choose to educate are constantly being revised, added to and pared down. Knowledge of Lindberg has dropped dramatically in 80 years. It will continue to drop in the next 80.
If one were to apply Goldblatt's recommended "Lindberg test", the response from a significant fraction of students hereabouts would be,
"Why you bees a-hatin' on me?"
To some, (most of whom do lack basic curiosity) any attempt to promote real learning is considered to be a form of punishment. None of those folks should be sent to a college -- which will only reinforce their anti-intellectualism, and will stuff their susceptible crania with tons of Alinski-ACORN "mush"...
Now that's just idiocracy.
I have one of those myself, it’s early yet, but I don’t see him going to college. Trade school or apprenticeship is going to be where he goes.
The idea of setting off across the atlantic in a single engine prop plane, even a modern one, without radar, radio, or Facebook, is a compelling story at any time in history.
HA! I just designed a board that spec’d a LM7805 voltage regulator. Oldie but goodie.
I swear all that surface mounts stuff is going to make me go blind.
I’ve done a 144 QFP package on 25 mil centers with a hand soldering iron. Needed a stiff scotch by the time I was done...
Through hole boards are so much easier to troubleshoot.
Curiosity only gets most students to the wikipedia level of knowledge. It's important but overrated. Competition with peers is a powerful motivator in the classroom. Probably the biggest motivator overall is earning social status for academic success. It's appalling how few teachers know what really motivates students to get through the hard stuff. Many public school teachers actually try to reduce competitive pressure to appease feelings of envy among the future Democrat voters.
>>Therefore, they can string a sentence
>>together reasonably well and not need remedial English.
Yeah, but can they play football and sell Homer Simpson his Bread, Circuses, and Beer?
Buy More, Bee Happy - Bzzz!
—THX1138
>>especially in smaller companies.
Disney was one of the most vicious corporate environments I ever observed.
One of the benefits of being a contractor is being able to observe the hive-caste members eating each other alive inside the termite mound; and to observe it from a relatively safe distance, while enjoying considerably higher compensation.
Caste-members are supposed to slobber all over themselves fo the privilege of working themselves to death for the benefit of the hive - a mindset is reflected in the programing of Disney’s Corporatist/Collectivist propaganda mill - ABC / ESPN...
...from which Homer Simpson laps up his Bread and Circus allotment, licks the plate clean, and begs for more.
I, too have been amazed what a massive and diverse repository of solved problems resides in my old computer programs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Of course, I would bet that you and I were of the "old school" wherein we wrote our own "subroutines" to accomplish specific tasks -- efficiently.
"Programmers" nowadays spend most of their time trying to find a pre-written ("one size fits none") "object" in a long list, and then in applying "exceptions" until the code is sufficiently 'bloated' that it fits "well enough".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Few activities are as educational as teaching oneself programming languages and then using them to solve real-world problems (efficiently)...
Not knowing those answers is not illiteracy. Not having the curiosity to search for the answers is (per Goldblatt -- with whom I agree) the root of illiteracy.
BTW, a 30-second search revealed that significant artistic activity ca 400 BC was occurring within the Olmec, the Greek, and the Slovenian "Este" cultures. If I wanted to spend a bit more time, (rather than writing this) I expect I could unearth some actual artists' names (among the Greeks, at least).
Storage of facts is not equal to "literacy". Wanting to know, knowing where to look, and having the inner drive to do so are the rootstocks of literacy...
That is fantastic. My 16 year old daughter has probably read all of Lewis’s fictional books 4 or 5 times. Anyone who can read and understand any of his books has a good, if not excellent, grasp of the English language and will be successful in other endeavours.
Well, I can see your point moving into the upper ranks, but I’m in a HUGE company, and Managers and what we call “Individual Contributors” don’t get burned too much by politics. Most of the times I’ve noticed political difficulty are with family-owned or smaller divisions I’ve worked for.
Maybe I’m living in Bizzaro World, though. I wouldn’t be able to tell, would I? Just anecdotal evidence is all I’ve got.
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