Posted on 09/14/2010 8:32:16 AM PDT by conservativegramma
IMO this test should be brought back and not only for 8th graders, but should be mandatory for anyone to pass prior to being registered to vote!
Nevertheless, this definitely answers the question why so many of our children are clueless, and so many of us seasoned citizens actually do have a functioning knowledge of how our govt is supposed to work.
But, I had a general science class in 1954 and some of the questions on a 25 question test were: Explain how a wet cell battery works; explain how a mercury light works; explain how a doorbell works. Only 2 kids passed...one was later our class valdictorian and the other our salutatorian. I was neither. LOL!
The teacher was so mad he told us we would have to take it until we passed...he quit giving it after seven more times. I never did pass it. I still don't understand how a murcery light works and only care that it comes on at dusk. :)
“Smarter” is a ludicrous misnomer for a test that measures how much information someone has. A stupid person could have more information than a smart person on any number of topics.
I don’t think so. I know a lot of recently minted citizens who barely speak English.
Education has just changed tremendously.
I was seated next to a young minister at a wedding reception last year and I started asking him some questions that I have had left over from the side affects of a freshman survey of religion class. I asked him if he had read Tillich, Niebuhr or Bonhoeffer and I told him that we read them as freshman in college in a required course and that they left me more questions than answers. I always like to get into a good religious discussion with ministers who have read them.
He hadn’t read them, except a little Bonhoeffer. Anyway, the upshot was that he was shocked that students read them in a required 101 religion course as freshmen because he said that graduate students in theology have a hard time with them. I told him that education has changed. Then I told him that when I was in 8th grade, I had to do a 20 page paper on the Effect of the Monroe Doctrine on the US foreign policy during the pre-Civil War period. He just looked at me and shook his head.
Had to memorize the presidents also. Today I can only remember the first 6 and those since FDR...Washington, Adams Jefferson, Madison Monroe Quincy Adams.(I think) Why being past 70 I still remember those is beyond me....
LOL I took Civics and thats were I learned about football. Teacher would have 2 teams and if your team got the right answer you got to move your ball toward the goal posts...If your team missed a question, the ball was turned over to the other team....the boys in class loved it, us girls learned the game.
I agree. I have a friend whose parents are American citizens from Russia and can’t even speak English. It is stunning considering they have been here 40 years.
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