NOT. The Western Canon is based on the common knowledge of facts about many things passed from one generation to another. Although today's kids can operate cell phones and computers, they (and their teachers) are woefully short on factual ... or what should be common ... knowledge.
E.G., common arithmetic is known now as "Math," and many of today's kids (or their teachers), cannot figure out square roots, areas, fractions, multiplication, long division, or heavens forfend, percentages. Reading and writing? See Trayvon's texts.
Stop 10 people on the streets of your town and ask them to point to Afghanistan on a map, name the state capital, explain the difference between "I and me," or "who and whom," or maybe ask who their congressman is.
As a group, Sac, despite much better tools, we are a lot dumber than previous generations. How do you think we got the present recumbent in the WH?
Thanks Jim Noble. I needed that. The purpose of public school today is "socialization and equalization," not education. I shall remember your thought when attempting to communicate with the exasperatingly ignorant products of modern public education.
Unfair comparison. The people who wrote that exam never imagined, in a million years, that Trayvon would ever take it.