Posted on 06/20/2018 6:29:08 PM PDT by huckfillary
If your kids don't know these things, it's time you seriously considered educational alternatives for your child. And please don't say you can't afford it, because you can't afford not to. If you love your children, take them out of public school, find a good private/parochial school, homeschool, or simply keep them at home. They'll learn a lot more watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune than spending seven hours in a government-run holding tank for the children of dysfunctional parents.
Below are subject matters that my peers and I learned between the ages of 10-17. These issues and facts were taught during the 60s and 70s. Minorities had no problems learning these things. Why do they have problems with them now ? It's called the "soft racism of low expectations."
Ask your children or grandchildren these questions. If they can't answer a good many of them, your children are the victims of child abuse.
QUESTIONS
Who invented the cotton gin?
The steamboat ?
The electric lightbulb?
Movable press?
The reaper?
The sewing machine?
Vulcanized rubber?
Can you identify all 50 states from a map of the United States? And name their capitals?
Can you diagram a sentence?
Do you know the rules governing the use of "less vs. fewer?"
Can you quickly recite the multiplication tables? Like, right now.
Can you discuss the significance and meaning of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and U.S. Constitution?
Can you name five major figures of the Renaissance? The Enlightenment?
On which date was Julius Caesar assassinated?
Could you identify most of the countries on a map of the world ?
Can you briefly discuss the early American settlements at Plymouth and Jamestown? What drew these early settlers to risk life and limb to come here?
Can you name the major battles of the War of Independence? Which war preceded the War of Independence that, in fact, helped set the stage for the War of Independence?
Can you prove that a triangle is 180 degrees?
Can you prove that alternate exterior angles are equal?
Can you name the formula of the Pythagorean Theorem?
Can you name the formula of Einstein's theory of relativity?
Can you cite the four rights enshrined in the First Amendment?
Can you name your Natural Rights? HINT: There are three.
Do you know the rules of punctuation, grammar, and syntax, i.e. the King's English---the correct use of quotation marks, when to use a semi-colon instead of a comma, the rules of capitalization, etc. ?
Can you name the seven continents?
Can you the name seven parts of speech?
Can you name the seven auxiliary verbs?
Do you know the "rule of three" in mathematics?
Have you read any of the following---A Tale of Two Cities, any Shakesperean plays, Oliver Twist, Wuthering Heights, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Last of the Mohicans, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Little Women, Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Democracy in America ? If not, can you at least name the authors of these classics ?
Do you know the difference between a peninsula and isthmus?
Can you briefly discuss the Protestant Reformation, Counter Reformation? Can you name the major players of these historic periods?
Who is Charlemagne and why is he important? On which day was he crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor and what was the name of the crown?
Can you discuss the Age of Discovery? Columbus, Pizarro, de Leon, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Magellan, Balboa ? What can you say about these conquistadores and explorers?
Can you identify at least five major figures of the Enlightenment ? Can you identify the generally accepted years during which the Enlightenment took place? What was the significance of the period? Explain its impact on our own history?
Our country is routinely called a democracy. This is soooo incorrect. Our Founding Fathers loathed the idea of democracy, likening it to the "rule of the mob." Which term correctly describes our form of government?
What is a synonym? An antonym ? A homonym?
Do you know when to use there, their, and they're ? Your and you're ?
Do you know the formulae for converting Fahrenheit to Celsius and vice versa?
Can you name the planets? In order of their distance from the sun ?
Can you name the oceans ?
What was the first battle/act of aggression in the War of Northern Aggression (i.e. Civil War) ?
Can you name the Great Lakes ? In order of size ?
I could go on and on. But these are just the basics of grammar, mathematics, and history that all of us were required to learn while attending school in the 60s and 70s. Minorities were required to learn these things, and did. I don't recall any minorities struggling with these things. If they are, it's termed the "soft racism of low expectations."
Quite a few of those queries weren't even known by kids, who went to school in the 1920s through the early '60s, when such things WERE actually being routinely taught, until they were in high school.
My grandparents were taught algebra and geometry in the 7th and 8th grade; however, by the time I was in school, even elite private schools were NOT teaching algebra and geometry until high school!
OTOH...my progeny got algebra ( but NOT geometry ), in a very elite private day school.
And now their progeny are getting sort of algebra and geometry, in a private day lower & middle school; however, classic lit is no longer being required reading in any lower nor middle school, that I know of, to the extent it once was,so the English section of this article is also ridiculous because it doesn't have age groupings.
The history part is also all over the place! The ENLIGHTENMENT? In what grades? That wasn't EVER taught in lower grades, in this nation. But some of the other stuff was and still is.
Let’s take the first question.
“Who invented the cotton gin?”
I remember studying about that in grade school.
If you look up “cotton gin” on the Internet (which is what a kid would do), Wikipedia will show you that it was Eli Whitney.
If you continue to read the article, you will read that the cotton gin caused the Civil War.
So, what has the child learned?
Baloney.
Teach the child to research and then question and think.
The Liberals consider themselves to be highly educated because they know Eli Whitney caused slavery.
23.
“If they know how to pull up porn on their phones they meet the Public schools standards for HS graduation.
Ready for welfare or jail or both”
For heaven’s sake,give it a rest.
There are many excellent public schools,many,
There are 40 or 50 million US kids in public schools—your ridiculous comment is ludicrous.
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You've never read any of those books, as a kid? Cripes...you must have gone to lousy schools and been ignored by parents/grandparents/aunts & uncles!
My phone knows all these answers and more. duh.
March 15, 44 BC
I learned about Eli Whitney in the third grade and NOTHING at all was said about it "causing the Civil War"!
No it doesn’t!
If you say 23,I believe you——my list,which I memorized in 1948,has 21-——and I can still recite it.(Maybe I lost two over 70 years.) :-)
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Well said, and I appreciate your posts on Grace church. I know John.
And public schools are preparing them for jobs bagging groceries for college educated Indians and Chinese.
And to join Antifa.
Re: “Douchebag” and “impressive level of shrillness”
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He’s just illustrating the dumbing down of US education (i.e. lowering the level of difficulty and the intellectual content of something, such as a textbook; also : lowering the general level of intelligence in society.)
...as also described in the following article
An 1895 8th Grade Final Exam: I Couldn’t Pass It. Could You?
https://newrepublic.com/article/79470/1895-8th-grade-final-exam-i-couldnt-pass-it-could-you
Didn’t Don McClean cover this in Great American Pie?
I went to some good schools and some bad. I have a bunch of degrees. I just don’t know all those things in that list. And I can live with it. I can find that stuff out any time.
I think it said life, liberty, and property originally and was changed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which meant the right to determine one’s own destiny. But I could be misremembering.
Thanks and thanks.
If you don’t know the name of the Civil War...
Lol
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