And whatever point you were trying to make is lost. Unless that was the rest of what you were trying to say and someone sang that song on yesterday's episode of American Idol.
If that is what comes into your mind when you hear the name "John Jay", it is a sad commentary on the literacy of the American public in the 21st century indeed.
It is. In school, I loved history, particularly US history. In school, John Jay was a guy that went to France and the French tried to extor a bribe from him. It was known as the "XYZ" affair. John Jay returned to the US. The End. He had no more importance than that.
I had always considered myself knowledgeable (what teenager doesn't?). I did well on all of the tests and scored high on my assignments. I had never bothered to consider that I wasn't being taught the whole story or the correct and factual version of the story. I had just figured that we were covering the "most important" aspects. As a child and young adult, I suppose that you never think an adult (particularly an authority figure) would lead you astray. Of course, I always liked to read books. I had read several on WWII and enjoyed the "inside story." in a way it was like knowing something nobody else does.
And then it came to my sophmore-junior years and I started to realize that some things didn't make sense and some things were missing.
I never understood the importance of this until after I graduated. To this day, it irks me when I recall something from school that I now know to be incorrect, or not up to muster. For example, I can remember the paperbacks that were handed out "US and Them: A History of Intolerance in America." I posted on here the other day about one of my teachers that had told us "socialism was the best form of government because everbody worked for the betterment of everyone else."
It is not hard to walk away from 12 years of school knowing little more than George Washington was the first president, Lincoln was the 16th and freed the slaves. FDR was the greatest president. He saved us all from the Great Depression and had everything set to win WWII, but he died and Truman stepped in. We fought in Korea in the 50's... nothing significant to teach about that. And, oh yeah the US used The Gulf of Tonkin incident to go and get us into the Vietnam War where tens of thousands of Americans died; we realized it was bad....The End, no further discussion. The rest is marred by bigotry and corruption.
And this my FRiends is why the missus and I are going to homeschool (I say "going to"... my son is 2 and we go over numbers, letters, colors, saying grace, shapes, etc etc).
it is a sad commentary on the literacy of the American public in the 21st century indeed.
It is. In school, I loved history, particularly US history. In school, John Jay was a guy that went to France and the French tried to extort a bribe from him. It was known as the "XYZ" affair. John Jay returned to the US. The End. He had no more importance than that.
I had always considered myself knowledgeable (what teenager doesn't?). I did well on all of the tests and scored high on my assignments. I had never bothered to consider that I wasn't being taught the whole story or the correct and factual version of the story. I had just figured that we were covering the "most important" aspects. As a child and young adult, I suppose that you never think an adult (particularly an authority figure) would lead you astray. Of course, I always liked to read books. I had read several on WWII and enjoyed the "inside story." In a way it was like knowing something nobody else does.
And then it came to my sophmore-junior years and I started to realize that some things didn't make sense and some things were missing.
I never understood the importance of this until after I graduated. To this day, it irks me when I recall something from school that I now know to be incorrect, or not up to muster. For example, I can remember the paperbacks that were handed out "US and Them: A History of Intolerance in America." I posted on here the other day about one of my teachers that had told us "socialism was the best form of government because everbody worked for the betterment of everyone else."
It is not hard to walk away from 12 years of school knowing little more than George Washington was the first president, Lincoln was the 16th and freed the slaves. FDR was the greatest president. He saved us all from the Great Depression and had everything set to win WWII, but he died and Truman stepped in. We fought in Korea in the 50's... nothing significant to teach about that. And, oh yeah the US used The Gulf of Tonkin incident to go and get us into the Vietnam War where tens of thousands of Americans died; we realized it was bad....The End, no further discussion. The rest is marred by bigotry and corruption.
And this my FRiends is why the missus and I are going to homeschool (I say "going to"... my son is 2 and we go over numbers, letters, colors, saying grace, shapes, etc etc).