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Another favorite

The teacher in Arkansas asked her class, "Now, who can tell me who our president was during the Civil War?"

A little boy raised his hand. "Yes, Johnny?" said the teacher.

"Jefferson Davis," the boy said proudly. And no one could argue with that.

[LS]

I can attest to this. My incoming freshment NEVER have a clue as to where the "Austro-Hungarian Empire" was; who might have been president in, say, the late 1880s; or (sometimes) even what "emancipation" means. Some of us fight, but it does appear to be a losing battle.

[Red Jones]

but what about their self-esteem?

[fqued]

A thought experiment:

In 1950, the information on which these questions were based was essentially the scope of general knowledge.

In 2002, the information on which these questions is based is, let's say, approximately four times as large (virtually all that we know about the solar system was learned in the last twenty years, the same is true, more or less, for a variety of fields of knowledge).

Therefore, a college grad in 2002 who gets the same score as a 1950's high school grad should have four times the general knowledge.

A second thought experiment:

What did people do in the 1950's? Sports, read newspapers and books, watched black and white television (after 1954), and played board games.

What does the average youth do in 2002? Sports (some), reads printed matter (some), watches television, AND plays highly interactive computer games, often with people from around the world, searches the Web (explain that to a person in 1950), etc, etc, etc.

conclusion: that which defines an educated or knowledgeable person in 1950 is different than that which defines such a person in 2002.

Third thought experiment . . .well, you get the idea.

[thedugal]

Well, I'll be honest, I have been out of school for 10 years and I only got 75% of the 12 questions posted. That's more than '50s high schoolers or today's college seniors, but most on this thread seem to think everyone should know all of these questions.

But today's world is so much different. It's not called the Information Age for nothing. I program in well over a dozen computer languages. I know more about things that didn't even exist in the 50's than most people could learn in 10 years of school. I speak 2 languages fluently and 1 other language intermediately. I read local newspaper articles from at least 10 different countries everyday. Everyday, I read for 3-4 hours and don't even make a dent. Some days I spend almost all day simply browsing news from around the world.

I am so accustomed to reading on a computer that I have no way of assessing how much I have actually taken in. On occassion, I will decide to print something and will be shocked to find it is a few hundred pages long.

Sometimes too much information just bogs you down. I could write several volumes on certain topics, but on others, I don't even have a cursory knowledge. Nowadays I only try to remember the general topic and basic keywords. Then if I ever need to know more, I interface my brain with Google. Saves brain cells.

[goodnesswins]

Let's see.....and what was significant about that time period? There was NO TV to speak of.

[goodnesswins]

The Good Old Days (Good, Sentimental, Read)
email | unknown | email

Posted on 12/12/2002 7:27 AM PST by frmrda

Can't Believe You Made It,

If you lived as a child in the 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's.
Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have...

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!)

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a Tfew times we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. Our parents knew that all the neighbors would watch out for all the kids. No cell phones. Unthinkable. We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth, and there were no law suits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame, but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never overweight... we were always outside playing. We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, video games at all, 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms .. we had friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door,or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do it?

[weegee]

Nothing is better than a good command of the English language.

A college degree is better than nothing.

Therefore, a college degree is better than a good command of the English language.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

This isn't that surprising. In the 50s being a college graduate meant something. Today, not only does almost anyone get into college, almost anyone gets through college. And there's no shortage of morons with PhDs running around these days.

[warchild9]

In the past few years, I've picked through a large sample of new college graduates trying to fill technical positions, and the greater proportion are immature illiterates. It's EXTREMELY frustrating when society's supposed cream-of-the-crop are lazy, sports-addled babies. And if you give me time, I'll really let you know what I think!

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: College Seniors No More Knowledgeable Than 1950s High School Grads

I don't know about 1950 Grads ('65 myself), but I am getting tired of expaining to todays grads that:

Vietnam is not a provience of Mexico...

Glenn Miller did not play with the Steve Miller Band...

Etc...

[dfwgator]

I wonder how they'd do on this quiz?



How long did the Hundred Years War last?
Which country makes Panama hats?
From which animal do we get catgut?
In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
What is a camel's hair brush made of?
The Canary Islands in the Atlantic are named after what animal?
What was King George VI's first name?
What color is a purple finch?
Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
How long did the Thirty Years War last?

[k2blader]

Wonder how well the average FReeper would score.

I confess I've forgotten much of the "general knowledge" imparted to me during my formal school years. Happily, I learned enough to be able to read and look things up later if I really need them.

Additionally, my brain has this daily habit of purging humdrum trivia and replacing it with more exciting material. Ultimately, "general knowledge" is best grown in the garden of Personal Interest.

[PaulKersey]

As a former Teacher I'm willing to accept this as probably accurate.  Further, I suspect we High School Seniors then were not much more knowledgeable than Jr. HS students of 50 years before us. I can't discuss my High School level English and American Literature courses with most College Grads of today.  They don't know what I am talking about, having instead of the Classics read contemporary garbage written by political hacks with specific social agendeas. It's not the students fault they are truly poorly "educated".

It doesn't have as much to do with how hard students work as what they are taught, and how, and why.  Introduction of "New Math" to replace Real Math,  creation of the mush called Social Studies to replace of History, Geography, Government, Sociology, etc., teaching writing without spelling, plus calling areas of interest which have no scientific base a "Science" has been a disaster IMHO.

Load on "Affirmative Action" and other programs with specific social axes to grind and here we are, a society certifiably dumber, and maturing emotionally later than before.  And they let these people vote?

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Talk about stupid polls. In the 50's we got the same education in HS that College Grads now have? Seems that things are not progressing too well in the education field.
We may have been computer illiterate, but we learned a lot more it seems. The 50's kids were the last of the Eisenhower children, not hippied yet. The 60's kids were the flower children. I did not know one pot smoking HS kid in the 50's, beer drinking, yes.

[Bob J]

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[Fury]

Thanks for posting this!

I've been assigned to higher-ed institutions for the company I work for the better part of 13 years. Mostly at the community college level, some at 4-year college and university level.

At the community college level, we're seeing record numbers of HS students take High School Enrichment courses - basically college level courses for high schoolers. Technology links several schools together. It's good for both students and the colleges.

You also see more and more students who seem unprepared for college. Yes, they may have technical skills, but they often lack the breadth of skills that prepare them for college and life after college. An area this is readily apparent is in the area of research for assignments, etc. Google, etc make available a lot of information. But many students do not have the skills to perform a test to determine the quality of the information presented. And when they do put together their research papers, it's quite a bit of cut and paste and they lack many of the skills to put their research into a generally accepted format and style. From my perspective, it's a case of where the technology brings all this information together, but many kids are ill-prepared to analyze this data brought to them by the Internet and then place into a meaningful form.

Many 4-year Colleges in New York State are expanding their General Ed requirements. I asked an associate of this and he said it was because the courses that HS folks took in years past (languages, certain history courses, etc) are not being taught to a level that was preparing students for college and so, the General Ed requirements compensate for that. It's good for the colleges - they ensure that students will be taking more classes, which generates more revenue. But it makes you wonder what is being taught in HS.

I work in the telecommunications field, but I wish I had availed myself of more courses in the Liberal Arts area. The Classics, for example, don't just teach you about history, but they give you the information about how people arrived at decisions they did thousands of years ago, and to a large extent, still arrive at decisions today. I started taking Latin in May of this year. I've not only learned about Roman culture, but also Latin syntax and grammatical constructs and also many of the same constructs in English (again but well worth the effort (e.g. ablative of means, indirect object, etc)). It may not help me do my job per se, but it helps to provide the ability to think and analyze which can be of benefit in one's job. Maybe it would be of benefit of HS students as well.

K-12 needs to re-evaluate itself. Concepts like Outcome Based Education, mainstreaming children will special learning needs, etc have in part caused unintended consequences for many students. Add to that a family makeup for many kids that hinders kids getting the guidance and perspective they need while they are growing up and I can understand why some kids have problems in HS, and later in college.

[LonghornFreeper]

This report found what it wanted to find. It all comes down to what you consider to be valuabe general knowledge. I (a current college freshman) could answer all but one of the questions (I honestly couldn't care less who composed "the Messiah"), but I consider these to be more trivia questions than anything else. The exception to this is history, especially that of America. I agree that schools are not doing a good enough job of teaching the history of our nation, and when they do teach it political correctness usually rules. I am obviously biased by the fact that as an aerospace engineering major, knowing Shakespeare doesn't get planes off the ground. But some things I think "should" be general knowledge for high school seniors, such as higher mathematics and computer skills, are not included in the questions. If a student chooses to read literature (I do), or to listen to classical music (I do this also, but don't pay attention to who composed what), that is great, but I don't see it as a necessity. If I read Tolkein or Tom Clancy, and you read Dickens, I don't see you as a superior, more well-rounded human being. What is "high culture" and what is not is personal opinion and nothing more. I would much prefer a high school grad who can do elementary calculus and knows what DDR RAM stands for than one who can roll out random facts on command. The author of this study appears to be against "specializing" but he fails to realize that knowing who Florence Nightengale is doesn't train nurses, and knowing who proposed the theory of relativity doesn't allow one to understand and apply it. Specialization is required in order to accomplish anything. We have enough liberal arts majors (i.e. Walmart employees) already, bring on the specialization.