American kids, dumber than dirt

[Pete]

OK everybody step up and give it a try

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/

I got an 85%, the average for high school grads is 51%ish.

Pull down and mash "Take the Quiz"

Where is the cheat sheet? That test is, well, you all know, not geared for the, I take offense to the fact that I wasn't around when some of those things happened too. And besides that it had no questions on it about Cops and Law Enforcement. Like who makes the best boot and the best baton or how many "keepers" should one have on his belt? Now that would be a test of epic proportions!

[Peregrino]

Originally Posted by Pete

OK everybody step up and give it a try

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/

I got an 85%, the average for high school grads is 51%ish.

Pull down and mash "Take the Quiz"

88.33 Interesting quiz. Reviewing the answers resulted in a couple Duuuuhs.

[lksteve]

Originally Posted by Pete

I got an 85%, the average for high school grads is 51%ish.

88.33%...didn't do to well with ancient philosophers...

[mugwump]

Originally Posted by Pete

OK everybody step up and give it a try

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/

I got an 85%, the average for high school grads is 51%ish.

Pull down and mash "Take the Quiz"

Me too, 85%...but I got Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, Appomattox wrong and I knew that. Sheesh.

[The Reaper]

100%, but I got lucky with a couple of guesses.

My ancient philosophy and economics were troubling. History was dead on.

TR

[lksteve]

Originally Posted by mugwump

Me too, 85%...but I got Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, Appomattox wrong and I knew that. Sheesh.

key events in the War of Northern Aggression and you forgot them...

[GratefulCitizen]

Originally Posted by Pete

OK everybody step up and give it a try

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/

I got an 85%, the average for high school grads is 51%ish.

Pull down and mash "Take the Quiz"

53/60 >> 88.33%

I answered 1, 32, 36, 38, 39, 58, 60 incorrectly.

Reading the answers for 1, 38, and 60 were Homer moments (doh!) for me.

[GratefulCitizen]

After taking that quiz, I just realized that most of the stuff on there I didn't learn in high-school or college.

Most of it was learned in elementary/middle school, from my parents/parents' library, or in the world at large.
The internet and the various Discovery channels have been nice places to induldge.

Both parents were career teachers (dad - English/history/math, mom - English/French/Spanish) and both loved to bloviate (hmmm...that must be from where I get it.).


My long-winded point: school is a place where you learn how to learn.

IMHO, much of the modern curriculum and scholastic dogma is getting the cart before the horse.
They try to get the end result while skipping the intermediate steps.

I taught high-school math for one year, and the students would frequently ask "when am I going to ever use this?".

My reply would be this analogy:
Most football players spend plenty of time in the weight room training.
During a football game, have you ever seen the referee stop the game, bring out the weight bench and a barbell, and see which team captain could lift the most?
Football players still lift weights.


The primary objective of school should be to exercise, discipline, and order the brain (and perhaps the body, in P.E.).

The secondary objective should be to train basic skills which enable the student to learn on their own.

The tertiary objective should be train actual skills which they may use in the business of being an adult member of our society.


Attempting to achieve secondary and tertiary objectives is no justification for sacrificing the primary objective.

[3SoldierDad]

Originally Posted by Pete

OK everybody step up and give it a try

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/

I got an 85%, the average for high school grads is 51%ish.

Pull down and mash "Take the Quiz"

I got 88.33% ... Fun quiz.

Humbling, too - Once you see what you missed and see that you missed mostly cause you didn't read carefully.



Three Soldier Dad...Chuck

[PSM]

51 out of 60=85%. Looking back, I picked Brown v. instead of Roe v. and I knew the correct answer, but that's an "attention to detail" deduction.

Pat

[CoLawman]

Let me just say that I outscored the Harvard and Yale seniors .............but barely.

[bandycpa]

40 out of 60 - 66.67%. Very sobering exam. I have some more studying to do on history and philosophy.

Did okay on business and economics, though (as I should have).

I think I'll print out the hardcopy and do some research.



Bandy

98.33%, I missed #13--as usual, my attention to detail was lacking. I also had to get #31 by process of elimination, as I've never heard of 'Edmund Burke'. I learned most of this stuff in 9th/10th grade history, though the stuff I didn't get there, I got on my own. I was hoping to catch TR

Originally Posted by 3SoldierDad

The internet let's the ambitious be as smart as they want to be and it allows the slothful and indolent become as irresponsible as they want to be....

I agree with the above wholeheartedly.

Similar tests on other subjects would probably embarrass a lot more people than this one, sadly. To put it mildly, basic physics and biology, much less relativity and evolution are not well understood by the general public. I also seriously doubt that there are more than a few people outside of academia with actual understanding of the very relevant post-1950 history and histories of the third world--I don't have to tell you guys just how relevant that stuff is to the current situation. It should also be pointed out that anyone using google could ace that test, and just because something is new does not mean that it is bad.

As someone who played several online games competitively at the world-class level for several years, I feel the need to defend the gamers. While the importance of motor learning during childhood and pre-adolescence can't be overstated, fitness in adolescence isn't as important as people make it out to be--how many former football stars are completely out of shape, and how many bodybuilders were bullied by said football stars? When compared to something like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkmv8pSKZyo can an argument really be made for pulling teens away from the screen to 'play sports'?

[mugwump]

Originally Posted by lksteve

key events in the War of Northern Aggression and you forgot them...

War of Northern Aggr...Oh, you mean the War of Righteous Northern Justice and Liberation. No, I knew those, just sloppy.