I find this topic to be somewhat coincidental as I found myself considering the other end of the educational spectrum today.
This is a nice little bit of perspective on the current state of education in the good old U.S.A. that I happened to read in today's paper...it's absolutely
sickening. Especially when you consider that these are mostly COLLEGE students we're talking about here:
U.S. Civil War was in 1775?
12:14 PM CDT on Saturday, October 23, 2004
By STEVE BLOW / The Dallas Morning News
Occasionally I see that "Jaywalking" segment on The Tonight Show, where Jay Leno asks easy questions and people give the craziest answers.
Or I will hear of another survey revealing that U.S. college students can't find Canada on a map.
And I wonder: Are people really that dumb?
We talk about a crisis in our schools, but surely these are not representative of all young adults. Are they?
I decided to find out.
It's hardly scientific, but I concocted a little 10-question test of basic knowledge. And I gave it to a variety of young adults last week.
Jump over there and try it yourself, if you'd like.
The Questions
1. On this map, put an "I" on India, an "S" on Spain and an "E" on Egypt.
2. Who is the prime minister of Britain?
3. How much is 40 percent of 500?
4. Who is Sandra Day O'Connor?
5. Finish the quotation: "A rose by any other name would ..."
6. In what decade did the U.S. Civil War take place?
7. Name the governor of Texas.
8. Name a book by Charles Dickens.
9. 6 x 7 divided by 3 = ?
10. Who painted the Mona Lisa?
The results are a good news/bad news kind of thing. The good news: Jay Leno will never run out of material. The bad news: We're doomed.
Oh, I don't want to be overly dramatic. But I must say that I am distressed by how poorly young adults did on the test.
I would have expected most people to answer seven or eight questions correctly "“ and a good number to get all of them right.
But on average, these young adults answered fewer than half correctly "“ 4.8 to be exact. And of the 93 people taking the test, only two got all of them right. Just two!
If anything, my test takers should be more intelligent than average. Most were college students "“ at Southern Methodist University and at Eastfield and El Centro community colleges. A smattering were young professionals.
Some seemed to know they weren't measuring up as they took the test. One woman groaned the whole time. Another kept saying, "Oh, this is embarrassing!"
I had heard that cheating is rampant among students these days, and I saw a good bit of that.
One woman blatantly copied from the man beside her. How else would she have known the Civil War was fought in 1775?
Some of the answers do make you laugh. I asked for the decade the U.S. Civil War was fought, and answers included 1920s, 1940s, 3rd, 1812, 16th and '70s. I hoped they at least meant 1870s.
Sad to say, only 28 percent correctly answered 1860s.
Only 33 percent could correctly identify Sandra Day O'Connor as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. As the first woman on the court, she ought to be widely known.
Other guesses for Justice O'Connor included singer, actress, announcer, poet, TV show host, mayor of Dallas, "that lesbian comedian" and "the lady from the Terminator movies."
We hear so much about poor math skills these days. I guess it's some consolation that the most correct answers were to a couple of very basic math questions.
Seventy-seven percent were able to calculate that 40 percent of 500 is 200. And 88 percent correctly got 14 for 6 times 7 divided by 3.
Of course, you would expect fourth-graders to do as well.
I tried to be lenient in my grading. To the question of who painted the Mona Lisa, I accepted "Deventie" "“ after figuring out it was a stab at da Vinci.
Sixty-one percent got that one right. The most popular wrong answer was "“ incredibly "“ Picasso.
Only 44 percent could correctly name Tony Blair as the British prime minister. He has been in the news a bit lately!
Guesses at the prime minister included Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, the queen, Prince Charles, the pope, Donald Rumsfeld and "some British dude, I'm sure."
Not much better-known is the governor of Texas. Only 51 percent could name Rick Perry.
Fifty-one percent also were able to name a novel by Charles Dickens. One fellow was warm enough with "Ghost of Christmas Past "“ Scrooge "“ Whatever That's Called."
A Christmas Carol, I think he meant. I didn't give credit to The Scrooge Who Stole Christmas.
Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities were probably the top two correct answers.
I was disappointed that only 20 percent of young adults knew that "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Don't they read Romeo and Juliet in high school any more?
If so, they're reading some version that says a rose by any other name would ... "not suffice," "be a thorn in your hand," "not live up to its potential" and "be a horse of a different color."
Next lowest in results was the mere 26 percent who could find Spain, Egypt and India on a world map "“ three important and geographically distinctive countries.
Is it important for young people to know these things?
I think so. Basic knowledge of this sort is part of the mental rigor that leads to deeper thinking, to innovation and progress as a nation.
But maybe we'd rather just roll over and watch Leno.
..............................................................................................
Being that I spend a bit of time teaching people one on one myself, I'm not at all surprised at this small survey. I've seen dozens of times when a student will come in (for guitar lessons) and swear up and down that they're TOTALLY into guitar and even that they want to "make it their life" (Hah!) only to see hardly a month later that they're crying the blues about how "hard" playing an instrument is...end then quitting.
I would estimate that
maybe 10 percent of people will stick to it when it starts to get tough -which it always does.
I can't prove it but I'm almost convinced that the dearth of quality education and realistic expectations/results is the product of at least a couple generations of an image based culture (over and against a word based culture) that is simply being conditioned to avoid the kind of hard academic work that was once far more common. Also, I hate to say it, but, I think that we simply have too much prosperity and expect everything to be handed to us -at least from the attitudes I've seen recently.
I can't help but conclude that our idolotrous culture is bringing us to the precipice of a new "dark age" if the trend is not reversed. Idolatry destroys the ability think at a high capacity.
