Education in the U.S.

[susanmcgee48176]

> What we call "general knowlege" is more or less a result of 
what "we all" 
> know - what we learnt at school and later in life. It would not 
even be fair 
> to ask that from students who haven't had any "later in life" yet. 
And it's 
> totally unfair to ask that from students who have to learn things 
at school 
> that we never heard of when we were students - and maybe still 
never learnt 
> in our "later life".
> 
> I do not want to excuse the examples I read upthread. Well, I do 
not know 
> the 50 states or the lakes, but I'm not a US citizen ;), but to 
know about 
> the days of a year, of basic geographics (not only in one's own 
country) 
> and, last but not least, knowledge of at least the own language is 
necessary 
> for everyone and will be in future. But every time we wonder what a 
young 
> boy or girl does not know, we should think about what s/he knows we 
never 
> heard of at their age.
> 
> Miles
>

Miles, I really like your approach, and agree with a lot of what 
you've said. 

The only reason that I happen to know the names, locations and 
capitals of all 50 states in the U.S.A. is because my 10 year old is 
learning them, and we are memorizing together. The only reason I know 
all the names of the Great Lakes in the U.S.A. is because I lived in 
Michigan for many years. (Here's an easy way to remember them - 
HOMES... H for Huron...O for Ontario  M for Michigan E for Erie and S 
for Superior).

Please don't ask me the location of cities in Portugal! or to name 
all the provinces (with capitals) in Canada..or to name the 30 plus 
states in Mexico....


Part of the problem IS what is taught in school (or more accurately 
what is NOT taught in school).  ( Digression: When I was in school 
long, long ago in the U.S., we were taught "current events", and 
history. History never quite made it past World War I, and all the 
history I've learned since then was self-taught. In college I took 
Russian history, and history of the U.K. So, I don't know very much 
U.S. History after the Wilson administration and before the Kennedy 
administration. I never heard of the Holocaust in school.) So there 
were problems educationally 40 years ago, as well as tody.

People's lack of knowledge is not new. 
I just read that when the United States went to war in Korea, MANY 
people had no idea where Korea was. I have also read that many of the 
soldiers who went to war in Europe in World War I were illiterate or 
barely literate. The government instituted literacy programs in the 
training camps to address this issue.

I guess my point is: a) kids are not getting the opportunity to learn 
about many of the things we assume that they are being taught or they 
know (they're learning too much from popular culture, television, 
movies, music, etc.) b) there IS a lot more to learn AND what we 
think we KNOW is changing ... (when I was in school, the Big Bang was 
just ONE of the theories about the creation of the universe, now it's 
THE theory.

Susan