Our deputy head carried out an experiment today to try to prove her thoery that the average 15/16 year old doesn't read the papers, don't know about current affairs and are generally quite ignorant about literature. I'd always disputed this as I felt that most of my friends at least will have a fairly good dusting of general knowledge.
I was suprised, therefore to find that most didn't know most of the names of the leaders of France, Germany, China, Russia and Afganistan, didn't know who the IRA are, and responses to what I thought are well known pieces of literature such as Paradise Lost and Beowolf were met with either blank stares or a confused 'Huh? Beowhat?' and if I tried to explain one of the answers I was treated as some kinda freak!
Has anyone else had similar experiences when talking with people around my age(around 15/16)?
Maybe I'm just hopelessly out of touch and what I think should be common knowledge isn't?

I hate to say this, charming pup, but yeah. It is just you. But don't worry, you've just inherited a busload of aunties and nuncles, and we'll protect you.

Survey after survey show how ignorant kids are today. I have nieces and nephews around your age and they might know what the IRA is.

But I'll shut up now and leave this to them what knows (Wordwind? JazzO?).

Yeah, but have you ever tried to keep up with a group of teens singing fast-moving lyrics to pop songs? Their brains are filled with all kinds of lyrics that sound like machine-gun-fired syllables to me. And they know every episode of "Friends" backwards and forewards and inside out. They laugh at me for what I don't know. They're interested in boy-meets-girl kinds of things. They're interested in watching adults fall all over themselves. I'm not speaking about the intellectuals, but just the average kids. I teach summer school English classes to kids who failed during the year, and they really do look at me as an out-of-touch maternal figure. They try to fill me in as I take them through "A Doll's House" and "Oedipus Rex" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale"...all the while trying my best to beef up ample energy to get them interested in the story lines and human dimensions.

I ran into a past student from about twenty-five years ago--one who had complained that farmers didn't need to know squat about Shakespeare. I'd forced Shakespeare down their throats. Made 'em build a stage in the classroom. We had a curtain, too. And a fountain. We did everything to bring about a real production of "Romeo and Juliet." 20th century farcical interpretation. Many complaints. Lots of laughs. They even had to memorize all the lines. And the artistic kids hand painted purple programs with crossed swords dropping drops of vermillion blood on the front cover.

Anyway, this past student told me that after my class, he'd never read Shakespeare again and had never gone to a play. But he was smiling all the while remembering his one intense encounter with William S. in my class. He said, "I like how you sprung it on us at the last minute that the boys would have to wear tights!" I'd forgotten that. Certainly I lived and learned and didn't try that little trick again. Hey, I was a green teacher. But the cool thing was we had this very long conversation this summer about that experience from over twenty years ago, and he remembered a lot about the play.

What I'm getting at here is average kids--kids who aren't highly competitive about getting into top colleges--need a lot of prodding and enthusiasm and energy to wake up to the fact that there's a world that's actually connected--and directly connected--to the story lines they devote themselves to on television and in movies, and directly connected to the lyrics they consume in their kind of music. It's all connected. Everytime one of those kids makes the mental effort to learn some factual context about the adult world into which they'll soon be entering, it's a victory--even a name and context as poignantly sad and bleak as Malvo's.

You take 'em where you find 'em, and you learn from them and they learn from you. If nothing else--and there's a great deal more--your energy level will go up because their own is contagious.

I don't worry so much about the 15/16-year-olds. I worry more about the 55/56-year-olds who've dropped out.

The kids today are every bit as bright as the kids of fifty or more years ago. They have a hell
of a lot more to learn than I did at their age. I had things in highschool my father had had in
college. My kids had in high school things I had in college. It must be still worse today.
Regrettably too much of their energy goes into being "street wise" instead of scholars.
I still remember the guys in the Army who were dismayed to find they could not be
candidates for Officer Training School because they had wasted highschool.
When they got out of the Army,thousands of them went back to school, and into college.
One of my former instructors in 1956 commented on how much harder the ex-GIs worked
than the students of my era. He leered at me: "If you were applying now, we wouldn't
accept you." Part of it also was the fact that with girls in the class, a lot of males
tried harder not to seem stupid.
The values judgments of today's kids appal me, but I know that they will grow up when
they have to.

> Is it just me?

I'd agree with AnnaS. You can't expect those younger than you to learn all the same things that you learnt - or do we really want to be treading water. There is, as Bill points out, so much more information at our finger tips now, and turning that into knowledge is pretty daunting. I don't think everyone needs to have read Shakespeare to find his or her way. I'd even say (cynical as I am) that many people who *have read canonized literature gain little more from it than the ability to sound in-the-know when Milton comes up in conversation, rather than actually finding any depth in it - see WordWind's former student's comment.
There's little point in studying thousands of books fleetingly in my eyes - they will often yield less than the prolonged study one book. Studying very little material can bring much wisdom. Alternatively studying too much makes idiot savants. If one supports the teaching of the Canon one should remember who made it, who is included, and more importantly who isn't.
Isn't it Beowulf, btw?

I had a similar problem when I was your age (which was merely 12 years ago ). I remember when a Geography teacher told as that she would be asking questions about current political situation in the world so we'd better watch 9 o’clock news. In the end I was the only one who had been doing this anyway and on a break before the geography lesson I told my classmates what’s happening. I remember girls in my class being mad about a boyband and had a vague idea who the boys were and when I heard their music I decided not to be interested. I actually red “War and peace” and “Crime and punishment” instead of skipping through a “Russian Literature guide (8th form)”. I was treated as a freak or nerd, which I think I was.

It’s a timeless problem of choice between being like a crowd and fitting in and being a white crow. If you choose former you fell OK for a while but than you realise that you are stack in an dead-end job till your retirement. If you choose the latter you are a doctor, you are a lawyer, you are a director of the film they all pay to see.

I always knew that it would happen as it had. My “know-nothing-about-Shakespeare” classmates came back to my native town and are paid 100S a month. I have a degree, I am a scientist,I’ve been to Paris and London, I speak English – I am really happy that I didn’t waste my time in high school.

As belligerentyouth said I don't think everyone needs to have read Shakespeare to find his or her way. but reading define what way will be yours.

To know soap operas backwards and forwards and inside out (Wordwind) is something as valuable as gossiping about one’s neighbours – kills the time and it’s a topic of conversation. But a true value of it is 0 I am “Friends” fun . you can chew a gum but you can not run a mile if you didn’t eat something more nutritious.

P.S. I find that women in general are less intellectual *because they are more interested in soaps and gossips than in news and politics. [w] will I be bitten for this statement?

I find that women in general are less intellectual *because they are more interested in soaps and gossips than in news and politics.

I think this is a bit of a sweeping generalization. There are plenty of non-intellectual men, too, but they are interested in blowing things up, drinking beer, and watching sports, rather than soaps and gossip (if you want to continue with the sweeping generalizations!). It only takes one counter-example to disprove a theorem, right ? Here you are:

(1) My brother won the prize at his high school graduation for being the biggest gossip in a class of 300.
(2) His favourite TV show in high school was Days of Our Lives (a soap opera)
(3) He got an Honours degree in Economics and is now doing his Master's.
(4) If you ever talk to him you'd realize he's a very intellectual type (he's not just doing his Masters because of delusions of grandeur)

So I don't think gossip and intellectualism are mutually exclusive, nor is gossip just the domain of women.

Vika,

I fully agree with Bean that your statement is a sweeping one. And her point about men, sports and beer is so true. Most of the men in my community have anything but purely intellectual interests. They talk sports, farming and hunting. And even the farming, which could easily become intellectualized, isn't.

I've only lived out on the family farm for a few years of my life, but the time I've spent there has been getting to know the land and the wild plants that inhabit it. Most I can figure out with the help of books.

However, this summer I came across a beautiful weed, couldn't track it down in either books or online, so I went to the men at the feed and grain store where they advise farmers about how to get rid of certain weeds. The "expert" in the group made two suggestions, both of them incorrect. What I learned is that they had only a passing interest in names of weeds, but a practical grasp of which poisons would kill them effectively.

However, these men and their sons have keen interest in sports and hunting, and that's fine with me. But I have yet to have a single conversation with any man there that bordered on what is purely intellectual other than those conversations with ministers. A couple of ministers I've known have an interest in reading and ideas. One of them, in fact, is an intellectual. But those two ministers are the exception to the rule.

I am not criticizing these farmers' lives at all. But I again have to agree with Bean that you just cannot put men generally into a different realm of being more intellectual.

There is a place in which both men and women dwell and talk about history, science, literature and art with interest in facts and refinement of ideas. If there happen to be more men in that realm, then the only reason I can see for that being so is more men have been educated and have gone on after formal education to refine their education.

I teach hundreds of young children each year. And I've been doing so for over twenty-five years. I don't do surveys, but I can tell you some of the girls exhibit great alertness to ideas, even on an elementary level. I would never place one sex above the other.

So, take your pick: soap operas or sports and exclude nearly everything else. You're gonna have fun and you're gonna find a lot of kindred spirits. That's fine. That's just the way people are.

But you'll also find many men and women who enjoy intellectual exchange if you look in the right places--and sometimes there is that wonder of finding them in places you least expected to find them.

Your command of English, by the way, is impressive. You write here on AWAD much better than you did when you first appeared.

Best regards,
WW

What I'm getting at here is average kids--kids who aren't highly competitive about getting into top colleges--need a lot of prodding and enthusiasm and energy to wake up to the fact that there's a world that's actually connected--and directly connected--to the story lines they devote themselves to on television and in movies, and directly connected to the lyrics they consume in their kind of music. It's all connected.
WW, how I love you! Bless you, and all teachers. I have to say that my kids kind of stand out, too, bonzai. My daughter is a senior in high school, and has a long history of can't-get-any-higher academic achievement. She is having a very lucky high school experience: she's in the Advanced Program, and ever since she was a freshman, her teachers have raved about what a great group of kids this AP class is. Her counselor sent out a letter saying they are quite likely to be "the best class ever to have come out of" her school. On conference day last week, her Spanish teacher told me they encourage each other, challenge each other, and help each other. She does know the names of world figures, and thanks to her course in D.C. last summer has developed a real interest in U.S. government.
My son is one year behind her. He chose a different high school, because of its "magnet program"--kind of like an early college major. He does not do as well academically, but his intelligence and different interests make him stand out. He started reading a Shakespeare play in 4th grade (about age 10); he didn't finish it, but that's typical of a child with ADD. He voluntarily read Beowulf as a freshman. (Both of these are thanks to the influence of his father.) This is the first year he has seemed to begin to take school somewhat seriously, and he is beginning to earn the respect of his classmates for what he knows. Yet still, I hear from his teachers that often he is the only one in the class to "get" something humorous. (He gets that from me, I think!) He has been invited to be a Presidential Scholar, and will study U.S. law enforcement (his chosen "major") in D.C. next June.
So, bonzai, perhaps you too will find yourself "fitting in" better as you get older, as my son has; or, more than likely, it will be that your classmates finally catch up to you.

Bean,

I agree with you that men have their own hobbies to waste their time on but still your brother's example does not invalidate my idea - it takes one counter-example to disprove a theorem but in biology one needs to have statistics and one man is just one vote For example, I know two women - Nobel prise winners in physics (incidentally, mother and daughter) but in general Nobel prise winners in physics are men.

Wordwind,

all activities that you've mentioned can be quite intellectual :
- sport trains ones memory. I know men that remember the score of all soccer games of the last season and all winners of last 20 years.
- farming
well, you know better. I find that hard labour degrades both men and women.
- hunting
trains ones attention and concentration
------

There is a place in which both men and women dwell and talk about history, science, literature and art with interest in facts and refinement of ideas
I know the name of the place! Valinor!

If there happen to be more men in that realm, then the only reason I can see for that being so is more men have been educated and have gone on after formal education to refine their education .
I don't know about States but this is not true for former Soviet Union. for example, we had roughly equal number of boys and girls in my class. Only one boy’s got a degree and approximately 10 girls. The ratio varies but roughly it is 1:1.

some of the girls exhibit great alertness to ideas, even on an elementary level.
before the puberty. after that we become more interested in clothes and boys than in ideas and facts.

Thanks for starting a very interesting thread, b/a.

For what it's worth, I (see how boldly I say that!) don't know the names of the leaders of France, Germany, China and Afghanistan (and I can't spell the name of the leader of Russia, so how can I expect anyone to believe me when I say I know it?!). And I'm 35.

It's interesting to me, how people judge other people for what those others do and don't know. I remember going out with a fellow who was extremely rude to me on more than one occasion, because I didn't know to whom he was referring when he talked about different sports figures. I didn't make fun of him when he didn't know to whom I was referring when I talked about different Shakespearean actors.

I guess it all depends on what's most important to each individual. It's been pointed out here that a lot of teenagers are keen on social things: boy-meets-girl kinda things, or clothes, image, music, etc. There's actually a lot to be said for this kind of limited attitude: these people will never go out and oppress other countries, for example! It's kinda like a return to village values: your focus is on the immediate. You may know everything your neighbours are doing, but nothing about what's going on in the next village.

That being said, I don't have a lot of respect for people who have next to no general knowledge. I myself prefer to know less simply because I can't do anything about the horrible things that are going on in the world, and yet I get disproportionately upset (disproportionately, given that I can't do anything!). So - I prefer to be an ostrich about some things.

On the other hand, I am always fascinated to learn how things have been and how they fit in with how things are now - what has led to what - evolutions in thought, for example, or in social trends, etc. (When I was in the UK this summer I went to the Museum of Costume in Bath - amazing stuff there!)

So perhaps some of us grow up and follow world events closely, and some of us grow up and focus closely on personal development instead, and some of us grow up and manage to juggle the two. No one way is better than either of the others. I'm the middle kind: I'm very introspective and have been told I think too much, BUT I think that's partly what allows me to, for the most part, be very careful and mindful with other human beings, care for others, empathise and sympathise very strongly, reach out, understand, love and accept. For me, this is a better kind of human being to be than one who knows all the capitals of all the major powers. I'd rather know a little about a lot of things, than a lot about a few things (eg, a lot about what's going on in the world, but not so much about how to interact with the people with whom I come in contact daily, or about the myriad niches of interest there are in the world - *such as* the art of bonsai, different types of yoga, Scottish tartans, what some of the bones and muscles in the body are called and how they work with each other, how to frame up an excellent shot with a camera, how to parse a sentence, how to pare the toenails of the elderly, how lions hunt in the Serengeti, how octopii move, how to write a letter of condolence, how to make fettucini carbonara, how to read aloud to a child, etc etc etc).....

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!

in general Nobel prise winners in physics are men.

While I can't argue with that I would be careful about saying why. In general the people who have done physics for the last hundred years have been men - because it wasn't acceptable for women to do physics. (When you have a society which discourage intellectualism in women, it is a bit of an uphill battle!) A lot of the Nobel Prizes awarded are for groundbreaking work done 20-30 years ago, when there were almost no women at all in physics. I think that the numbers will begin to even out as more girls are encouraged to study science. This number is still small, though.

Since you enjoy statistics, the small sample of physics departments I've been a member of won't impress you, but have a look at the numbers anyways, as a small sampling of the state of physics education in Canada.

University of Manitoba - year 2000: 21 professors, out of those, a single woman. (Interestingly, two more have been hired since I left, bringing the numbers up a bit. There are young women out there who have yet to make their mark!)
A friend's graduating class, year 1994, B Sc in physics, a class of 4: 1 woman.
My graduating class, year 1998, Bachelor of Science in Phyiscs, a class of 8: 2 women
Memorial University of Newfoundland - year 2002 - 21 professors, out of those, 3 women.
Our grad students right now: about 20, of which about 5 are women (these numbers are harder to pin down since I don't know all the people in the department)

So you see, about 25% of new physics graduates are women, with these rough statistics. The "old guard" was closer to 10%. So in 20-30 years, when these women have had a chance to make groundbreaking discoveries, whose full impact on their fields will be well-known, then you will see about 25% of Nobel Prize winners will be women!

Here's a website for anybody who wants to look up heads of state. You can click on a country and the heads of state will appear. This site appears to be updated frequently:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/chiefs/

Dear modestgoddess: May I Put in that the name of Russia's leader is very simple?

Well, I dropped out of school proper at around fourteen and went very infrequently from about twelve. I've spent a lot of the intervening years slumming around festivals and squat parties generally having a bit of a laugh. I've worked in kitchens and fancy dress shops and some fast food places. Pretty much your classic high school failure, I am probably that terrible influence you warn your children about. However, I am interested in current affairs, have read the papers religously since I was about ten, get through as many books as I can afford or can borrow, go to lectures and the theatre whenever I can afford to and know all the cast and storylines of Friends. Many of the no-good dropouts I know are similarly motivated to constantly self-educate though I would never describe them as intellectual. I think that it is possibly because I have not been herded into a building five days a week to be force fed information so I can regurgitate it once a year to pass some arbitrary standard of intelligence ,( take a breath) I have never had the natural human desire to learn crushed out of me by some institutionalised ideal of good and bad knowledge. I make no distinction between Friends and Shakespeare, it's all good, it's all valid as culture and it's interesting because it's different to whats in my head. I may enjoy Othello more than a three hour Friends omnibus on most days but what I relish is the choice. I am meandering towards a point eventually but I've got to go now, Eastenders is on.

I'm not disputing my school friends' intelligence, as they are all very clever and good at a wide variety of things, but I just think that it is important to know at least a bit about current affairs, as I feel it is possible to change things in the world if only people knew how to go about it. I feel it's this apathy that's allowing, if not fuelling at least some of the problems in this world. So yes, I suppose people don't need to have read the works of Shakespeare or have heard of Beowulf to make a difference, (though it would be nice if these works were remembered) however, if nobody cared about what's going on now beyond the marital status of their next door neighbour or the latest antics of a soap star, an awful lot of nasty people will start to gain power and a lot of mistakes will be made, and by the time the apathetics (?) realise this, it may be doubly difficult, if not too late, to put things right again.

Oh yeah, I do like Friends and stuff like that too.

Isn't it Beowulf (belligerentyouth)
How did I spell- Oh, heh heh... Oops!

Back in engineering school there was this really tall, extremely pretty girl who was making straight As. (During this time, the numbers of men and women who signed up were comparable, but most of the women dropped out before finishing the program.) But this girl made it. Really attractive. Extremely sweet, too. One day some fellows are talking politics and she says, "Reagan ... he's a republican, right?" (This was back when he was running for his first term.) I thought maybe this was just another case of the pretty girl pretending to be stupid, but I think she was serious. (I'm not sure what I find more irritating: feigned stupidity or the genuine article.)

Problem is a lot of people have an overblown sense of the importance of what they know. I was once accused by a neighbor of lacking "common sense" because I didn't know that a person could drink 12 oz of wood alcohol with no ill effects. I need to send a nasty letter to my old teachers concerning this oversight in my education. OTOH, as I've ranted on numerous occasions, I don't believe common sense exists, or if it does exist, I don't think it's desirable. What is wanted is not common sense, but good sense, and the vast preponderance of my life's experiences have inured me to the inescapable conclusion that insofar as sense is common, it is seldom very good, and insofar as it it good, it is seldom very common.

Not that I entirely disagree with you, though. I guess there's some basic knowledge we ought all to have. But what? And who decides? And by what criteria? Whenever I pick up these books that purport to contain universally applicable knowledge, I inevitably discover I'm a lot stupider than I usually feel. (I know all the leaders you mention, and I've read Beowulf. But I only 'know' a trivial bit about Paradise Lost - it being far down on my list - and I'm sure I couldn't have a conversation about it.) This completely ignores all the crap that I've just plain forgotten over the years (I have a really bad memory and my friends and family even make fun of me - but it's not all that funny really - not to me).

Nor can I claim to compensate with an encyclopedic knowledge of popular culture. I'm familiar with some things and not with others. I've made a point of actually watching Howard Stern and Jerry Springer and Oprah Winfrey, so at least I know who the heck people are talking about. I also watched Rush Limbaugh (not a whole show, but at least I know what he looks like). I've never watched a whole episode of Seinfeld or Friends, but I've seen a lot of Star Trek and Simpsons. I don't have any idea who O'Reilly is but I know who Gerry Spence and Alan Dershowitz are, and I would recognize Ann Coulter's face.

k

Dear FF: I assure you, anybody who drinks twelve ounces of wood alcohol is almost
certain to become permanently blind.

I suppose there's such a high emphsis on getting grades and cramming in knowledge for exams now that many people have lost a sense of seeing the bigger picture. We live in a society that is so competitive that sometimes people's priorities become all mixed up. I'm doing my GCSEs (big exam at the end of the secondary school here in the UK) right now and the pressure is really very high, and I guess that as there isn't a test on current affairs, people try to push it to the back of their minds. (After these GCSEs, which I'm in the second year of, there will be another two years of examination for A and AS levels - just thinking about it makes the mind boggle!)

EDIT: On the other hand, people do seem to have enough time to dig up the dirt on celebrities etc...

Dear bonzaialsatian: You wouldn't have to join the ratrace if you were willing to have standard
of living your great-grandfather had. When you think about that, it ought put wings on your
feet.

May I Put in that the name of Russia's leader is very simple? ~ Dr. Bill


*chuckle*

perhaps you too will find yourself "fitting in" better as you get older, as my son has; or, more than likely, it will be that your classmates finally catch up to you.
Awww, shucks Jackie!
I don't think I'm all that different from my classmates that they need to 'catch up to' me, I'm just different in my interests and have some different views. But thanks for the encouragement for being myself nevertheless!

May I Put in that the name of Russia's leader is very simple?

Nunca Bill, you certainly may poot tit tin, as long as you recognize that someone who gets most of her news from la radio doesn't necessarily know how to spell furrin names.

Here's a website...

thanks, WW! what a great way to swot before a cocktail party....(like I ever get invited to any of those! anyone else here? I think they must be another urban legend at this point)

seriously: very cool, thank you. I have bookmarked it for futher future perusal.

Happy to oblige, MG

I need to do a bit of swotting myself.

WW

I feel it's this apathy that's allowing, if not fuelling at least some of the problems in this world.

Ah, to be young again (sez the elderly 35-year-old). It's not necessarily apathy, ackshully. For me, it ain't apathy - it's choice. I can't possibly do things about all the problems I keep hearing about in the world: poverty, disease, waste, destruction, war, and on and on. So I choose not to know about the ones that upset me and I choose my battles (Planned Parenthood International, World Wildlife Fund, Kids' Help Phone) and I go out and vote, not that the latter does a helluva a lot of good, it always turns out to be choosing the least of a whole bunch of evils as far as I can make out.

Apathy certainly is bad - but don't confuse selectiveness (even selectiveness in what information/news people take on board) with apathy. Although, that being said, I don't know what teenagers do or don't do in the way of attempting to better anyone else's lot. I know the teenagers I knew when I was one were, for the most part, thoughtful, intelligent, sensitive, some of them were certainly wot you might call "intellectual" and knew a lot about what was going on in the world, and I think they were helpful sorts, too, who did volunteer work and so on. I don't know what modern teenagers are like coz I don't know any, though I will in a few more years' time when my nephews and niece turn into them!

I suppose it comes back to the whole generalization issue. If you try to make sense of the world by generalizing, you begin to get a rather black-and-white picture. It sure is easy but it ain't pretty.

Getting back to Vika, and her comment on fewer woman with notable awards in sciences than men...
(I don't know about States but this is not true for former Soviet Union. for example, we had roughly equal number of boys and girls in my class. Only one boy’s got a degree and approximately 10 girls. The ratio varies but roughly it is 1:1.)

2 points: one, every society varies in what career and choices it considers 'appropriate' for women, and russia (and former USSR states)often lead the world in the number of women who pursued medicine... but it lags even behind the US when in comes to women in politics, (and the US is pretty far behind most of europe)and other areas... so your experience might be different than most europeans.

2)woman in western civilization (which would for me most definatelly include russia and all of the former states of the USSR,) have made many advance in the past 100 years.

the sufferegettes of england, and the US, (and here, i admit, i know less about other european countries customs, culture and law) set about to change societies views, and demanded political freedom (and the right to vote), and the right not to be chattel (ie, to own them selves, and property in their own name.) the right (and ability) to get an educations, came hard and late... with woman barred from many studies, Dr bill recently sent me a link, pointing out, a Jane Marcet, who wrote chemistry books (read by Michael Faraday, and others.. ) yet her name is general unknown to us, and even she apologies in the introduction of one of her books for being female... since science was general held to be 'to hard for women'
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi745.htm

with that kind of societial influence, only the strongest, smartest, and often, the most financially independent woman could persue science in the past, and the current history of the sciences reflects those influences.

are there exceptions, but even madam curie realized that she would not, could not become a member of the french academy of sciences, except that she was married, and she joined in partnership with her husband (who was french she was not) what if he were a great writer? or biologist instead of chemist like herself? maybe she would not have gotten the recognition.

are woman less intelectual than men? there is quote somewhere (in AWAD, from a long ago favorite quote thread) that had a woman making the point that a smart woman get further ahead in this world by being though of as pretty, not by being thought of as smart.. so the smart choice for women is pretty, not smart..

Some random notes in support of the original post:

Political unawareness among the youth of the USA is a major pet peeve of mine. During the reign of King Ronald Reagan (another pet peeve but I won't digress) I wore a T-shirt specifically designed to generate political debeat. It showed Reagan as Robin Hood with the legend "Reagan Hood: Takes from the poor and gives to the military." Response? Nada! One thirty-ish woman had to ask if the shirt was knocking her president, someone she had done hours of volunteer work to help get elected. I told her is was, she replied "Well then I don't like it." I answered "Well if you have to ask then your opinion doesn't count!", a view I still hold but regret expressing.

At the ripe old age of 40-something, I found myself in the (supposedly) enviable position of dating someone not much more than half my age. I don't know how it came up in conversation but I once quizzed her on who had won the war in Viet Nam. Not wishing to appear ill-informed, she confidently responded "The British." I swear to God that this relationship was drifting comfortably towards physicality (My, how tactfully put!) but I broke it off. And don't get me started about how she would mangle the English language!

Related sidenote: With everyone wearing digital watches these days, only a very small minority of children understand the difference between "clockwise" and "counter- (anti-)clockwise," an important distinction in any world at any age.

The solution? Flogging, maybe? I don't know. I imagine I share the opinion with most AWADers that to lead by example is the best way but who knows what the future will bring. All I know is that the British didn't win the damn Viet Nam War!!

Hello, Strolin

Your pet peeve considered, I'll play devil's advocate in the way the youth are programmed to play it, and ask, why should the youth of today have any interest in politics? [This may appear to be a dumb question to the politically astute, but, believe me, it's the question many youths ask. And they ain't satisfied easily.]

"Haveaknifeday,"
WW

>All I know is that the British didn't win the damn Viet Nam War!!

Yes, I know what you mean. [Although as an eighteen year old who put in (that word again!) her General Studies "A" level that Rommel won the battle of Agincort (hell, they both sounded German to me), I do have some sympathy.] I had a similar reaction when I was told by a young US’n that the USA won the Viet Nam War. But then they were in the middle of telling me that Margaret Thatcher was a socialist, so I held back.

By the way Dodyskin – how is Little Mo?

Ignorance of basic political facts is a disease which is spreading and has been for some time.

In NZ there is no standard civics course in high schools as in the States and social studies seems to concentrate on non-political issues. Most New Zealanders leave school appallingly ignorant of the political process which runs their country.

When I was teaching business studies as part of a computing course in a polytechnic way back when, I took the first two lectures and devoted them to teaching my students, mostly high school dropouts in their 20s, 30s and 40s, how governments work in general, how the New Zealand government works in particular and contrasting that with the US governmental system. When I taught them about the Westminster system, I was more than once accused of making it all up ...

Believe me, though, that was nothing in comparison with the disbelief that met my attempts to teach them about the double-entry bookkeeping system and how THAT came about!

I think there is a place for a compulsory civics course in every school in every country. I think that disinterest in the process in today's adults is a product of their ignorance of it. And of course they will pass this disinterest on to their progeny.

I think that disinterest in the process in today's adults is a product of their ignorance of it.

I'm not so sure about that. Most kids here learn about how government works at some point or another, as part of a social studies course at school, but that doesn't seem to have done much for political awareness. (It's always funny on Canada Day when some news agency inevitably does a poll which shows that some small but embarrassing percentage of kids and adults think Canada has a president...)

Jay Leno, on the tonight show, does a regular segment, "jay walking" during which he asks embaressingly simple questions, to people sometimes he has photographs of newsmakers-- US and international ones, sometimes real basic questions..

the week the movie "Pearl Harbor" opened, he asked people about it.. like "who bombed pearl harbor?" (the hawaians, the germans, the US, were some of the answers. and these were not just young people.. adults in their thirties and forties.

One question, asked of tourist to DC, on the mall, in sight of lincoln monument, was "which US president is credited with freeing the slaves?" the answers-- Duh? washington? duh? Jimmy carter?
Asked on July 4th-Why is today a holiday? what does it celebrate? Ans. Independence day.. when US became independant of england.. (jay pleased, asks a follow up question..) When was that? what year? Ans. 1918.

a classic question in NY is "who is buried in Grants tomb?"( a NY landmark) (the simple answer Grant,and many miss it, but points added if you know his wife and family including the family dog!)

i am pretty non political, and well, i know US history, and some english history, but don't consider my self really really good at history.. but to judge from Jay walking, i could hold a PhD compared to a lot of regular folk!

on the other hand, i sometimes realize that if everyone was as smart, and interested as i am, (and this crew here) no one would want to work at Kmart or costco, or pump gas, or collect trash, or cut hair..

there are lots of things in this world that don't require any great intellect. the things we hold near and dear, (language and words in particular, and everything else in general!) don't interest millions of people. they go about their lives, working at jobs that don't require much knowledge, and often even less intelligence, to earn money to buy things that they thing will give there live meaning

it is sometimes enought to make you wish for an intellectual aristocrisy to be running the world.

bread and circus were the romans way of keeping the masses entertained. today its cable TV and infomercial.

"The kids today are every bit as bright as the kids of fifty or more years ago"

Some people would say "even brighter" (Flynn effect).

k

only a very small minority of children understand the difference between "clockwise" and "counter- (anti-)clockwise,"

Knowing the concept and knowing those words are two different things. Do you know the difference between sungates and widdershins?

All I know is that the British didn't win the damn Viet Nam War!!

Do you know who won the War of 1812?

who won the War of 1812?

Well, here we are taught that Canada did, because you failed to take us over. I'm told that in the US you don't see it as a Canada-vs-US war but a US-vs-Britain war. (Is that actually true? Anyone?) Anyway, the truth is more like it was a draw.

Dear FF: I assure you, anybody who drinks twelve ounces of wood alcohol is almost certain to become permanently blind.



Thanks for the info. I've always doubted the claim. I have a rather long story about the fellow who imparted that particulate of wisdom which terminates in his death by choking on his vomitus while drunk. No, I'm not making this up. There are stranger ironies even than this in the world.

And this is part of my problem with "common sense," that so much of it is nonsensical.

k

Here, I found a nice web page about the War of 1812, with the Canadian interpretation of what happened, although for some reason it focusses on which historical figures got their faces on stamps. (Strange stuff you find on the web, really.)

http://www.rpsc.org/Library/1812/warof1812.htm

Anyway, for Canada the war was seen as affirmation that we did not wish to be absorbed into the US. Also, it was one of those events which solidified our concept of "nationhood" in that it was the first time that the English, French, and Indians got together and fought side-by-side against a common foe.

From other things I've read I gather that the focus in the US is on the burning of the White House and the problem with Britain taking USn men into the navy by force. The attempt to "liberate" Canada from British control was retaliation for that. Funny how differently these things can be interpreted.

USns kind of slide over the fact that one of our objectives was to "liberate" Canada from the evil overlordship of Mother England. Certainly, from the US standpoint it was mostly a draw if you take that troublesome fact into account. Looking at it from a global scale (well, global if you don't count the majority of the globe who probably didn't even notice it was happening), USns were on the losing side. Not something that gets pointed out much in USn primary or secondary school history classes.

there was a whole thread devoted to the war of 1812 back in June.. its just a side bar in this thread, but you might enjoy reading the discussion..
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=32099

part of the discussion was about the teaching of history, and other similar ideas... we can cross weave between the two threads...

By the way Dodyskin – how is Little Mo?

no, but seriously, she's only gone and stood up to Trevor at last, and burnt the sodding house down! I'm going to miss it tonight as well, have got to go to my birthday party (bah humbug).

back in June

June 2001. Wow. I felt like it was a while ago (i.e. not this June) so I looked at it. BTW, helen, your link is cold. I also felt very deja-vu-y about this recent side bar. Now I know why. I will hereby stop my discussion of the War of 1812 so as not to bore anyone.

Bean,

thank you for mentioning it because I didn't know there was another war in 1812...apart from the one described in "War and peace"

(i fixed the link above to the 1812 war thread of June 00)

well its not really a different war, its more of another part of it..

from the US perspective, we didn't like there brits boarding US ships and taking sea men off (and the sea men, being no fools were taking jobs on US ships rather than be drafted into the british navy), since brittan was at war with the french... and secondly, the brits were trying to blockade american from trading with france.. but since france was at war, they were willing to pay higher prices (and good yankee traders was going to take advange of that!) and with out the french trade, the brits would have had a serious monopoly on US trade, and could drive prices down!
a monopoly on trade would have been a head i win, tails you lose, case for the Brits in the matter of trade with the fledgling US.

at the same time, the US thought it was a good time to invade and attempt a take over of Canada, since they figured the brits were busy else where, ie, fighting with the french!

i don't really know what other european countries were involved.. but from you comment, i am guessing Russia was involved too...
it sounds more and more like the war of 1812 was a general free for all--were there decisive winners in europe?

there was a whole thread devoted to the war of 1812 back in June.. its just a side bar in this thread, but you might enjoy reading the discussion..

I remember that. A very good example of someone saying something without thinking and then refusing to retract his point, even though he realised immediately after speaking that he was wrong.

On topic, I find that there are 4 other people in my school who are equal in intelligence to myself. One of them is related to me, and is registered on this board. Some of you old timers might remember him. There are about ten or fifteen people I can think of that are relative smart, but not as smart as the previous four. The rest are as stupid as dirt.

Note that when I say I am one of the smartest people in the school, I am going off the evidence that every single day, I am told this by way too many people.

i remember reading a comment about TV once.. the speaker complained that TV in and of itself wasn't bad... but how it was used. he said it was if guttenburg, after inventing the printing press did nothing but print comic books for the first three hundred years.

i suspect Boz and Jim, that there are many smart kids in your school... but for many reasons, they have not caught the reading and love of knowledge bug.. they have good minds, that they let stagnate.

i also think, that through the years, many great minds have been lost. in the past, its was disease and poverty, early death and intolerence to new ideas that were the major problems.

the real sadness of this modern world, is, this is best time in history, more people have access to schools, books, information and the accummulated knowledge of the ages, and only a small percentage is taking real advantage.

I was curious about what may have happened on July 4th of 1775 instead of on 1776, and came across a website that has lots of interesting dates from American history.

Here's the site:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwtimear.html

One date interesting to me was August 23, 1775, when King George declared that the colonists were in a state of rebellion.

There's a lot of interesting information listed on the site regarding the American Revolution for anyone who's interested in a quick read-through.