|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
This is long, but I just had to post it. Too funny to ignore!
Ted
Student Book Offers a Twisted History 'Coarse'
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Experience history from the Stoned Age to the Blintz Krieg! From Middle Evil Times to the Age of Now, from the Land of Milk and Chocolate to the Iran Hostess Crisis and the fall of the Berlin Mall!
Welcome to the wonderful world of "Non Campus Mentis," (Workman) a book of mangled moments of Western Civilization culled from actual term papers and exams of today's "brightest" students by incredulous college professor Anders Henriksson who, while grading exams, chose to laugh, rather than cry, at his students' most egregious mistakes.
History, after all, is nothing more than "the behind of the present," according to one student, who aptly added: "This gives incites from the anals of the past."
The once-mighty British Empire is in a "state of recline. Its colonies have slowly dribbled away leaving only the odd speck on the map." Chairman "Moo" has passed away, as has former President "Franklin Eleanor Roosavelt," and civil rights leader "Martin Luther Junior" was slain in the 1960s, shortly after making his famous "If I Had A Hammer" speech.
Hitler, a depressed "Nazi leader of a Communist Germany" who spurred a huge "anti-semantic" movement through a terrifying "Gespacho," launched "Operation Barbarella" while the English "vanely hoped for peas." The war began turning around, though, when the "Allies landed near Italy's toe and gradually advanced up her leg.
Hitler ultimately "shot himself in the bonker."
'CRETINALIA HISTORICA'
At its best, the 150-page book "illustrates the ingenious and often comic ways we all attempt to make sense of information we can't understand because we have no context or frame of reference for it," according to Henriksson, chairman of the history department at Shepherd College in West Virginia. He began compiling samples 20 years ago at the University of Toronto where he also taught.
Shortly after he began his collection, he published an article in the "Wilson Quarterly" titled "College Kids Say the Darndest Things," which prompted amused colleagues at more than two dozen universities in the United States and Canada including West Point, University of Alberta and McMaster, to regularly send him their own inane prose collections. Last year, when he realized his office overflowed with funny samples of "cretinalia historica" the idea for a book was born.
While Henriksson declined to identify all the schools involved he said they ranged from moderately to highly competitive, about half were in Canada, no Ivy League schools were represented, and that one of the entries came from Oxford in England.
At its worst, the book may reflect a generation raised in ignorance by bad schools and disengaged parents.
"This is not the norm," Henriksson told Reuters in an interview. What you have here is almost 30 years of my collecting from students' (works) at various institutions. This really represents sort of the creme de la creme of the creatively inane."
Did he make it up?
"No!" he said. "Who could make this stuff up except Mel Brooks. I'm not Mel Brooks." Which prompts the question: Should people sound the alarms and search for an "escape goat?"
Maybe. Hundreds of student contributors received passing grades with such statements as: "When the Davy Jones Index crashed in 1929 many people were left to political incineration. Some, like John Paul Sart, retreated into extraterrestrialism. The New Deal was an idea inspired by Franklin Eleanor Roosavelt."
(The Boston Tea Party, by the way, was held at Pearl Harbor.)
Gravity of the misstatements aside, the bloopers make a great reference whether one seeks information on the Canadian Missile Crisis, clashes between Israelis and Parisians, or the Gulf War in which, according to one scholar: "Satan Husane invaided Kiwi and Sandy Arabia."
(No doubt an act of "premedication.")
'NEW INCITES'
Henriksson said the errors fall into three major categories. Some are simply caused by bad spelling or a lack of proofreading, and come out funny. Some were prompted by a "profound lack of preparation, while others, just seem to be "really out at sea," he said.
"You get the ones who don't really even seem to understand there's a line between past and present and they tell you that the first airplane was flown by the Marx Brothers. I had this one kid who wrote that Spartacus led a slave rebellion in ancient Rome and then appered in a movie about it later."
The book offers fresh new "incites" on history from "prehistoricle" times through "King Toot" and the birth of "monolithic" religion.("Judyism had one big God named Yahoo").
The book goes on to "chronicle" the birth of Christianity ("Just another mystery cult until Jesus was born") and, his pronouncement, later, that "The mice shall inherit the earth."
The book sheds new light on the lives of Martin Luther (he nailed 95 theocrats to a church door), "Florence of Arabia," and General George "Custard" who managed to stand up anyway.
("Martian Luther King's" four steps to direct action, by the way, included "self purification," when you "allow yourself to be eaten to a pulp.")
In its final pages, the book includes students' geographical misconceptions as represented on several world maps bearing such labels as "The Land of Milk and Chocolate" and "Home of Golden Fleas" (in the Ancient World) to "Bulemia," "Whales," "Roam," the "Eel of France," and the "Automaton Empire" (as they were known in the "Middle Evil" Times).
And it notes that, yes, there has indeed been a change in America's "social seen," over the centuries. The last stage, according to the book, is "The Age of Now. This concept grinds our critical, seething minds to a halt."
Until then, however, we Americans, "in all humidity" are nothing less than "the people of currant times."
TEd
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear TEd: I really enjoyed it. As my favorite uncle said, quoting his hired man:"They don't teach brains in college."
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Loved it, TEd. I once had a student write in a test that "Eliza Doolittle helped Babbage to progrom the first computer". The only comment I could make while grading it was that "progrom" isn't a verb, never mind a transitive one. Through a veil of tears, of course.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Ted, I love this phrase (and thanks for the story, too): the creme de la creme of the creatively inane."CK--"veil of tears"--good one!  I can hear your laughter.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
CK--"veil of tears"--good one!
CK, you spooneristically eveiluated a tale that veers so wildly.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Oh, Ted! Every entry worth a post. (tears of laughter running down face -e)
Thank you. It's being cut and pasted and sent to several teachers I know.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
sad but true-- NYC makes a point of not teaching "conficts" in all (including HS)history classes-- so Viet Nam war is glossed over-- since the current crop of teacher are likely to have differing views of the conflict(and creating new ones in the classroom)
they just started to teach about the irish potato famine...7 years ago. There was a strong anglophile group involved in education, and most irish went to parachial (RC) schools.. but since the curriculum was for the state.. and the RC schools used the same books.. that little bit of history simply got recorded as " a record number of irish immigrated to US starting in 1848 and for the next 20 years.." with never a mention of why.. or what was happening in ireland at the time..
most of the history of israel is not taught.. there is a single line. "israel was founded in 1948.." not any history of ottoman empire, english influence, confict with Arabs... all just not mentioned.. just a little bit about european jews moving to mid east post WWII.
if you want your kids to know history, you have to teach it to them your self, or recognize they are not getting the full story. i suspect other school districts do some of the same..
maybe Jazzo can give us some info..
how much of VN war was covered?
or Cold War? and fall of Berlin wall?
was the irish famine covered? or the ottoman /kurd genoside?
or in central africa, what do you know about patrice lumumba, and the congo?
the last is one i am schetchy about.. all i was taught about was lumumba was a communist (and the was a code word for being as evil as satan,) and he murdered 8 nuns. the CIA involvement, and all the other politics (colonial power, explotation of resourses, ethic groups in the area.. all just ignored.. i know enough about it, to know, i don't know enough
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Permit me a little tangent. I teach a rhythmic chant of the United States presidents each year to second grade children as part of a big patriotic program we perform in March. For many of the presidents, I work in mnemonic devices with the chanting of presidents' names.
For instance, when we chant William Howard Taft, we pretend to be a very heavy person riding an encumbered pony. We bounce the rhythmic line of Taft's name. This leads into stories about Taft's having been the heaviest of the presidents, and, true to fat and jolly, beloved for his sense of humor.
Anyway, the point here is, even though these second graders chant these names and learn a lot of stories, there is that rare child who, by the fifth grade social studies project, will say that Benjamin Franklin or Martin Luther King was a president. I no longer get upset as I did when I was a young teacher. I just try to improve the stories, and also try to get any current set of second graders to laugh at the stories of fifth graders saying that Franklin and King were presidents. I assure you that I never tell names and tales--just amusing generalizations.
Most of the children will remember; however, there are some who simply won't think things out. They're the ones who make it into the darndest-things-that-are-said lists.
Wordwind, who is not a United States president
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear WW: though I do not wish to alienate you, I have strong mental reservations about the value of teaching the kids the names of all the presidents, so many of them were non-entities. I think it would be more valuable to tell them about the problems during each administration, and the men who contributed to the solutions.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
wwh, no, you won't alienate me. You would have to be in class to witness the children's interest in learning a little about the presidents, and see how from week to week they come back with research they've done on their own. I'm a music teacher, so my emphasis is on performance skills--specifically, taking a rhythmic chant of names and showing the kids how to make the names musical through use of dynamics, accents, articulation, and so on. We spend not more than ten minutes in a 45-minute lesson on the chant, and many lessons we don't cover the chant at all. Those are the weeks that these second graders are disappointed that they don't get to learn a few more names. This chant is the one point in the March performance that gets a standing ovation from the parents. I've had high school students come back to visit me at the elementary school to say things like, "That president chant got me through U.S. history"--certainly an exaggeration, but a nod my way that learning the chant and the stories related to the names was of some help. It's also a motivator for me to dig up better and more meaningful facts that a second grader could reasonably understand.
The exercise sounds dry-as-dust, but it really isn't. There's a lot of life in its final musicality, and the kids are visibly proud of their accomplishment, as are their parents.
Best regards,
Wordwind
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,372
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
889
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
