That’s kind of a bizarre statement. What about the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, California gold rush, Custer’s Last Stand, Geronimo, Transcontinental Railroad, Thomas Edison, etc? Practically all of American cultural mythology and archetypes are rooted in events of the 19th century.
Beats me, I’m just sayin’.
I would suggest that the ‘funny’ answers given were a result of multiple choice questions. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for people who are guessing something to come out with a name popular in the current media. I suppose the answer of “I don’t know” doesn’t look as ‘stupid’.
1006 over 16 year olds speak for over 55 million Brits? Far too small a number to be representative. I’ve no idea why the BBC should think this ‘revelation’ will compel more people to watch their salacious new programme.
Doing Dumb Britain threads is mine and Whitta’s job.
A few weeks ago the BBC reported a survey of school kids in the US about what they thought of schools in the UK and from the responses it seemed that they believed that all British kids went to schools like Harry Potter’s Hogwarts.
Of course British school kids don’t get to do cool stuff that American school kids do, like slaying vampires.
The problem is that even the War of 1812 and the Trail of Tears weren’t that important. The Mexican American war was more significant than the War of 1812 and the Trail of Tears just wasn’t an important historical event.
The Civil War was important, and most people could tell you that it happened in the middle of the 19th century. The rest of the 19th century was us expanding westward at various speeds.
I imagine Sharp’s good percentage is like 5, by the way. Not knowing who Churchill is?
You want me to test it? I’ll probably teach a class this fall. I can give a quick knowledge quiz on the first day. Any question suggestions? How about: “Who was the Prime Minister of England at the start of WW2?”
My point is not that somehow the basic Civil War dates are very important everyday knowledge. I do think having historical context is important, and basics like that are part of setting up such a context.
Anyway, my point is that these are COLLEGE student, which is supposed to mean that they received at least some high school education. But I have students who can’t figure out how to determine what they need on the final in order to get a certain grade that they want in the class…and they have all the percentages on the syllabus. That’s sixth grade math. Are you telling me that an educated person should not know that?
I get that its very cool to think that history isn’t important. Whatever. Ignorance is not something to be proud of; it isn’t something to justify or dismiss.
Our vaunted modern education system is crap. And it keeps getting worse.
“Who was Winston Churchill?” is the question you believed people wouldn’t know the answer to.
Anyway, bullshit. People have been whining about these kids these days for centuries. When did you take Algebra for the first time, Robert?
Have you heard of the Flynn effect?
What the hell are you talking about about it being cool to not know history? I know plenty of history. I don’t think it’s cool or uncool, it’s entertainment.
I don’t think it’s very important for anyone to know what year Custer’s Last Stand was. I can’t imagine a situation where that information would provide a tangible benefit to anyone.
Robert, you should ask both who was the Prime Minister at the beginning of and at the end of WW2.
Ok, I’ll ask that one. But wouldn’t you say that anyone who didn’t know the answer to the question I asked above wouldn’t really know who Churchill was? What is the “correct” answer the question as I originally phrased it? A guy who led England during the war?
It’s fractions, which isn’t really full algebra. I’d say I learned them in 5th or 6th grade…no later. I don’t know exactly. And I’m not sure what IQ has to do with anything. We are talking about education levels here, NOT ability to learn. It doesn’t matter how fast you can learn things if you don’t read a book.
I didn’t mean to seem like I was accusing you, Ben. In fact, I am sensing hostility towards me, which I didn’t intend to illicit. I’m talking about the attitude amongst much of America today. And I am not talking about the youth of today either. I am talking about everyone, including myself. And I am not talking about the general population, which is what Flynn seems to have looked at. I am talking specifically about the people we call educated. I don’t think the people who graduate college today could touch the people who graduated 100 years ago for pure education (knowledge gained through education). And yes, I am including myself in that.
As for history being entertainment, that IS the tendency I am talking about. Because that implies that if you don’t find it entertaining you have no reason to learn it. That’s what’s wrong with education in general today. People think THEY can decide what is important or not, when they don’t even know anything yet.
Yes… and using a similar line of reasoning, because people have been complaining about the venality and corruption of officials in China for millenia, there isn’t venality or corruption over there. Oh, wait. There is. And always has been. It’s an accurate complaint, just as the complaint about the ignorance of the masses is an accurate complaint.
I don’t think it’s very important for anyone to know what year Custer’s Last Stand was. I can’t imagine a situation where that information would provide a tangible benefit to anyone.
That’s part of the problem. Most historical knowledge (and other bits of knowledge that an “educated” person should have) don’t provide any obvious benefit. My knowledge that Chamberlain was Prime Minister of Britain during the outbreak of WW2 doesn’t provide any apparent tangible (read: material) benefit for me. Which is precisely why most people don’t care, and why they don’t bother to find out the answers.
edit- Robert responded right before I did, so I deleted duplicate answers
Anax- So you believe humans have been getting progressively less and less educated? The complaint isn’t “People are stupid”, because, duh, obviously. Everyone is stupid. Most people know a few things very well and then nothing at all about most things.
The complaint is that these kids these days are getting stupider, right? That’s a story, that’s something worth commenting on. And it’s simply untrue.
Robert- When did you learn full algebra? When was your first exposure to Trig? Kids today are more educated at a younger age, but the focus of education has shifted.
The people who graduated 100 years ago may be better educated about the classics(they probably read The Illiad in Greek, etc.), but they couldn’t touch graduates of today in math or science. Or, in fact, any specific field. We’ve gotten more specialized, and that’s a good thing.
I thought the comment about “cool” was a shot at me, Robert, and I apologize for misinterpreting it.
Nope. Actually, on average, they’ve been getting better and better educated. I don’t buy the “our schools are going down the tubes” argument… such an argument is usually advanced by people who want to make radical changes to our school system, so they have to invent and/or exaggerate its flaws.
However, even given the improvement of education, the masses are still woefully undereducated on what I would consider to be basic facts… historical, psychological, scientific, mathethematical, or other.
The complaint isn’t “People are stupid”, because, duh, obviously. Everyone is stupid. Most people know a few things very well and then nothing at all about most things.
Ben, you’ve got to separate “stupid” from “ignorant”. They’re very, very different concepts. You can be extremely well read and knowledgeable, and still be dumb as a doorpost. (Many people with PhD’s fall into this category… I’ve met tons of them.) Alternately, you can be ignorant as all get out, but be very intelligent. (I’ve met many factory workers like this… they came from low income households, so they never got a good education, but they were really intelligent individuals.)
The people who graduated 100 years ago may be better educated about the classics(they probably read The Illiad in Greek, etc.), but they couldn’t touch graduates of today in math or science. Or, in fact, any specific field. We’ve gotten more specialized, and that’s a good thing.
As for it being a good thing that we’re highly specialized, that’s highly debateable. And I’m not real sure which side of the argument I would fall on. The specialization has allowed our culture to produce more and better material goods, as well as to perform more advanced and faster research. On the flip side, we live more incomplete, compartmentalized lives, and we’re less able to decide for ourselves what’s right & wrong. As an exmple, look at creationism. It’s precisely because of this specialization that many people believe in creationism…which is complete bullshit. But how would they know any better? They haven’t even given the life sciences a cursory study, so they don’t know how much evidence there is in favor of evolution. And simply reading talking points (of either side) doesn’t really educate them… they’re reading knowledge that has been carefully distilled to support one side or another. To really understand what’s going on, they need to do general, wide reaching research… which is the exact opposite of specialization.
The obvious question then becomes the following, however:
History, science, technology, et. al. march on. Assumably, at the very least, as we progress we generate knowledge (quantified as a fact worth knowing) at a constant rate (probably fairly reasonably true for ‘soft’ subjects like history, anthropology, psychology; a gross mis-estimation for harder subjects like math, biology, physics). Assuming we won’t be inventing time dilation machinery any time soon, what exactly is one to do if one is required to remain ‘as educated’ as people 100 years ago about subjects that aren’t stationary?
If we limit oursevles as Americans to significant history since the discovery of the contenent (more or less), people going to school in 2017 have a 20% enhanced burden over those going to school in 1917, who themselves had a 33% enhanced burden over those in 1817.
Obviously these are gross estimations, but if you assume a reasonably constant per time generation of ‘worthwhile’ facts, the later you’re born, the more you’re expected to learn. I’m not sure it’s reasonable to expect people to adapt that quickly to increased intake of knowledge. There’s certainly something to be said for an influx of ‘junk knowledge’ in people today over a century ago, but there’s also a general all around increase in ‘real knowledge’ too. Taking people to task for effectively not having relatively weighted the two categories proper to some arbitrary expectations doesn’t seem very clearly worthwhile to me. Deciding that relative weighting is a tough problem, and it’s not particularly being tackled aggressively, especially at a primary school level in America (and, perhaps, Britain too, if we believe the anecdotal evidence).
Ultimately it’s pretty opaque to me how much history I need to really and truly understand in order to be a good physicist. And it’s likewise unclear to me how much math, even what I would consider ‘really basic math’, a graphic designer needs to know. As long as people are functional in society in the role they’ve chosen for themselves in the aggregate, I think education about other topics can still be regarded as a luxury.
That’s quite possibly the smartest thing I’ve ever read on the internet. Kudos.
Good point, but your definition of knowledge is a bit wonky. Although the raw amount of facts is rapidly increasing, that which is useful to learn (even moderately so) isn’t necessarily increasing at the same rate… or even increasing at all. At one point it was essential that an educated person learn Latin… now it’s pretty much irrelevant. Similarly, knowing who William the Conqueror used to be important for all Europeans, now it’s only of moderate interest to Britons… it’s not terribly important for French, German, or Spanish. (or Americans for that matter.)
What’s more, people will always come up with stories and have working theories for things such as sociology, psychology, and so on. As our true knowledge in those areas expands, the accurate facts will displace our incorrect myths that used to explain those phenemonen, but the grand total of information that we have to learn doesn’t necessarily have to increase.
If we limit oursevles as Americans to significant history since the discovery of the contenent (more or less), people going to school in 2017 have a 20% enhanced burden over those going to school in 1917, who themselves had a 33% enhanced burden over those in 1817.
Again, you’re ignoring the fact that those in 1917 had to learn about things like the Spanish American War, the exact battles of the Civil War, and so on. Since those events were so recent for the person in 1917, they were still relevant, and should be learned. However, those in 2017 can prolly get by with “There was a Civil War sometime in the 1800’s, and a couple other not-very-important events also happened.”
Ultimately it’s pretty opaque to me how much history I need to really and truly understand in order to be a good physicist. And it’s likewise unclear to me how much math, even what I would consider ‘really basic math’, a graphic designer needs to know. As long as people are functional in society in the role they’ve chosen for themselves in the aggregate, I think education about other topics can still be regarded as a luxury.
Thing is… you’ve already defined what needs to be learned in terms of your profession… your specialization. The very thing that I’m arguing for is that an eudcated person doesn’t only learn things for their profession, but also so they understand the world at large.
Every time the ignorance vs education agument comes up.
I am reminded of this poem
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man.
Plac’d on this isthmus of a middle state,
a being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic’s pride;
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
whether he thinks too little or too much.
I’ll give a big loving heterosexual hug to whoever can identify the poet/writer straight off without googling. 8)
And if you can’t, ah well. I’ll still give you a big loving heterosexual hug. :D
I think the link between “learning” and “understanding the world at large” is pretty spurious, at least in the institutional sense of learning (and the implied quantification of that learning through the recitation of empirical facts).
Let me ask you, if your fundamental of being learned is “understanding the world at large”, does it make one less learned if they satisfy the latter criteria based solely on artificial ‘facts’ gleaned from whatever source? (i.e. if someone is learning about history only from the movies, and develops an understanding of the sociopolitical dynamics of the world that are as correct as someone who has spent their time learning to your satisfaction, are they any less learned because of the source of their knowledge?) Does being learned necessarily imply a common series of contexts?
Why would American schoolkids have heard of Neville Chamberlain?
Um, because he represents one of the most important lessons of history?
Perhaps, but depending on which historian you read, the actual lesson varies.