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Sunday, December 19, 2004
America as it ain't
It's no exaggeration to say the ignorance of college students is staggering
By Richard Nehrbass
The Huntington Beach resident is a professor of management at Cal State Dominguez Hills.
After America won its independence from Germany in the 19th century and Fidel Castro became the first ruler of the Soviet Union, Betsy Ross wrote "The Star Spangled Banner." Wait, that's not right. It was after the Emancipation Proclamation secured our independence from France and Tolstoy established his reputation as a singer and Stalin became the president of Italy.
No, this isn't "magic realism," or some obscure French philosopher's post-modernist view of history. It's our world, as understood by our children. Grown children, sitting in my classes at a campus of the California State University, and almost entirely the product of California's public schools. To reach my classes, they have successfully navigated 12 years of American public education, graduating in the top third of their class. They have a history of A and B grades, they have admirable SAT scores. They are the flower of their generation. And they know almost nothing about their country, their culture or the world in general.
(snip)
Most of my students can't explain the difference between the political parties, or what the United Nations is, or name a single member of the president's Cabinet. They don't read newspapers or magazines, seldom watch the news on television, and think actually reading a book is an exotic and particularly cruel form of punishment... The vast majority of these soon-to-be college grads were not aware of even the most basic facts concerning their nation's history. Most, for example, could not identify the decade of any of America's wars. Any! Most couldn't identify the century. A mere 16 percent were able to date the beginning of the Revolutionary War to the 1770s, and only 12 percent chose the 1860s as the time of the Civil War. Two-thirds were unable to date the War of 1812. The mind boggles.
(snip)
To test simple arithmetic skills, I asked what 70 percent of 240 was. This is middle school stuff. But most had no idea how to figure it out. When asked to make change for a $5 bill when a purchase came to $1.37, one-quarter of California's future bachelors of science weren't able to figure it out. Perhaps the problem is they're too busy studying current events. Perhaps, but only 16 percent could name California's two senators, and only 29 percent knew the Senate was composed of 100 members, though one soon-to-be grad said, "Fifty, two from each state."
(snip)
There were some positive results, of course. Sixty percent knew Nixon was the president who resigned in office, 95 percent chose Sacramento as their state's capital, and 81 percent more or less knew what the Holocaust referred to. ("When jewes were killed" and "killing of ethnical group" are actual quotes from soon-to-be university grads.) And 76 percent knew what happened on Pearl Harbor Day ("There was a bombing in the shape of a mushroom which killed many people and destroyed lands.")
But enough. After all, it's the system, not the students, that is at fault. Our young people are not stupid. Indeed, many are quite brilliant. But it's time we asked why after 12-plus years in our public schools, and a backpack full of As and Bs, they know so little about the world they live in. And it's past time for our nation's schoolteachers to take responsibility for what goes on in their classrooms. As things stand, they should be as "embarrassed" at the product oftheir labor as some of their own graduates are.
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