Posted on 09/14/2010 8:32:16 AM PDT by conservativegramma
But, I had a general science class in 1954 and some of the questions on a 25 question test were: Explain how a wet cell battery works; explain how a mercury light works; explain how a doorbell works. Only 2 kids passed...one was later our class valdictorian and the other our salutatorian. I was neither. LOL!
The teacher was so mad he told us we would have to take it until we passed...he quit giving it after seven more times. I never did pass it. I still don't understand how a murcery light works and only care that it comes on at dusk. :)
“Smarter” is a ludicrous misnomer for a test that measures how much information someone has. A stupid person could have more information than a smart person on any number of topics.
I don’t think so. I know a lot of recently minted citizens who barely speak English.
Education has just changed tremendously.
I was seated next to a young minister at a wedding reception last year and I started asking him some questions that I have had left over from the side affects of a freshman survey of religion class. I asked him if he had read Tillich, Niebuhr or Bonhoeffer and I told him that we read them as freshman in college in a required course and that they left me more questions than answers. I always like to get into a good religious discussion with ministers who have read them.
He hadn’t read them, except a little Bonhoeffer. Anyway, the upshot was that he was shocked that students read them in a required 101 religion course as freshmen because he said that graduate students in theology have a hard time with them. I told him that education has changed. Then I told him that when I was in 8th grade, I had to do a 20 page paper on the Effect of the Monroe Doctrine on the US foreign policy during the pre-Civil War period. He just looked at me and shook his head.
Had to memorize the presidents also. Today I can only remember the first 6 and those since FDR...Washington, Adams Jefferson, Madison Monroe Quincy Adams.(I think) Why being past 70 I still remember those is beyond me....
LOL I took Civics and thats were I learned about football. Teacher would have 2 teams and if your team got the right answer you got to move your ball toward the goal posts...If your team missed a question, the ball was turned over to the other team....the boys in class loved it, us girls learned the game.
I agree. I have a friend whose parents are American citizens from Russia and can’t even speak English. It is stunning considering they have been here 40 years.
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