Posted on 04/15/2014 4:48:14 AM PDT by Kaslin
There's an MRCTV video circulating on the Internet that features a man with a microphone asking college students in Washington, D.C., to name just one member of the United States Senate. At least half a dozen are stumped. When he asks how many senators each state has, the same crew is equally flummoxed. One hundred percent of the students could name the hit song from the movie "Frozen," though.
These surveys about how ignorant Americans are have become hardy perennials. Survey data confirm that large numbers of Americans lack even rudimentary knowledge of what used to be called "eighth-grade civics." A survey by Common Core found that 25 percent of American high school students thought Christopher Columbus sailed after the year 1750, and about a third of them did not know the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech and religion.
We can all have a good laugh at the expense of the ignorant kids, but, of course, if they are truly undereducated (and these surveys can exaggerate), it's largely the fault of our schools.
It's nice to be reminded, from time to time, about what good schools and good teachers can achieve.
In McLean, Va., a suburb of the District of Columbia, Langley High School has for the past 22 years conducted a program called "Case Day." The brainchild of teacher Steven Catlett and former clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court General William Suter, Case Day involves the entire school (but most intensively the seniors in government class) in studying a pending Supreme Court case. Government teachers Allison Cohen and Micah Herzig, both former lawyers, try to choose cases that will engage teenagers. In past years, students have argued District of Columbia v. Heller (the gun control challenge), Morse v. Frederick (the "bong hits for Jesus" case), and Grutter v. Bollinger (an affirmative action question).
Four students were assigned to argue the cases before a panel of nine "justices," which included two students and also law professors, practicing lawyers and members of the school board. Suter played the role of chief justice.
This year's oral argument was Riley v. California, a Fourth Amendment case contesting the police search of a cellphone. The students familiarized themselves with a dozen or so Supreme Court precedents. As one explained, "We were told that in six weeks we were going to get a crash course in college, law school, and 20 years of practice." All agreed that studying the precedents changed their initial impression of the proper outcome of the case. They were also unanimous in saying that they now hope to be lawyers -- with their teacher acknowledging a little sheepishly that she may have conveyed the misimpression that law school is fun.
Before the drama of the mock oral argument, guest speakers elucidated the issues by offering some context on common law privacy, search-and-seizure cases and the facts of Riley v. California. Then, as the robed justices entered the chamber (well, school library), all rose. A student clerk intoned the "oyez," saying, "All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting ... "
Sparks flew! The arguments featured exactly the sort of thrust and parry that characterizes the actual Supreme Court. Student advocates were challenged by justices attempting to probe the weaknesses of their arguments (while much of the school watched on monitors). Grace Sununu and Anna Cox, representing Riley, were asked why the digital contents of a phone deserve any different consideration from ordinary papers that the court has held may be searched incident to arrest. Was it the sheer amount of data? What if someone were carrying a paper diary with tiny printing? Of William Miner and Ben Parker, appearing for California, it was demanded, "Suppose someone is arrested for jaywalking? Does that mean their entire private life (which can be accessed on a cellphone) is open to search?"
Though they could scarcely complete a full sentence without being interrupted, the students dropped case names and legal doctrines with impressive poise and confidence. The student justices (Natalie Fahlberg and Myunghoon Kim) drilled their colleagues mercilessly.
The Langley court ruled 5-4 in favor of Riley. That other court a few miles east will hear oral argument in the case on April 29, when the six students who participated will sit in the audience as the guests of Justice Antonin Scalia, a loyal supporter of Case Day.
This is not a high-tech, expensive program. Any school with good teachers and access to a library could do it -- and should. It's amazing what students are capable of, when asked.
Government’s not interested in an educated populace. Socialism is a war on the middle-class.
I remember when high schools had civics classes. We had real teachers too. And textbooks that weren’t filled with lies and lies by omission.
From the “Greatest Generation” to the Dumbest Generation.
Actually, it's largely the fault of the parents.
It's nice to be reminded, from time to time, about what good schools and good teachers can achieve.
McLean, VA is probably one of the wealthiest school districts in the U.S. I suspect there are a disproportionate number of successful and highly motivated parents who impress upon their children the importance of education for success. You could have conducted the same exercise with the same teachers and outside volunteers in a typical inner-city school district anywhere in the U.S., and the outcome would have been very different.
Kudos to the wise man (it may have been Thomas Sowell) who once said: "This country doesn't need better schools. We need better students."
Well, this is in Mclean, VA. The elites need to understand their rights and some may need some mentoring if they are to carry on the family tradition of law and legislation. Did I read one of the students was named Sununu?
Let us know when this happens in some inner city or rural school.
Having watched a number of those filmed interviews of our so-called educated youth, it amazes me how little, or down right stupid that generation really is. They can tell you the name of some stupid song in a particular movie but are unable to name a congressman or senator. They have NO IDEA what the Bill of Rights, The Constitution are for, nor any of the documents the founding fathers created and why. Ask them a simple question about our nations history and they haven’t a clue. And WORSE, these are the people that will be deciding how and where this country goes in the future.
I can truthfully say, at 76 years old, I am very happy to be near the end of my earthly stay. I do however, fear for my grand children and their future.
Another side of this to consider is that it demonstrates a complete loss of any sense of shame among a lot of people. If I were one of these students and I was questioned like this, I would have been so thoroughly embarrassed over my ignorance that I probably would have stared at the reported, mumbled some gibberish that sounds like a foreign language, and walked away.
We saw this coming and “home schooled” our kids on the legal structure of this country and who our congressman and senators are. We go through the news together so they can see who is a liar and how our current federal government is blatantly ignoring the Constitution. Hope it helps them to make correct decisions in their adult lives.
Essentially we are raising our kids to be properly educated outside of the classroom.
Inspiring program. But do we need to inspire more kids to become lawyers?
How about this: Let’s have the advanced placement science kids develop a life saving drug or medical device and then let the cafeteria ladies take ten years to evaluate and approve it. Let’s combine the young engineers club and the vo-tech kids on a project to build a new and efficient way of extracting natural gas and have the drama class protest it with die-ins and street puppets. Let’s give the second string jocks power to legislate and regulate everything in the students’ lives and then have all the other students divert their clubs’ dues to hire lawyers and lobbyists; make campaign contributions and buy the jocks’ ghost-written books to persuade the jocks to leave them alone and go pick on the other kids.
THAT is how government really works.
"Civics" was a 7th and 8th grade subject, in the 1960s and 1970s.
I believe it is non existent now. Pew had a civics test a while back, FReepers and conservatives scored very high.
The body language in that picture is interesting. He’s laughing at her, whilst pretending to be serious. She’s “laughing” as a subconscious effort to deflect from her ignorance.
Bigger picture: her real “mistake” isn’t her ignorance of basic civics. Her mistake is agreeing to be interviewed, live, in front of a camera without knowing ahead of time the subject of the interview or the sort of questions to be asked, and on a topic with which she is not familiar. It’s very easy for an interviewer to make even smart, well informed folks look silly. Dummies and ignorami don’t stand a chance.
I'm shocked ...
“...it’s largely the fault of our schools.”
Sorry, not buyin’ this BS. It’s ALL the fault of parents and voters who have allowed education to be preempted by political correctness and the teachers’ unions pushing the socialist agenda spoon-fed to them by the leftist elite.
By abrogating personal responsibility we have allowed the oozing slime of the left to insert itself in places where it should have NO authority.
All I am saying is that you are entitled to your opinion especially that it is all the fault of the parents. You are correct though about the teachers unions.
One of the local stations in Austin did something similar at the ut campus before the 2012 elections. Most all the students didn’t even know how many justices are on SCOTUS. Not one could name an elected official from Texas, state house or US house or senate.
I have to think that if civics & American government classes were required instead of some of the PC garbage that is apparently being taught now,that our political landscape would be drastically different. We wouldn’t be seeing the corruption in politics that we do now if all students knew how things were really supposed to work.
My experience with parents in public schools are nightmarish, many are very incompetent and want to be their child's friend. One had my 15 year old daughter over night and mixed up three orange juice and gin drinks for her until she threw up all night. The principal knew about this mother as she had been doing that for 10 years starting with her 2 older daughter's friends.
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