Knowledge

I had an interesting conversation with a fellow teacher this morning. He was sharing his frustration with the lack of knowledge his students had displayed regarding Vietnam.

The student seemed to think that we sided with the North Vietnamese because they were communist!

Later, he was sharing his frustration with another teacher who took the side that oh, our students probably know more than we give them credit for. To be honest, I would have probably fallen on this side of the debate too.

So as the two were talking in the hall, the former teacher decided to put this to the test. He stopped a student who had the class last semester.

“Excuse me,” he asked. “Can you tell me what countries fought in World War II?”

“Um . . . the U.S?”

Ha.

“Yes, we fought in the war. But what other countries besides the U.S.?” he pressed.

“Uh . . . I’m not sure.”

Unbelievable, right?

How could this happen?

I’ll spare you the details of what happened when he asked a faculty member this very question, but how can we know so little about our own history?

Is it ignorance? Is it that we have so many other things to learn? Do we have to know more technical information than the previous generations? There was a reason the people of my father’s generation could quite school and still work jobs that provided for their families.

But try to do that when it comes to programming computers or writing code. Our society has become so much more complex. Just look at how many jobs require so much training. Kristie has done several weeks of insurance and licensing training now and will spend a few days away from home this summer for more training. It wasn’t that long ago that my brother was shipped off to Colorado Springs for some math and science classes for his job.

Is it that we are inundated with popular culture and have that hog up our memories instead of key historical details? I think of Mark Methabane decrying that these millennials are the dumbest generation because they think it’s more important to know who won the last American Idol than it is to know who were our allies in the Second World War. But I have a hard time buying this last idea since I’m sure my grandparents were concerned that my mom paid too much attention to the Beatles, Elvis, and American Bandstand!

Of course, it’s easy for me to deride the student and faculty member for not knowing basic historical facts, but had someone asked me how to times fractions or to locate Istanbul on a map, I would have been in the same boat!

Now, certainly part of this debate is simply what certain generations think is vital information is not vital to other generations.

Just look at how conservative Texas politicians have tweaked the social studies standards to emphasize different aspects of American history.

The greatest generation might have found it vital to know about the Civil War and World War II and II. The baby boomers might have found it vital to know about World War II and the Cold War. Gen Xers might have focused more on the Cold War and Vietnam. Now, the Millennials? Why should we expect them to value the same historical periods as we do?

But there is something so disheartening about a student not knowing who fought on the US’s side in WWII! Worse yet, what else have they not retained?

Have they understood the causes and horrors of the Holocaust? What about the use of Atomic weapons? What about the hardships and rationing at home? Rosie the Riveter? What other pieces of knowledge that are necessary to being an American, a quality citizen, and a productive member of society missing?

Now that’s not just disheartening but downright scary!