[Sca-cooks] Jonathan Swift was an Optimist

[Siegfried Heydrich]

    Actually, this was from Kansas, and had very little of the history of
that state in the test. The rules of grammar, arithmetic, US history,
orthography, and geography haven't changed much. I remember the year that
education changed from academics to making us 'well rounded people'. When I
went from 8th to 9th grade, we went from hard subjects to warm, fuzzy
subjects. 1968 . . . the year they stopped teaching, and became babysitters.
I spent 3 years trying to figure out why they were more concerned with my
'self image' than preparing me for college.
    And when I went to IU (Bloomington) after I got out of the Marines, it
felt SOOO good to be actually leaning something! Of course, by then I had no
fear of professors, and had an awful lot of fun arguing with them. Kept a
3.81 GPA in spite of being the campus reactionary.
    I'll go ahead and post it - if anyone wants to take a crack at it,
enjoy. But don't feel bad if you don't pass . . . blame the system!

    Sieggy

----- Original Message -----

> You know, I've seen that exam.  I must admit, while those 8th graders
> knew an awful lot about the history of the state of Tennessee, they'd be
> pretty hard pressed to operate a computer.  Or an automobile.  Or
> perform basic geometric calculations to help them design a simple wood
> project without a model or pattern.  They were taught only extremely
> basic science - like, what you or I learned by 6th grade.  Unless they
> were expected to go to high school and college, they were taught
> arithmatic, not mathmatics.  They were taught to read from the Bible,
> and Johnathon Swift would certainly never have made it into their
> classrooms.  Additionally, while they would know plenty about the
> history and geography that would turn them into good patriots, do you
> really think they were taught either good world history or critical
> thinking skills that just might have led them to ask uncomfortable
> questions?
>
> Additionally, the only people who took that exam, intended to give them
> passage to 9th grade, were the academically elite - not farmers sons or
> the daughters of pickle vendors, both of whom needed basic reading,
> writing and arithatic skills, period.
>
> That exam is completely worthless as a comparison to modern education.
> It's like comparing German Shepards to 747s.
>
> Is our educational system perfect?  I wouldn't try to argue that.  In
> fact, I plan to home-school my children.  On the other hand, is it
> better than 100 years ago?  Betcha buttons it is.  We're hardly going to
> hell in a handbasket just because some schools might choose to teach Ray
> Bradbury instead of Johnathon Swift.  There's a *huge* corpora of
> literature out there from which educators can choose.  If students stop
> responding to Swift because it's not as socially relavant as George
> Orwell, I see nothing wrong with revising the canon.  It's not like
> they're reading less, or of a lower quality of literature.
>
> Can we get back to food now, please?
>
> -Magdalena