Are you smarter than Mrs. B's students?

Louisiana Purchase ... Yanks bought Louisiana -- which then encompassed one-third of the current U.S. -- from the French for a few bucks.

Spent about a month on it and its ramifications in Grade 7.

 

I have never spoken a word of Latin to anyone in my life, but studying it taught me how to write.
I haven't mentioned Aristotle --prior to this post -- in about 25 years, but reading him taught me how to think.
IJAG, your post makes me sad. This country is the only one ever founded on an idea. That idea requires that we know our history more than is required of any citizen under any other form of government. History is a lot of things -- including, alas, badly taught. But if it's ever useless, or sacrificed for some sort of quick-shot utilitarian replacement, we are doomed as a nation. I'm serious about this.

 

And I understand your point, Fenian. But I don't agree with it.

 

OK, but just remember, given the events of the last seven years, if you don't know what's in the Constitution, and why it's there, it'll be gone by the time you've looked it up.

 

What's that old saying? If we don't learn about and from history ...

 

I'm not saying you shouldn't know ANYTHING of history. There are, as I said earlier, things you should know.

I just don't think more history in HS or college would have given me any of those things.

 

It really sucks that the state of education can't be like that. Where I went to school a handful of kids in my class would fail each year and many, many more would go to summer school -- where classes were much, much easier, so I heard (I only took electives there, as opposed to "real" classes). So right there, the education is watered down. In cases like my sister, who is mentally retarded, the school was seen more as a place to hold the kid for eight hours while mom and dad worked during the day. She went to high school for six years until she was 21, and we graduated together.

Failing students cost the school district money, crowds the classrooms and often disrupts the flow of education. I'll guarantee most teachers would prefer a kid was held back, but it just serves as counter-productive to the other 24 kids in the class. Then you've got to make a choice: Who is more important?

 

I worked a 12-hour day today and finally sat down for some SportsJournalists.com time. Came to this thread directly from the Rove thread. I have to say a country with people who have a better grasp of history and more robust education overall would be less likely to fall for Rove's "genius."

You need a good bit of people who are ignorant of history to work some of his magic, and a passive Washington press corps doesn't hurt either.

This thread and that thread are joined at the hip, in my opinion.

 

When I was in school, I was very hostile to the idea that I needed to know all the things they were trying to teach me. I can't think of any instance in my life where I have ever used advanced math like trigonometry.

As I get older, however, I feel a lot less hostile to that idea. Mostly because, as I've grown up, I want to know more than I did then and more than I do now. Now, I'm proud of the fact that I want to acquire the knowledge as much as I'm interested in learning it.

 

But I think that's a different argument. WAnting to learn is a magical thing. I sometimes read stuff just because I want to.

But feeling like you "needed" to know calculus isn't the same thing.

 

I had that realization during my senior year of college. Since then, I read more than I ever have and take a lot of personal pride in understanding many of the topics I never could have grasped just four or five years ago.

 

Learning something you don't want to learn builds a better brain. Something about creating new neuropathways or something like that. It's like lifting weights and other exercise build a better body, even if it's not fun. The payoff comes in ways you can't dream of in the beginning.

A stimulated brain is an amazing gift to give to yourself, even if it's not always wrapped in a pretty package. Before you know it, you discover you do need it -- or at least you feel like you need it.

The same way a jogger realizes he or she "needs" that morning run after a couple of days of skipping it.