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The Monumental Ignorance of Young Americans
The increasing anti-American anarchism, radicalism, and Wokeism of Americans, particularly young Americans, leads me to believe that young people in America are monumentally ignorant. The apparent success of the so-called “1619 Project” is consistent with this hypothesis. But it is difficult to determine how widespread this ignorance might be. It is quite easy to find anecdotal data, like a humorous online video of young people demonstrating their cluelessness, but hard to find quantified data.
Condoleezza Rice had an interesting comment in Peter Robinson’s recent interview, reporting that she drew an analogy about the capture of a notable Muslim terrorist being equivalent to the capture of Erwin Rommel. The kids in her audience had no idea who Rommel might be.
I found an interesting and useful data point. About 2 years ago, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation released the results of a survey of 1,000 American citizens who were given the U.S. Citizenship Test (here). The test has a pool of 100 questions. Prospective citizens are asked 10 of those questions, and pass if they correctly answer 6 or more. So how do American citizens do on the test?
The answer is that only 36% of American citizens surveyed can pass the test. The results, however, are highly stratified by age:
- 74% of Americans 65 years and older passed the test.
- 19% of Americans under age 45 passed the test.
The news release commented: “Surprisingly, the poll found stark gaps in knowledge depending on age.”
Why would that be surprising? The results are certainly consistent with my general impression that radical, anti-American Leftists have been taking over education, at all levels, for decades.
I’d be interested to see other demographic data on the rates of passing the citizenship test, but these are not reported by the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation.
Back in 2016, USA Today reported a prior survey on the same issue, though it only asked 5 questions (which would require 3 correct answers to achieve a “passing” grade of 60%) (here). USA Today gave limited demographic data by party, reporting that 40% of Republicans answered all 5 questions correctly, compared to 35% of Independents and 33% of Democrats. Unfortunately, it did not report rates of passing the test, by party.
If you’re interested in testing your knowledge, you can try a practice test here. I find it to be astonishingly easy, but I admit that I’m quite weird in my interest and knowledge in the areas of American politics and history. I’ve done several practice tests, and have not missed a single answer.
There is not a problem with all young people. My oldest, the 25-year-old Marine, did very well on the test. He is evidently in a small minority in his age group.
Over recent years, I’ve become increasingly skeptical about the wisdom of a broad franchise and birthright citizenship. I do recognize that any alternative system may create other problems.
Sorry for the depressing report, but it’s probably better to face the facts. We are dealing with two entire generations who are monumentally ignorant about American history, government, and politics.
BLM delenda est. Antifa delenda est.
Published in Education
Thanks for the update.
If the consequences of a “wrong” answer means not getting citizenship, or being denied the ability to vote (as some have suggested), I’ll give them the answer they want.
This just illustrates the difficult of putting together even “simple” tests with answers that can be reliably judged. There was at least one other question out of the 20 (I don’t recall the detail) that was similarly “questionable” (if you’ll pardon the pun).
For what it’s worth, I found the test almost insultingly easy. I really hope there’s actually a higher bar to citizenship than this.
In those days, he often wound up making more sense than Jonah. Maybe that’s why he “moved on.”
Hence “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.”
Bad news: there really isn’t.
And that test is only for people who didn’t just happen to be born here. If you were born here, you don’t have to know anything at all, before you can vote.
Nope – but compared to the other way this is insanely difficult.
Did he have a decent high school bio teacher?
Golly. It’s an honor.
Mau I suggest ordering two, burning them both to make room for more, and then ordering replacements?
Yes.
Adequate, maybe one of the coaches just working by rote from a good text like everyone should want. Plus many real geniuses end up being largely self-educated anyway.
But what if Salk had been teaching high school biology? Maybe he could have done a better job than others, but what about the kids that never get to his class, or anyone else’s class for that matter, because they got polio?
Good answer.
Like I said: there are more important things for real geniuses – scientists or otherwise – to be doing, besides teaching school. And there just aren’t enough of them to go around.
And as I’ve also said, the social/civilizational purpose of education is not for teachers and administrators to feel like they had a rewarding career – that they “made a difference,” etc – and a comfortable retirement. Nor is the social/civilizationsl purpose of marriage for any two – or more – people (or barnyard animals) of any combination of real or imagined “genders,” to be “happy.”
No, it’s not. The communists do the same thing. It’s an act of political bullying, but that doesn’t make it “fascist.”
I find “fascist” pretty hard to define, actually. I’m not convinced that it’s a useful term, and it continues to generate confusion. We do need labels for things, but the definitions need to be reasonably clear and remain stable, or the result is a failure to communicate at best, and a tool for malicious demagogues at worst. (I’m not calling you a malicious demagogue, Instugator — it’s just a danger.)
I agree, but I think that we’re in real trouble. “Turnabout is fair play” is a pretty good argument. One would think that the Wokeists would realize that they’re playing with fire.
They never do. Even when it’s their own people getting burned.
“One would think that the Wokeists would realize that they’re playing with fire.”
Jerry, the takeover of the schools and transforming them into indoctrination centers has been a long term Marxist goal going way back to Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School.
“I regularly read articles and comments about the need to teach “critical thinking,” including many comments here at Ricochet. I’m not against “critical thinking” in principle, but when it comes to complex issues, you need to know facts — often a lot of facts — in order to be able to reach a reasoned conclusion.”
“Critical Thinking” is a necessary ingredient in problem solving – a very important tool almost absolutely necessary to living life in a productive way. The first thing to do to solve a problem is to understand the problem, ( actually define it in problem solving theory) which if you have difficulty with “critical thinking” however it is defined, you likely will not come close to either understanding or then solving most of the problems you face in your life. A life of misery and difficulty, likely on the Dole, then awaits you.
Moreover, our schools purposely do not teach “critical thinking” because they want to indoctrinate – that is they want our kids to follow the official authorized Leftist Narrative – not think about it. The Left wants reliable, malleable followers who will follow without questioning, not thinkers. Too much thinking too often will lead to questioning of the Narrative which is unacceptable to our betters because as we all know they are far too holes in the Narrative.
That is also why the Left does not want History taught. History taught properly in the vast majority of cases would lead to great admiration for America, it’s ideals and it’s Constitution, for America is truly a “shining city on a hill” among nations, a distressing thought indeed for the Left, so it must not be done.
Walton: “At least Republican run states and cities could undo it, but they don’t. I’m told it’s complicated to undo. Everything is complicated. Just do it.”
The Public Employee Unions and particularly the Teachers Unions are very powerful and have several times the campaign cash everyone else does at the State and Local level. Also, too many of our ‘Republican” politicians are too easily bought off and bought off they are so they refuse to stand up against this tyranny, but stand up we must. To my mind, our rights are being violated in an incredibly gross way.
The Equal Protection Clause:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Have not our privileges to equal treatment in the schools been grossly abridged? Have not our rights been grossly deprived and denied?
Not if a leftist-packed supreme court says they haven’t.
I think the most serious omission in our education system–and I include private and charter schools here–is a course in civics and the judicial system. This course would make the history reading real to students. I really admired the way my high school driving course was organized–a little classroom work, a little student driving. Each made the other real somehow and more important and understandable to me.
Civics and law give students a concrete reason to pay attention, and in a different way from how they hear about history now. Civics knowledge brings government to life for the kids. It takes it out of the theoretical and makes it real. Not everyone needs hands-on practice to learn well, but half of us do. I offer as evidence the huge market for gardening, home improvement, and cooking television programs.
I also think a lot of the civil unrest we are witnessing today is caused by the lack of civics instruction in modern high schools. Rather than working on issues of interest to them, young people sit around reading stuff on the Internet and getting frustrated. They should be in meetings and working on public awareness campaigns on the subjects that interest them.
The superintendent of our school district was a dear friend of mine, mostly because I helped him increase civic engagement in our towns, something we both wanted. We often talked about the loss of civics in the standard high school curriculum across the country. It’s a huge hole. And it’s something our kids need. As we used to lament together, how are these kids going to get their neighborhood organized someday when their kids need a kindergarten aide?
We had an impressive student council in our high school that three times won awards for having the best student government in our state. The extracurricular program was our school’s only way to teach civics to the kids. And the kids loved it. One thing I was really impressed by was that the student representatives had to organize their own constituencies and figure out ways to keep in touch with them. So when they voted, they knew their constituents’ opinions and had considered the issue from their constituents’ areas of expertise. Consequently, the kids had some impressive debates. I wish our state reps would do the same–develop their own constituencies (sort of like the president’s cabinet) for advice. It was really a great system. Another part of the student council program called for one kid to be elected to sit in on all school committee meetings. What a great communication connection between the student government and the real government.
When people have a way to put their frustration to work, when they are on teams and committees working to improve their life, they don’t go on shooting sprees at night.
I fear there may be a substantial number of high school teachers who think (and would teach) doing so would be a useful economic stimulus program.
It would be useful economic stimulus for Saint Augustine.
Well my 11 year old just asked to watch the political debates. So this will be interesting…
Until someone points out the “carbon footprint”…
The vast majority of conservative parents have been and continue to send their kids to government schools, and then strongly encourage them to attend University. The vast majority of conservatives are a part of the problem.
Teaching as an assembly line job is not going to actually spark any interest among students, and is likely not going to be memorable. You want a teacher who genuinely cares about and enjoys their subject matter. The history teachers that I remember were the ones who were deeply engaged. That does not require genius intellect, just a bit above average, and an interest in the subject. When I taught chemistry, I had no publications or experience in high end chemistry experimentation. I used the book, but added supplemental material. Nick Says Hi to Chloe, Brenda, and I = the strong acids: Nitric, Sulfuric, HydroChloric, HydroBromic, and HydroIodic.
Also, the skillsets for scientific research and teaching are quite different. I knew several faculty members who were horrible teachers, but were great researchers.
I didn’t mean to suggest that teachers shouldn’t have an interest in the subject etc, just that genius scientists are too rare and have better things to do. But simple numbers suggest that most students, most of the time, are going to have teachers that aren’t especially passionate about the material. Many of the others will have teachers who are enthusiastic about the material but still may not have particularly good ideas about how to teach it. My main point was that curriculum should be developed with an eye toward effective teaching, and distributed to teachers, rather than having even inexperienced teachers making up class schedules etc “by the seat of their pants.”
Nope, the communists don’t. Because, they aren’t yet communist – merely socialists on the path to communism.
Fascists = socialists in every society that has had both.
In the Soviet union, the ideal was the “new Soviet man” – a person unburdened with envy, who embodies the selfless collectivist.
He was the man of the future and always will be.
So when the BLM surrounds a restaurant goer and harasses them until they raise the Black Power sign, they are being fascist.
I was just telling the kids last night that, even though I’ve been setting aside some money to save for their college education, they may never get it. Unless they go somewhere I trust. There aren’t very many of those places.
If
the future of Western Civilization would be bright.
We also need to watch our money. For Protestants, I trust Dallas Baptist University for the most part. For 2 years. After that, I’ll need more information. Houston Baptist: 5 years. Criswell College: 10 years.
For Catholics, University of Dallas is probably still good. But I haven’t heard a thing in ages.
Give your money to the cause. Give it to the tradition of education that is your real nurturing mother–alma mater–and not necessarily to the thoroughly corruptible institution it happened to be at.
Well said.