How 'dumbed down' are we?

How 'dumbed down' are we?

Nov. 9, 2000

STRAIGHT TALK
By Muriel Sluyter

Greetings, Gentle Reader,

Remember the book I mentioned by Harry Stein, the former extreme liberal, entitle How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-wing Con-spiracy? In it, he asks: "How far have academic standards fallen over the course of the last century? Let’s put it this way: The following are some sample questions from an 1885 examination for admission to Jersey City High School.

Algebra:

Define a polynomial. Make a literal trinomial.
Write a homogeneous quadrinomial of the third degree.
Express the cube root of 10 ax in two ways.
Find the sum and difference of 3x-4ay+7cd-4xy+16 and 10ay-3x-8xy+7cd-13.

Geography:

Name four principal ranges of mountains in Asia three in Europe and three in Africa.
Name the states on the west bank of the Mississippi and the capital of each.

U.S. History:

What event do you connect with 1565, 1607, 1620, 1664, 1775?
What caused the Mexican War? What was the result?
What American general commanded at the capture of the City of Mexico?

Grammar:

Write a sentence containing a noun used as an attribute a verb in the perfect tense potential mood and a proper adjective.
Write the declension of: (a) bird, (b) man, (c) fly, (d) fox, and (e) it.
Make three sentences using the plural of sheep in: the nominative case; the possessive, and in the objective."

In the 50s we studied algebra in the ninth grade; geography from the third through ninth grades; grammar through the eighth and history from elementary through high school.

My eleventh grade history teacher was one of several returned servicemen. He had spent the war years in Europe, gone to school on the G.I. Bill, and believed in teaching history as it really happened.

That’s all great; at least I learned those things, but I couldn’t have gone to Jersey City High School. High school started in the ninth grade back then, and I hadn’t learned all of those things by the end of my eighth grade. I would have been hopelessly out classed. Fortunately, we received no political indoctrination.

Today’s eighth graders know: sex ed, but too little geography; the environmentalist’s view of the environment, but little algebra; much about women especially celebrities but almost no unrevised history; all about slavery as it pertained to our enslaving black people but nothing about worldwide slavery from ancient times up to and including the present.

1885 school kids were no dummies. How about today’s parents? Teachers? Even college teachers? How many math teachers could pass the non-math parts? How many English or history teachers could pass the math and geography parts?

Are our school children being short-changed? Yes. They are being under-educated but heavily politically indoctrinated. Does the solution lie with the school? No. It lies with the parents. It’s our job to see that our children are educated. The national educational hierarchy wants the power, control and clout they get from taking over our responsibility, but it is still ours, nonetheless. If we prefer that our children study algebra, geography, history (including the Constitution) and grammar, as opposed to radical feminism, radical environmentalism and preposterously fictionalized history, it is our job to see that it happens.

We can only blame ourselves, as long as we neglect to exercise the power we have over our children, schools and school boards. Like it or not, the buck stops with us.

PS — I’ll give you the answers to the test next time.