Dugout Doug, Victor of Vimy
Wrong country, wrong war. Our historical knowledge has unconditionally surrendered.
The survey by the Dominion Institute (sign the petition at the site for a state funeral for the last World War I veteran) found that only 42 per cent of Canadians received a passing grade on a simple test of First World War knowledge.
In a multiple choice quiz, only 33 per cent of those quizzed identified First World War commander Sir Arthur Currie and legendary flying ace Billy Bishop as Canadian military heroes from a list of only four. The other two names on the list belonged to U.S. Civil War leader Ulysses S. Grant and American Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
And one quarter of those surveyed picked MacArthur as a Canadian war hero.
Among young Canadians, the grades were even worse, with only three out of every 10 young Canadians passing a four-question quiz. The lowest grades came from Quebec's young people.
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 11:46 a.m.
7 Comments:
dave, by the socialists right?
was the "asshole" implied strongly enough?
I'm just curious
I'm going to expand on this:
Governments set the framework for education. Governments decide what makes the cut on curriculum issues. Governments that change hands, you know the left, the right, back again.
The theory that it's one part of the spectrum coming in and ruining stuff and then the next group can't do anything about it is BS. Governments, left and right, seem to view the education components of their responsibility as a private football to kick around and mess with.
So funding gets cut and then the history curriculum gets smaller and the teachers who teach history are suddenly math teachers and then people are failing quizzes.
The depressed Quebec scores are linkable to the historic attitude about armed conflict here in Quebec, an emphasis on social history (usually near term) in the public school system and Euro history (usually long term) in the private system.
My problems are mostly with his framing, but then again statements like
"You are right,that govt's come and go,but the universities that produce the teachers are very heavily slanted to the left,and that is a constant.The product they pump out is more often than not thoroughly a believer in small l liberal thinking,where the military holds no more influence (and possibly less so..) than other institutions in Canada." are not really based on, you know, proof.
The point remains that teachers don't decide what to teach.
Cameron: "The point remains that teachers don't decide what to teach." Compare with this comment at Army.ca:
'"It's largely up to the teacher to bring anything 'extra' to the table. A good dept. head helps, who can assist those not up to snuff on those subjects - as my history teacher in school was, and as I'm sure ex-Sup is!"
Thanks for the plug Nieghorn! Salute
The only thing I can add to this my own personal experience. As a dept head, I'm just another teacher who makes a bit more $$$, does piles of extra work and has no authority (yes, I know how dumb this sounds). I can only "suggest" and "recommend" materials and techniques to other teachers. I have no real control over what they do in their classrooms. It is on the individual teacher to make sure they are following the curriculum.
"the content of the ones now, you'll see that today's texts are very watered down. I have a new one where WWII is covered in six pages, which has much larger print than the old books and are filled with images, charts, inserts, etc."
Gotta make it look good; aesthetics over content. Wink
"it's still one mandatory course that covers the 20th C, right?"
Yup...1914 to present (I never get past the '70's...besides, nothing exciting happened in the 80's except bad clothes and bad hair!)'
Mark
Ottawa
Mark, you really don't want to get me going on design as it related to content and education.
Because then you will never, ever get me shut up.
Oh, but one thing, most text books are now made by a small number of companies. Companies out of Texas. A bastion of commies, that Texas place.
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