JOE I may be woefully ignorant of history but it seems to me that the founding fathers made it the responsibility of Congress to fund these wars, not the executive branch. History tells me that the Dems have controlled that vote for a while. History will tell my children that it was Dems that decided to escalate in order to withdraw. Didn’t McNamara have the same idea in a little Dem war called Vietnam?
Term limits, term limits, term limits. Both parties think they have a blank check . John Murtha has his name plastered all over his district on buildings. I am sure this is true all over the couontry.
Kids learn what adults teach them. And I had some pretty sorry teachers who cared only about getting through the school day with by running a film projector and issuing “self-taught” lessons so they could go coach a ball team.
Actually, you can’t blame them too much for being confused about who our enemies and allies were, when in truth Joseph Stalin was our temporary ally to end WWII.
The major problem of history books, which has happened for generations. There not written right wrong information so how can children learn history, math, English, etc in school when the creators of the text books are inaccurate.
My husband told me in his time and that was over 60 years ago he had to convince his teacher the text book was wrong and bring in an encyclopedia to show him.
On TV on a night news show reporters talked to a couple who went through text books including chemistry and found a lot of errors.
Kids are more into now then yesterday and electronics.
Give them a computer or some electronic gadget and they will have it figured out and teach adults what to do.
Awwwww for the self proclaimed historians….If one will follow American History one will surely know that the only war that we won and did not occupy afterwards was WWI and we were back Europe in two decades….If one will continue to read their Real history books one will notice that we still occupy Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea and even the Philippines and Cuba from the Spainish American War….we have not had to fire a shot in anger since.
There appears to be evidence to support the notion that the current school age generation is ignorant of history.
In recent months, I have asked several grade school age children to name the Presidents of the United States. At best, all I could get from them was Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Bush and Obama, and that’s about it.
When I was in school, if you couldn’t name all of the Presidents in order, you didn’t pass. It was as simple as that. It really isn’t that hard of a task.
Of course if the kids of today weren’t hooked on that electronic opium known as video games, they might actually be able to get off of their McDonald’s-heavy overweight tails and learn something…….
As a parent, I agree that the current state of teaching history (something I majored in) is deplorable. My 16 year old regularly tells me that they show movies in history class. They showed Gladiator while they were on Roman history!!! I’ve tried to raise hell but it’s hard to build up excitement among other parents. History apparently ain’t that important anymore…
one only has to watch the Jay Leno jaywalking segments to know that our youth are sorely lacking in knowledge of history and of current events. It is a sad commentary on our times.
Roohey,
I’ve never seen the segments, but just found some examples online. I agree: sad.
Joe,
I like your “McNamara Fellowship” line.
Airboy20,
I’ve heard of movies being shown in history class, too. Often, the class would get a more grounded take from Mr. Peabody and Sherman than from the latest Hollywood blockbuster!
Among the many differences between growing up now and in, say, the 1960s: the way the news finds its way into and spreads throughout the household. When I was a kid, the radio was always on in the morning; the newspaper was on the table or couch every day; and the news was on TV every night at 6 p.m. Through all these media that my parents took interest in, without much effort on my part (or even ability to easily avoid it), I was given the basics of current events, which are the fruits and seeds of history. These days with so many different devices in the house, the media experience is more individual/isolated. Some of my friends agree that the kids are typically not getting the overflow of information we parents are taking in, as we did as children. We are scrolling the days events on the computer, while they are texting, chatting, video gaming (as kab2rb pointed out), listening to ipods, watching TV in another room… etc. I also see the disconnect from old-fashioned news with young adults at work, who are for example regularly suprised by inclement weather, and who miss voting in elections despite intending to. They are well-connected in other ways of course, and rarely miss the first night of the latest blockbuster movie.
Joe I know, don’t live there, the area you are talking about. I met my husband in a bigger town through friends and he lived with his mom lived just east of Kingman and Norwich. South of US hwy 400.
Kingman hasn’t changed in size either.
EarlWash over 14 years ago
No big surprise!
Steve Bartholomew over 14 years ago
You mean he wasn’t?
miked53smith over 14 years ago
Yeah look at the state of the Republican Party.
DebJ4 over 14 years ago
You want an entertaining evening - just ask some random kids to tell you who Oliver Wendell Holmes was.
lewisbower over 14 years ago
JOE I may be woefully ignorant of history but it seems to me that the founding fathers made it the responsibility of Congress to fund these wars, not the executive branch. History tells me that the Dems have controlled that vote for a while. History will tell my children that it was Dems that decided to escalate in order to withdraw. Didn’t McNamara have the same idea in a little Dem war called Vietnam?
Ronshua over 14 years ago
No Lew , ask any Dem the Bush-Dick Government is responsibility for that one .
axe-grinder over 14 years ago
One should not need to study history to know about Hitler.
oldbooger over 14 years ago
I have it on good authority that Bush-Cheney are directly responsible for ALL the good things happening in the world.
If you don’t believe me, Just start watching Fox News.
Fair and Balanced, my elbow!
alondra over 14 years ago
Oh yeah and CNN is so fair and balanced?
drewhollan over 14 years ago
Term limits, term limits, term limits. Both parties think they have a blank check . John Murtha has his name plastered all over his district on buildings. I am sure this is true all over the couontry.
stringmusicianer over 14 years ago
Kids learn what adults teach them. And I had some pretty sorry teachers who cared only about getting through the school day with by running a film projector and issuing “self-taught” lessons so they could go coach a ball team.
gocomicsmember over 14 years ago
Actually, you can’t blame them too much for being confused about who our enemies and allies were, when in truth Joseph Stalin was our temporary ally to end WWII.
kab2rb over 14 years ago
The major problem of history books, which has happened for generations. There not written right wrong information so how can children learn history, math, English, etc in school when the creators of the text books are inaccurate. My husband told me in his time and that was over 60 years ago he had to convince his teacher the text book was wrong and bring in an encyclopedia to show him. On TV on a night news show reporters talked to a couple who went through text books including chemistry and found a lot of errors. Kids are more into now then yesterday and electronics. Give them a computer or some electronic gadget and they will have it figured out and teach adults what to do.
Raven00 over 14 years ago
Awwwww for the self proclaimed historians….If one will follow American History one will surely know that the only war that we won and did not occupy afterwards was WWI and we were back Europe in two decades….If one will continue to read their Real history books one will notice that we still occupy Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea and even the Philippines and Cuba from the Spainish American War….we have not had to fire a shot in anger since.
BlitzMcD over 14 years ago
There appears to be evidence to support the notion that the current school age generation is ignorant of history.
In recent months, I have asked several grade school age children to name the Presidents of the United States. At best, all I could get from them was Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Bush and Obama, and that’s about it.
When I was in school, if you couldn’t name all of the Presidents in order, you didn’t pass. It was as simple as that. It really isn’t that hard of a task.
Of course if the kids of today weren’t hooked on that electronic opium known as video games, they might actually be able to get off of their McDonald’s-heavy overweight tails and learn something…….
serenasakitty over 14 years ago
One war’s enemies is next war’s allies.
Airboy20 over 14 years ago
As a parent, I agree that the current state of teaching history (something I majored in) is deplorable. My 16 year old regularly tells me that they show movies in history class. They showed Gladiator while they were on Roman history!!! I’ve tried to raise hell but it’s hard to build up excitement among other parents. History apparently ain’t that important anymore…
roohey over 14 years ago
one only has to watch the Jay Leno jaywalking segments to know that our youth are sorely lacking in knowledge of history and of current events. It is a sad commentary on our times.
axe-grinder over 14 years ago
Roohey, I’ve never seen the segments, but just found some examples online. I agree: sad.
Joe, I like your “McNamara Fellowship” line.
Airboy20, I’ve heard of movies being shown in history class, too. Often, the class would get a more grounded take from Mr. Peabody and Sherman than from the latest Hollywood blockbuster!
axe-grinder over 14 years ago
Among the many differences between growing up now and in, say, the 1960s: the way the news finds its way into and spreads throughout the household. When I was a kid, the radio was always on in the morning; the newspaper was on the table or couch every day; and the news was on TV every night at 6 p.m. Through all these media that my parents took interest in, without much effort on my part (or even ability to easily avoid it), I was given the basics of current events, which are the fruits and seeds of history. These days with so many different devices in the house, the media experience is more individual/isolated. Some of my friends agree that the kids are typically not getting the overflow of information we parents are taking in, as we did as children. We are scrolling the days events on the computer, while they are texting, chatting, video gaming (as kab2rb pointed out), listening to ipods, watching TV in another room… etc. I also see the disconnect from old-fashioned news with young adults at work, who are for example regularly suprised by inclement weather, and who miss voting in elections despite intending to. They are well-connected in other ways of course, and rarely miss the first night of the latest blockbuster movie.
kab2rb over 14 years ago
Joe I know, don’t live there, the area you are talking about. I met my husband in a bigger town through friends and he lived with his mom lived just east of Kingman and Norwich. South of US hwy 400. Kingman hasn’t changed in size either.