So, for my first real blog I thought I would write about something that nags at me every single day of my teaching life; what kids DO NOT know. It’s truly fascinating when you actually come to realize how much many kids do not know. Now, I was a pretty smart kid, yes; however, many things that I knew early on in life were not complicated. Kids today do not know simple things that they should know. Their vocabulary is truly terrible. Their common sense is lacking. And, the most troubling thing, their desire to be better educated is just not there. I’m going to give some examples to further illustrate my main idea.
One subject I teach is World Geography; I teach it to 9th graders. Now, I understand that many kids do not have too much background in this subject and that’s why they take it. So, I give them that. However, there are some things kids should know by the 9th grade. It should not shock a student to hear that there are seven continents. They argue with you about it. And when I name them all (North America, South America, Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica), they still have a hard time. And that leads to more issues for me. They will mislabel North and South America; they switch them. This obviously means they have no concept of basic directions, so then you have to go over that. And don’t even fry their mind with “northwest,” “southeast,” etc. Then you always will have the obligatory “Africa ain’t no continent. It’s a country.” Explaining that the continent of Africa is made up of many countries is hard to pound into their heads. Hell, I even had a student that was completely blown away by my telling her that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Really? Really? There is no way in holy hell that she had never heard that. But she forgot it. And that’s sad. And disturbing. And sickening.
Now, onto another part of this topic. The vocabulary that many young people possess is really very, for the lack of a kinder word, pathetic. In my senior class recently I said the word “discrete.” A student said, “Why you use such big words?” I was kinda confused because I really didn’t know what word she meant. I just don’t find the word “discrete” to be a ‘big word.’ I then explained what it meant; after I figured out what word she meant. And besides vocabulary, there are cultural references that most kids just don’t get. I mentioned someone having a scarlet A on her chest and a large majority had no idea what the hell I was talking about. One day I mentioned a politician having an albatross hanging around his neck, and again very few had a clue. Or when I tell a student his shirt looks like an Andy Warhol painting, and he’s the only one that gets it. Truly sad.
So, I guess that education is failing students in a new way now. They may know how to add and subtract, and they may know who won the Civil War. They may know how to diagram a sentence and how to classify a plant species. And all of that is great. But they are being failed in the ways of common sense and common knowledge. I almost want to say that students today are taught lots of stuff, but they are not educated. They know random facts and how to analyze things, but they have a 5th grade vocabulary at best.
Fear for the future of humanity. Flee from ignorance. Teach somebody something, for the love of God.
One subject I teach is World Geography; I teach it to 9th graders. Now, I understand that many kids do not have too much background in this subject and that’s why they take it. So, I give them that. However, there are some things kids should know by the 9th grade. It should not shock a student to hear that there are seven continents. They argue with you about it. And when I name them all (North America, South America, Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica), they still have a hard time. And that leads to more issues for me. They will mislabel North and South America; they switch them. This obviously means they have no concept of basic directions, so then you have to go over that. And don’t even fry their mind with “northwest,” “southeast,” etc. Then you always will have the obligatory “Africa ain’t no continent. It’s a country.” Explaining that the continent of Africa is made up of many countries is hard to pound into their heads. Hell, I even had a student that was completely blown away by my telling her that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Really? Really? There is no way in holy hell that she had never heard that. But she forgot it. And that’s sad. And disturbing. And sickening.
Now, onto another part of this topic. The vocabulary that many young people possess is really very, for the lack of a kinder word, pathetic. In my senior class recently I said the word “discrete.” A student said, “Why you use such big words?” I was kinda confused because I really didn’t know what word she meant. I just don’t find the word “discrete” to be a ‘big word.’ I then explained what it meant; after I figured out what word she meant. And besides vocabulary, there are cultural references that most kids just don’t get. I mentioned someone having a scarlet A on her chest and a large majority had no idea what the hell I was talking about. One day I mentioned a politician having an albatross hanging around his neck, and again very few had a clue. Or when I tell a student his shirt looks like an Andy Warhol painting, and he’s the only one that gets it. Truly sad.
So, I guess that education is failing students in a new way now. They may know how to add and subtract, and they may know who won the Civil War. They may know how to diagram a sentence and how to classify a plant species. And all of that is great. But they are being failed in the ways of common sense and common knowledge. I almost want to say that students today are taught lots of stuff, but they are not educated. They know random facts and how to analyze things, but they have a 5th grade vocabulary at best.
Fear for the future of humanity. Flee from ignorance. Teach somebody something, for the love of God.
