It Ain’t Just In America
Fewer than half of American teenagers who were asked basic questions about history and literature during a recent telephone survey knew when the Civil War was fought, and one-quarter thought that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World sometime after 1750, not in 1492.
The results of the survey, released Tuesday, demonstrate that a significant proportion of American teenagers live in “stunning ignorance” of history and literature, according to the group that commissioned it.
[source]
I would be very surprised to discover that Canadian teenagers fared any better, go ahead, ask a teenager if he or she knows the date of Confederation? Ask them if they know when Columbus sailed? Ask them if they know how he was rewarded, and how he treated his subjects? Ask them if they know what the Holocaust is? Ask them if they know anything of Hiroshima or Nagasaki…. don’t bother asking them for dates, it will just frustrate you.
It really should scare us how little entire generations know of their own history, or that of others – how many great dangers are out there just waiting to be re-enacted because they have been forgotten?
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You don’t even need to go that far back. I had a couple of anti-war kids from my Church try to tell me that Harper was the one to send Canadian troops to Afghanistan.
What’s even worse than total lack of knowledge is the snippet of fact that becomes national mythology. The whole “Canadians burned down the White House” type silliness for example.
A little knowlege can be a dangerous thing too.
It really should scare us how little entire generations know of their own history
Why? History has little value in our society.
“History has little value in our society.”
I know you (and me) are too damned old to believe that Robert.
The current generation of younglings seem to care more about their myspace profiles than the world around them.
It’s a pity really, at least two generations of people totally unaware of the potential results of what we see around us today.
Unfortunately treehugger, history is far too malleable to be of any real use.
You failed to mention the real issue. If you read the article it states that 97% of them know who Martin Luther King was but less than a quarter knew who Adolf Hitler was. The political correctness and “multiculturalism” has hijacked the educational process.
Several years ago I muttered something like ‘kids these days’ and I realized that I meant it. It’s the day I realized that I was, um, not young any more.
Also, I’m willing to bet my Dad was right when he muttered ‘kids these days’. I think there aren’t that many ‘not young’ people who could name, without prompting, the Japanese cities that were nuked or the year of confederation. At the very least, there would be some awkward pauses.
Kevin:
Yeah, but how many people of our parents’ generation could works their way through even the EASIEST levels of Halo III?
Alain:
The capacity to distort any issue into confirmation of one’s own ideological bias is truly a gift.
Balb-
Now I’m feeling really not young. Every time I play with the kids I’m told to “pick up the sniper rifle, stay in the back and try not to shoot me this time.”
I started feeling really not young, when I first realized I’d rather spend time in Staples than HMW. Sigh.
It happened to me when I was walking through Ikea with my Wife and actually uttered the phrase “Yes! More baskets!”….out loud!!!
Sad, but true. My two youngest daughters (one is in Grade 11, the other graduated a few years ago) know nothing about history. Not even when the First World War was or who the major combatants were. One actually confused it with the Civil War and thought it had something to do with freeing the slaves! I doubt they could name more than three countries in Africa or find Iraq on a map. And they’re both honour students!
We really have to wonder what kids ARE learning if not the things we did. Is it dangerous? Sure it is. Is it bad? Possibly. To learn from others’ mistakes is a great trait in a person, and we aren’t giving our general population the basis from which they can learn from mistakes. That is undeniably a problem.
I don’t think it’s so terrible that people forget the name Hitler, but remember King’s. We should better remember victims of violence, and not the perpetrators. Churchill’s life is thought to be mythology by a staggering number of British children. I think it has to do with how long ago it was. Even though it was within the lifetime of millions of people on earth who are still with us, the generations mostly on the Internet have no first hand experience with anything to do with World War II, let alone anything from before the 1970s.
It isn’t just kids..it’s endemic. A 73 year old Aunt had a picture of her grandfather with Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill.
She was surprised to hear that it wasn’t the Civil War…