Winston Churchill -- does he have something to do with horse racing?

I saw in today's paper that a survey of British teenagers revealed that a majority believe Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood were real people. These are not completely gullible kids, however, because 25% of them did not believe Winston Churchill and Richard the Lionheart were real people. Given that data, you won't believe this next statistic from the survey -- 77% of them have never read a history book.

I can almost (not quite, but almost) understand the Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood, and Richard confusion, but we are not that far removed from Winston Churchill. One of my professors said he once had a student who was amazed we fought a war with Japan. When assured that Japan had, indeed, been our enemy, the student wanted to know who won. How do you get to college without ever having heard of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima? In my humble opinion, it's because elementary and secondary education is now geared to social issues and proficiency tests. We have forgotten the basics -- reading, writing, arithmetic, history, science, and geography. We throw our kids into studying global warming (a theory, not a fact) in elementary school before they've learned the basics of science. We throw them into pre-calculus in high school before they've learned their multiplication tables. We have them making judgments on history before we've taught them basic timelines, which people were real and which ones were fictional, and where this country came from. We have them writing essays on social issues when they can't spell or punctuate.

Another part of the problem is teachers -- some who don't know the basics, themselves, and some who know the basics, but don't know how to teach. I remember a note from the teacher brought home by a little boy I know, "This paper is not exceptible." I say this teacher was not acceptable! This same little boy happened to be very advanced in math concepts. When he was in second or third grade, the teacher was trying to explain subtraction. "Class, how much is 2 minus 3," she asked. "Negative 1," replied the little boy. "No, you can't subtract 3 from 2," she said. "Sure you can," said the little boy. "It's negative 1." Instead of saying, "Well, yes, you are right, but the rest of the class is not ready for that yet," she continued to insist that he was wrong, and he continued to insist that he was right. I don't remember whether or not he was sent to the principal, but I know he came close. The next year, when the class did begin to learn about negatives, the little boy jumped up, and said, "I told Miss So-and-So it was negative 1!"

Another problem I see is lack of books. A high school student I know asked me for some help with a biology lesson. I told her we would see what the book said. "Oh, we don't have books," she said. "Our teacher runs off lesson packets from the internet." The "lesson packets" were little more than worksheets with no explanation of the subject. And this was in the gifted class.

But whether the youngsters understand the curriculum or not is of little matter -- the teacher is not allowed to give a grade below 50. Can't damage self-esteem, you know. Then we "tsk, tsk" that young adults don't know the difference in Winston Churchill and Santa Claus!

I don't know the actual figures, but I feel comfortable in saying that we spend more per student in real dollars now than ever before, yet we have graduates who've never read a book, who can't write a coherent sentence, and who can't figure change correctly. I say, let's bring back the neighborhood schoolhouse and the 3 R's! We can save money and have better prepared graduates in the bargain.